...Collapse- book is about a history topic about how societies choose to fail or survive. The main characters are historical people and unknown kings of Mayan cities or Easter Island villages. Jared Diamond tells the story of the Viking explorer Erik the Red, who discovered Greeland and Vinland (Terranova, in Canada). Another character is captain Olafsson, a norse sailor who wrote the last news about Greenland in 1410. Another main character is Christopher Columbus, who arrived at Hispaniola in 1492, but now this island is two countries, the Dominican Republic and the Haiti. Diamond studied the politics of two presidents. the dominican Rafael Trujillo, who protected the enviroment and the dictator François, Papa Doc, Duvalier, who decided on politics of deforestatation of his country, Haiti. The author considered the bad politics of another main character, king George II, who was interested in sending merinosheeps from Spain to Australia, an idea which was succesful from 1820 to 1950 but then the farmers understood their lands lost fertility. Another main character is Tokuwaga Jeayasu, a shogun of Japan in 1600, who prohibited Christianity in 1600 and protected his country againt deforestation. The book takes us to a lot of places around the globe: Mayan cities, Rwanda, Viking colonies of Vinland or Greenland, Haiti and Dominican Republic, Easter Island and Polynesian colonies in Pacific, and the Chaco villages in New Mexico (United States). The time period was from 800 AC, when...
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...Over the years, there have been so many societies that have collapsed. Jared Diamond, a scientist who studies societies and their declines, believes that a collapse results from environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, or a societies response to the their problems (11). Diamond wrote about many societies in his engrossing book Collapse, but out of them all, the Greenland Norse seems to be the one that supports his ideas and opinions the most. The Greenland Norse was a landscape where Vikings settled, but unfortunately their civilization came to an end after being severely damaged. As Jared Diamond would say "collapse isn't inevitable but depends on a society's choices" (21). This shows that the actions of the colonist that settled in Greenland were the main prospect of its end. Overall the collapse of Greenland Norse is instructive because it declined from deforestation and soil erosion, colder climates, military issues with their neighbors, cut-off trade with Europe, and their inability to adopt useful methods from their surrounding societies; these problems fall into all of Jared Diamonds factors in his five point framework impeccably proving his theory. Firstly, the Norse caused ecological downfall by all the reckless logging and farming they did, which resulted in soil erosion and deforestation. Due to this, the settlers lost lumber, firewood, and iron (Diamond 250). Lumber and firewood were scarce because there was no trees left...
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...easy beast to tame, and one shouldn’t expect an explanation to come easily. To Jared Diamond, there is a combined ecological and political explanation for what caused the collapse of The Southwest civilizations such as the Anasazi. The Anasazi saw a rapid increase in population in the late 1300s, and when the weather continued to provide positive weather conditions for growth, their empire expanded into lands that were not as fertile to provide food and resources for their growing population. When the weather ceased to grant the Anasazi people quite as much potency, a drought occurred and famine thereafter. The only way to produce food was to use the fertile lands left in the middle of the empire, but this wasn’t nearly enough to feed the entire empire. Thus, the empire collapsed due to overzealously...
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...Africa: Rwanda’s Genocide is an educative chapter written by Jared Diamond educating the reader that in the case of Rwanda’s collapse, the critical circumstances like lack of farming land, hunger, poverty, war, lack of natural resources etc. were caused by population pressure. Overpopulation being the major causes, it brings plenty of problems with it. Diamond starts off the chapter by talking about his family’s visit to East Africa where they saw overpopulated streets of poor people especially poor children at the side of the road begging for a pencil. Diamond talks about how “population problems such as those of East Africa are often referred to as Malthusian theory” which is population grows exponentially compare to food production increases arithmetically. (Diamond 312) Then, Diamond discusses about Rwanda’s people that was dominated by Hutus, principally farmers, and Tutsis who were minority. Both did not like each other and therefore; Hutus army with weapons started the killing of Tutsis and “within six weeks, an estimated 800,000 Tutsis, representing about three quarters of Tutsi population in Rwanda”. (Diamond 317) Later, Diamond presents many surveys, samples, statistics and examples such as, overpopulation in Kanama causing population consuming less than average daily required calories, to inform readers about different regions becoming the victims of population pressure. At the end of the chapter, Diamond thinks that overpopulation had immense influence on the...
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...conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs over diversity.” - Jared Diamond (Collapse 275) Defining who we are is a very important part of our lives. It is vital for humans to have a sense of identity and our belonging. Identities are made up of many factors, such as culture, values and ambitions. As humans we tend to hold on very closely to our beliefs, because they usually come hand in hand with our identity. The things we grew up seeing or believing play a huge role when trying to define who we are, and who we want to be. Once we have made up our mind on who where are, and what our identity consists, of it is very hard to change our mentality. I find the saying “old habits die hard” very true. It is very challenging adapting to a new lifestyle, environment, culture and values. The Greenland-Norse are a perfect example of a society who couldn’t adapt to a new lifestyle. They identified themselves with the European and Christian culture, and when they arrived in Greenland they had no intention of changing that, even if that particular lifestyle wasn’t suited for their new environment. Their perseverance in trying to maintain a European and Christian culture identity led them to their collapse. In the book Collapse, Jared Diamond provides details about the collapse of the Greenland-Norse. According to Diamond, Greenland was founded by Erik the Red, a hot blooded Norwegian, who was charged with murder and forced to leave...
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...Megan VanSickle Climate Change Collapse Summaries Chapter 10-Malthus in Africa: Rwanda’s Genocide Summary In Chapter 10 Jared Diamond is educating the readers in the instance of Rwanda’s collapse with the conditions of lack of farming land, hunger, war, poverty, lack of natural resources and more. These were caused by population pressure. Overpopulation is the primary cause which brings many problems along with it. Diamond begins the chapter by discussing and talking about his family’s stay in East Africa. He and his family saw overpopulated streets of poor people which sadly most of them were children. The children were on the side of the road begging. Diamond also discusses how population problems such as this with East Africa are sometimes pointed out as Malthusian theory. This is when population grows rapidly compared to food production increases. Diamond also discusses the Rwanda’s people that were controlled and influenced by Hutus, mostly farmers and Tutsis. Hutus and Tutsis did not like each other so Hutus army started killing Tutsis with weapons. Diamond later causes many examples such as overpopulation in Kanama. This caused population consuming below the average daily required calories. This educated readers about the different regions that are coming to be thee victims of population pressure. At the end of chapter 10, Diamond thinks that overpopulation had great impact on the Rwandan genocide. Diamond uses three counterarguments in order to prove his point...
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...The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia September 7, 2012 Currently, various countries in the world are faced with many serious issues, and these problems can make countries collapse. According to Jared Diamond (2011), who is a professor of Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles, “There are four frameworks that cause societies to collapse, consisting of human impacts on the environment and climate change, declining relations with friendly neighbors, relations with hostile societies, and society’s responses to their problems”. Ethiopia is one of the East African countries that is now facing with various national problems, which can be clearly explained by all of Jared Diamond’s frameworks. Ethiopia has a significantly high risk of collapsing in the very near future. One of the most critical factors that Ethiopia faces is the various environmental catastrophes, which deals with the first framework that Jared Diamond has pointed out. According to the Embassy of The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (2012), most of the land in Ethiopia is highlands, grasslands, deserts with only a few rivers, and Ethiopia is a landlocked country. Therefore, Ethiopia has lacked adequate of water resources. Moreover, Ethiopia is faced with human impacts on the environment such as deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, and water shortages in some areas (“CIA The World Factbook,” 2012). ...
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...delivered by Jared Diamond, who is a modern scientist and who is looking solutions to eternal problems like collapses of civilizations from the angle of history and science. I became acquainted with his findings after reading about agricultural revolution. The humanity always tries to find these milestones in its history when it has chosen a certain direction. It I like a crossroads. Such a milestone is believed to be the year 1917 for Russia, when it has chosen the Communist path. In Diamond’s book I learnt about another milestone in the history of the whole planet. He actually doubted the widely accepted idea that life of humans improved greatly after it started developing agriculture. We were taught that after people started to crop plants they got more time for arts because there was now more time left to devote to hobbies. Diamond made counterarguments to these statements which amazed me. I found that my understanding of the world and history is very doubtful. Moreover, Diamond poses that people with its developed agriculture are more dependent on food than those who collected plants and berries in forests. And it is another paradox because I usually tended to believe that how we develop our food industry is only a plus for us as consumers. But Diamond told that bushmen actually used to eat 75 types of plants, whereas I eat mostly potato, rice and buckwheat. It is a reason to reflect who lives and eats better. Another book of Diamond about collapses of civilizations...
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...Table of Contents 1. Essay Abstract 2. Introduction 3. Geoengineering: What is it? 4. Environmental Issues & Science 5. Human Impact 6. Ethical & Justice Issues 7. Conclusion 8. Bibliography Geoengineering: A global issue Essay Abstract Geoengineering is a set of new technologies which aim to change the environment in human favour. Considering the technology is nascent, the morality, ethics, technological knowhow and the human impact are all uncertain as they relate to geoengineering. This paper argues that on these grounds, the geoengineering issue should be a global issue. Local governments fail to implement this technology effectively. The subsidiarity test should be passed when it relates to the geoengineering issue. Introduction With rising CO2 levels, changing weather patterns and an ever increasing intensity of weather events, governments and environmental groups are trying to address the global warming issue. There are many theories on how to deal with climate change; from a reduction in pollution to carbon capture. Geoengineering is a relatively new idea in the field of science which “describes this array of technologies that aim, through large-scale and deliberate modifications of the Earth’s energy balance, to reduce temperatures and counteract anthropogenic climate change.” (Bracmort et all., 2011: 1) The vast majority of technology is nascent and at a theoretical stage but it has the potential to affect populations...
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...One hundred days of internal war in Rwanda has become one of the brutal massacres in the history of human kind. More than five hundred thousand people died in this injustice religious war where Tutsi people were exploited brutally throughout the whole country by Hutu people( Des et al, 1994 ). When we examine the issue to find the potential stimuli that trigger the war, we cannot deny the fact that the lack of religious tolerance was the main cause to fuel this massive killing. It can be clearly seen that due to the lack of religious tolerance in between Tutsis and Hutus, one of the massive killing in the human history has raised a bigger question about the status of human rights in Rwanda attention from developed nation’s involvement within the country Under the colonial law established from Belgium and Germany, Rwanda was in overall control of Tutsi people (Des et al, 1994). Under the kingship of King Rwabugiri Hutu people were regarded as one of the mostly hated groups within the country (René et al, 2004). This is how the preparation of the massive massacre began. Despite the effort of Belgium colonialism to maintain balance between Hutu and Tutsi people, the hatred and anger just kept growing. It was plain simple unfair society in Rwanda seeking for right political space in the land. Tutsi meaning “rich in cattle” were overall control and Hutus meaning “servant” were becoming modern day servants (René, 2004).The existing government were in control of Tutsi people who first...
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...EVOLUTION AND SELF-INTEREST Richard Dawkins argues that at its most fundamental level, the genetic level, life is self-interested.1 Genes do only one thing; they replicate themselves. These replicators reside in and are carried around by biological vehicles (trees, animals, humans, fungus, etc.). The resources that support these biological vehicles are finite, so the process of life has become a competition among genes to create vehicles that can successfully compete for limited resources and survive to pass on their genetic code. Dawkins coined the term ‘selfish gene’ to emphasize the single, focused object of a gene’s existence. What he means is that the sole purpose of a gene is to make copies of itself using the Darwinian selection process; very selfishly ignoring the consequences this pursuit may have on other living entities. Self-interest is a requirement for survival. This does not mean, of course, that animals and humans cannot be altruistic sometimes, in certain activities.2 It does mean that no living entity can survive for long if it is only purely altruistic. On the other hand, survival is not necessarily jeopardized when an organism is purely self-interested. Altruism, in the absence of self-interest, is not evolutionarily stable in the biological world; it leads to extinction. It is for this reason that all extant life forms must be selfish. Humans, like all creatures, are self-interested; not because it is good to be selfish but because we would not be here if...
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...The Diamond of Sustainable Growth A Historical Framework for the study of political economy and economic development George David Smith, Richard Sylla, Robert E. Wright( NYU Stern School of Business For most of its existence, humanity neither enjoyed nor understood economic growth, or society’s capacity for creating wealth. Prior to the 18th century, the aggregate incomes of particular societies may have increased a little for short periods in a few places, but most of the time incomes hovered not far above the subsistence level. Powerful leaders and ruling classes could accumulate vast wealth, but this was normally achieved through the redistribution of incomes from the weak to the powerful, and certainly not through the creation of wealth as we know it today. Going back centuries, to paraphrase the 17th-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, human life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Peace and good weather were more likely to summon forth children more than prosperity. Whenever war, pestilence, and drought returned -- and they always did -- people died in droves. To many observers, humanity appeared doomed to spend eternity wet, cold, hungry, and grief-stricken. In the late 18th century, the English proto-economist Thomas Robert Malthus warned that the mass of humanity, quite aside from the foregoing perils, was doomed to a life at the margins of starvation, as surges of population growth would inevitably outstrip the finite sources...
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...El futuro incierto de nuestros mares y océanos “La superpoblación no es la densidad de personas, es el número de personas relativo a la explotación de los recursos” – Paul R. Ehrlich. Como todas las especies, los seres humanos han ejercido su impulso por perpetuarse y propagarse en el planeta, debido a esto, han domesticado paisajes y ecosistemas buscando asegurar su provisión de alimentos y reducir la exposición a depredadores y peligros naturales, desarrollando el comercio como una herramienta fundamental para el intercambio de bienes y servicios. Dado lo anterior, es tal el grado de domesticación de la naturaleza que en la actualidad ya no se puede hablar de sitios “vírgenes”, sino mas bien, de sitios poco explorados (Peter Kareiva, 2007). Las consecuencias de este crecimiento insostenible se ven reflejadas en el decadente estado de salud de los ecosistemas marinos que cubren un 71% de la superficie de la tierra, lo que representa el 97% de los recursos hídricos del planeta. El mapa global del impacto humano sobre los ecosistemas marinos que se muestra en la figura 1 (Halpern B. S., 2008), revela que el 41% de los océanos se encuentran gravemente impactados por diversas variables antropocéntricas. El resultado de este estudio muestra que en concordancia con lo expuesto por Peter Kareiva, no hay ninguna zona del océano que no haya sido afectada por la influencia humana. [pic] Figura 1. Mapa global de los impactos acumulativos de la actividad humana sobre...
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...How Genetically Modified Foods Affect Our Lives In recent years, genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have replaced our diet with genetically altered foods, which have adversely affected human health as well as local communities. Being resistant to pesticides, GMOs are created by splicing genes of different species that are combined through genetic engineering (GE), something that is impossible to do in nature (The Non-GMO Project). Consuming these genetically altered and more processed foods can lead to increased risk of diseases and even cancer (Genetically Modified Food). Most of the time we do not even realize that we are eating these harmful toxins as they are infused in our food without our knowledge (Label GMOs). The farmers that maintain the traditional farming practices and choose to grow organic produce over crops that are GE are constantly trying to keep their businesses alive. Larger corporations, however, who choose to use genetically modified (GM) seeds, make larger profits with less time and effort involved. Choosing to buy local organic produce over crops that contain genetically modified organisms can not only help you stay healthy, but also keep our local farmers in business so that they may continue to grow their crops the way nature intended. Living in the Bay Area we are extremely fortunate to have access to all sorts of organic fruits and vegetables that are grown right in our own backyard. There are countless farms in California that can grow just...
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...A Review of Acemoglu and Robinson’s Why Nations Fail by Michele Boldrin, David K. Levine and Salvatore Modica Acemoglu and Robinson’s Why Nations Fail [2012] is a grand history in the style of Diamond [1997] or McNeil [1963]. Like those books, this book is exceptionally fun to read and full of interesting historical examples and provocative ideas. The basic theme of the book is that what matters most in why some nations fail – and others succeed, for the book is as much about success as failure – are not – as earlier authors have argued - economic policies, geography, culture, or value systems – but rather institutions, more precisely the political institutions that determine economic institutions. Acemoglu and Robinson theorize that political institutions can be divided into two kinds - “extractive” institutions in which a “small” group of individuals do their best to exploit - in the sense of Marx - the rest of the population, and “inclusive” institutions in which “many” people are included in the process of governing hence the exploitation process is either attenuated or absent. Needless to say Acemoglu and Robinson’s theory is more subtle than this simple summary. They argue that for any economic success political institutions must be sufficiently centralized to provide basic public services including justice, the enforcement of contracts, and education. Given that these functions are carried out, inclusive institutions enable innovative energies to emerge and lead to continuing...
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