Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

Summary

Learning about the past has value considering the environmental impact that faces the earth. In the history records lays the clue to succeeding or failing in societies’ survival. Some societies have amply recorded their history and have had skill in applying this knowledge to succeed in keeping the delicate equilibrium of their ecosystems. For example, Japanese society has had a well documented tradition of historical recording and successful policies have been derived from those registers since the medieval epoch. Consequently, current Japanese society has a healthy environment and healthy inhabitants. Contrarily, a tragic example of a fallen society are the Easter Islanders. Archaeological surveys have demonstrated that Easter Island had an exuberant subtropical forest with roughly 20,000 settlers in about the tenth century. The people of Easter Island never discovered writing, and their oral tradition was insufficient to register the imperceptible environmental impact on their island for hundreds of years. The natural resources were only sufficient to feed roughly 2,000 settlers on this desolate island in about the sixteenth century. Knowing the past is not sufficient for surviving an environmental challenge because this knowledge must be accompanied by flexibility in applying it. For example, the medieval Norse settled in Greenland. They had well rooted historical traditions and customs, but failed in adapt to a new environment -the ice-. This society collapsed but their well adapted neighbours, the Inuit, survived. Current societies must record and analyse the past, adapting this knowledge to new environments and ongoing conditions. Those are essential requisites to succeed in solving current environmental issues of planet Earth.