"My view is that, if environmentalists aren’t willing to engage
with big businesses, which are among the most powerful forces in the
modern world, it won’t be possible to solve the world’s environmental
problems. Thus, I am writing this book from a middle-of-the-road
perspective, with experience of both environmental problems and of
business realities."
The quote above is excerpted from the prologue of Jared Diamond’s very timely book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
I just picked up the paperback edition from a small bookstore here in
Ireland. It’s a long read, so it might take a while for me to finish
and digest its insights. But here’s the gist: a combination of five
factors leads to the collapse of human societies.
— environmental damage
— climate change
— hostile neighbors
— loss of friendly trade partners
— society’s responses to its environmental problems
Diamond used what is called, "comparative method"–to compare natural
situations differing with respect to the variable of interest–to
analyze which factors were responsible for collapse of previous
societies.
I dug up an old collection of mixed reviews on Dave Pollard’s How to Save the World.
Some reviews were critical because of Diamond’s pessimistic outlook
while others are wary of his friendly-to-big-business
"middle-of-the-road" approach. My open-ended gut thinking tells me that Diamond is more correct
to embrace both environmentalism and big business in solving Climate
Change and other environmental problems. I think this is the same
reasoning that Adam Werbach relied on when he decided to work with Wal-Mart. This is also the core of WorldChanging’s Bright Green philosophy.
However, it’s too early for me to form an informed opinion based on
Diamond’s book since I just got started reading it. But I’m an
impatient person so I’m taking a shortcut by watching Jared Diamond’s presentation on the Long Now Foundation. (watch the video).
Reading and listening to Diamond is like having a thorough bird’s eye view of history.
P.S. I still haven’t read Jared Diamond’s classic, Guns, Germs, and Steel. So many books, so little time. So I’m gonna cheat by watching a National Graphic documentary based on that book. I’ve collected the three-hour documentary here. Watch and be awed.
Comments (6)
Here’s the problem: how do you engage big business in problems that are endemic to big business? Case in point: the large-scale confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) used to produce our beef, pork, and chicken. These systems are not just incredible polluters – they inflict great pain on the short-lived animals under their care. Read Michael Pollan’s THE OMNIVORE’S DILEMMA to get a sense of how contrary to nature your typical CAFO operates.
Unfortunately, this is the only way to produce plentiful meat on the massive scale that Americans expect. The only current alternative involves dismantling this infrastructure and moving to a system based on small farms and local production. (Hence, the whole local food/locavore movement.)
I’d be interested to see if Diamond tackles this issue.
And thanks for reminding me about GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL, too. I KNEW there was something I had to read…
I picked up on Jared Diamond after my professor had read my copy of “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn. Have you read that? I think that Quinn is very insightful into the interior perspective, or UL and LL quadrants of why civilization has come to be. Meanwhile, Diamond is good for understanding the LR perspective. It’s really fascinating. Check him out if you haven’t already
Jay said: “Here’s the problem: how do you engage big business in problems that are endemic to big business?”
good question. here’s what Diamond said in a Salon interview:
“If you don’t work with business, you are certain to be doomed to failure, because businesses along with governments are the most potent forces in the world today. Also, it’s important to understand why some businesses make messes and some businesses don’t make messes, and insofar as the laws of society itself produce those different outcomes, it’s the responsibility of the public to pass laws, buy products and boycott products that will encourage businesses to behave better.”
what i like about Diamond’s perspective is that it’s global rather than U.S. or First World-centric (e.g. Go green, alternative energy, cut emissions, etc.). that’s why i take him more seriously than environmentalists who are anti-this or anti-that. here’s what Diamond said about China.
“China is the country with the world’s biggest population and it also has the fastest-growing economy. The Chinese would like to catch up to first-world living standards but there are so many Chinese, the population is so large, and their consumption rates are, on average, so far below the First World today that if China alone caught up to first-world living standards that would double the entire world’s consumption of steel, zinc, tin, lead and other major metals. So China has enormous impact on the world. When you think about that you can get discouraged, particularly when you see pictures of air quality in Beijing.”
he also addresses the problem of overpopulation in Third World countries:
“We have this fantasy that people in the Third World don’t care about population issues and would like to have lots of babies, when in fact my experience, from countries such as Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, Kenya and Tanzania, is that people in the Third World understand the dangers of overpopulation much better than people in the United States. They know about contraceptives but they can’t afford the contraceptives. And the American government is making it difficult for them to get the contraceptives.”
and then he address American values that need to be discarded:
“One of the two or three key issues is discarding values dear to us, values that we held for a long time and that were important in the history of the United States but just no longer make sense today. The two traditional American values that I think — that I know — have to be discarded are, first, unbridled consumerism resulting from our sense of being in a land of unlimited resources…. And the other long-held American value is the value derived from the United States’ relative isolation. George Washington in his farewell address warned Americans about the danger of entangling alliances, and for a couple of hundred years the United States was able to function well because we were separated by oceans from any country that might damage us. But now the oceans don’t separate us from countries that could damage us. Now, even desperately poor countries like Afghanistan and Iraq can raise absolute hell with our economy — as well as killing a few thousand people in the process.”
how exactly do you go about discarding an idea?
“One can answer that two ways: first, by looking at countries that have successfully replaced or are successfully replacing dearly held ideas; second, one can ask what’s going to replace — for us — unbridled consumerism…. Now, as for us, what’s going to replace consumerism will be the recognition that we have to live within our means, that we’re part of the whole world, and that consumerism simply is no longer viable if we want to make a world that’s going to make sense for our children. We have to live in such a way that we pass on a worthwhile world to our children. And that’s a wonderful ideal that can replace consumerism, that will have to replace consumerism.”
and finally, he even takes a stab at Michael Crichton.
“…my previous book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” has sold more copies than Michael Crichton’s one and a half million, so I think my new book will get to more readers. And the other thing is that Michael Crichton is a very skilled writer of fiction. And fiction is, by definition, the telling of stories that are untrue. He’s very good at that. And I’m a writer of nonfiction, which aims to be the telling of stories that are true.”
check out the rest of the interview.
~C
Jay said: “Here’s the problem: how do you engage big business in problems that are endemic to big business?”
good question. here’s what Diamond said in a Salon interview:
“If you don’t work with business, you are certain to be doomed to failure, because businesses along with governments are the most potent forces in the world today. Also, it’s important to understand why some businesses make messes and some businesses don’t make messes, and insofar as the laws of society itself produce those different outcomes, it’s the responsibility of the public to pass laws, buy products and boycott products that will encourage businesses to behave better.”
what i like about Diamond’s perspective is that it’s global rather than U.S. or First World-centric (e.g. Go green, alternative energy, cut emissions, etc.). that’s why i take him more seriously than environmentalists who are anti-this or anti-that. here’s what Diamond said about China.
“China is the country with the world’s biggest population and it also has the fastest-growing economy. The Chinese would like to catch up to first-world living standards but there are so many Chinese, the population is so large, and their consumption rates are, on average, so far below the First World today that if China alone caught up to first-world living standards that would double the entire world’s consumption of steel, zinc, tin, lead and other major metals. So China has enormous impact on the world. When you think about that you can get discouraged, particularly when you see pictures of air quality in Beijing.”
he also addresses the problem of overpopulation in Third World countries:
“We have this fantasy that people in the Third World don’t care about population issues and would like to have lots of babies, when in fact my experience, from countries such as Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, Kenya and Tanzania, is that people in the Third World understand the dangers of overpopulation much better than people in the United States. They know about contraceptives but they can’t afford the contraceptives. And the American government is making it difficult for them to get the contraceptives.”
and then he address American values that need to be discarded:
“One of the two or three key issues is discarding values dear to us, values that we held for a long time and that were important in the history of the United States but just no longer make sense today. The two traditional American values that I think — that I know — have to be discarded are, first, unbridled consumerism resulting from our sense of being in a land of unlimited resources…. And the other long-held American value is the value derived from the United States’ relative isolation. George Washington in his farewell address warned Americans about the danger of entangling alliances, and for a couple of hundred years the United States was able to function well because we were separated by oceans from any country that might damage us. But now the oceans don’t separate us from countries that could damage us. Now, even desperately poor countries like Afghanistan and Iraq can raise absolute hell with our economy — as well as killing a few thousand people in the process.”
how exactly do you go about discarding an idea?
“One can answer that two ways: first, by looking at countries that have successfully replaced or are successfully replacing dearly held ideas; second, one can ask what’s going to replace — for us — unbridled consumerism…. Now, as for us, what’s going to replace consumerism will be the recognition that we have to live within our means, that we’re part of the whole world, and that consumerism simply is no longer viable if we want to make a world that’s going to make sense for our children. We have to live in such a way that we pass on a worthwhile world to our children. And that’s a wonderful ideal that can replace consumerism, that will have to replace consumerism.”
and finally, he even takes a stab at Michael Crichton.
“…my previous book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” has sold more copies than Michael Crichton’s one and a half million, so I think my new book will get to more readers. And the other thing is that Michael Crichton is a very skilled writer of fiction. And fiction is, by definition, the telling of stories that are untrue. He’s very good at that. And I’m a writer of nonfiction, which aims to be the telling of stories that are true.”
check out the rest of the interview.
~C
shaman sun,
yep, Diamond is not just “good for understanding the LR perspective”, he’s excellent at it! very thorough and well grounded in science.
thanks for the heads up on Daniel Quinn. will check him out.
~C