Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsThought provoking, but is it relevant for Today?
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2005
The first half of this book is very interesting and well worth the read. It convincingly describes the collapse of several ancient, and not-so-ancient, societies. I'm not sure why he provides an extended discussion of problems in Montana and how that relates to his central thesis of the book, but it is interesting. I'm also concerned, as are some other reviewers, about the lack of discussion of societies that faded away rather than collapsed, like the Greeks and Romans. The author attempts to apply principles from the collapses of these ancient societies to portend what the future holds for us, but it is not convincing. We live in a global society, and it's difficult to see how the collapse of these isolated societies is relevant to today.
The main problem I have with the book is that it focuses almost exclusively on physical and environmental limitations and almost completely neglects institutional constraints. The corruption of third world governments and misguided policies of first world countries, it seems to me, are significant problems. For example, one could argue that the primary problem is overpopulation, and that cheap, available birth control could rapidly reduce population growth, but policies espoused by the US are directly contradictory to that. How can we hope to solve the most fundamental environmental problem when we can't even agree that it's a problem? The author says that he is cautiously optimistic about the future, but that conclusion does not flow from the evidence presented. He argues that population and economic growth place unsustainable demands on the resource base, but doesn't say how he expects these pressures to decline to a point at which they are sustainable. I think he's optimistic because if his conclusions were drawn from the evidence he presents, he would be branded as just another alarmist, and the book would not be taken seriously.
The author paints a bleak picture of China, arguing that rapid economic growth and rising incomes will cause the Chinese to place a huge strain on the world resource base. It seems to me that the wealthier a country is, the more able they are to afford to protect habitat and resources, in which case rising income is a good thing. True, economic growth will strain our ability to provide nonrenewable resources, but perhaps rising incomes will provide the ability to afford alternatives.
The author points to examples of sustainability from New Guinea, where the population has maintained itself for centuries. Unfortunately, for advanced societies, that level of existence would be unacceptable. From the author's perspective it seems impossible to achieve sustainability without a dramatic decline in living standards. If it was a choice between mere subsistence and extinction nearly all would make the obvious choice, but we would never face such a choice, as change is incremental and there is a great deal of uncertainty. It would be more convincing if the author identified a society in which the standard of living was at least close to that of the first world and which appeared to be sustainable, but no such place exists.
The author doesn't plot a course for the future, and rightly so. His prescription would be so harsh that it would have no chance of being adopted. After reading this book I feel trapped between hope that mankind will muddle along as we always have, and a resignation that it's only a matter of time. One might argue that we will survive because we are smarter than those people in ancient societies that collapsed, but the author argues convincingly in his book "The Third Chimpanzee" that we are probably collectively less smart than people in those ancient societies (essentially because the gene pool is weaker now because a higher proportion of individuals live to adulthood and enter the gene pool). So if we're not smarter and our institutions are unable to adapt, the only thing I can think of that offers hope is technology.
The author downplays technology, and this is one area in which I strongly disagree. Yes, it is costly to convert seawater into fresh water, but if we can discover a way to do so cheaply, we could expand cropland in some of the poorest areas of the world. There are cleaner sources of energy that are too expensive to be commercially viable, but as petroleum-based energy sources become more scarce and expensive, these sources may become viable energy sources. And although it seems like it would be a long way off, we may someday be able to mine nonrenewable resources on other planets.
Overall, the author provides an interesting, thought-provoking discussion of some very important problems. The book caused me to spend a lot of time pondering these issues, and the more I pondered, the less comfortable I am drawing conclusions about our future based on the evidence of several collapsed societies. But it does provide some general warnings that societies can, and do, collapse, and that it is not outside the realm of possibility that mankind could face a day of reckoning when environmental factors could cause cataclysmic changes in life as we know it. I certainly hope it doesn't happen anytime soon.
