Diamond - A Tale of Two Farms

“The past offers us a rich database from which we can learn, in order that we may keep on succeeding (Diamond 17).”

Lion King Source

I really like this quote. As individuals or as a society we know that history often repeats itself. I think we can learn from the earth’s past and be able to take a look into our future. Many civilizations in the past that had been exposed to overpopulation and had to create new ways to deal with more people to feed and more places to live which caused the destruction of habits. Many of these past civilizations collapsed, and the ones who understood the importance of nature, and working with the planet instead of exploiting it, are still around today. If we don’t take action fast to change our attitudes about conservation, protection, and stewardship, we’ll have a dark future.

“Suspicion of unintended ecological suicide – ecocide- has been confirmed by discoveries made in recent decades…..” (Diamond 20) 

Ecocide Source

I found this to be very interesting. I’ve been to ancient Aztec ruins and marveled at the beauty of it, just how Diamond describes people often do. It’s crazy to think about how there was an entire civilization living there and then it collapsed. Ecocide is an interesting idea that civilizations are inadvertently destroying their environmental resources. As a civilization, its clear that we do not mean to destroy these resources, however we are trying to support a rapidly growing population. We are trying to find ways to create a better place for future generations, but it seems that we are doing the opposite, which leads me into my next quote. 

“The processes through which past societies have undermined themselves by damaging their environments fall into eight categories…deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems…., water management problems, overhunting, overfishing, effects of introduced species on native species, human population growth, and increased per-capita impact of people.” (Diamond 21)

Future Earth in Ruins Source

These eight processes are just as relevant today as they were centuries ago, which ties this together with my first quote. I feel that many of these processes go hand in hand. For example, if population is booming more food will need to be produced which can lead to overhunting and overfishing. Higher populations mean that more people will need a place to live, which can destroy forests and natural habitats. All of these new people will need clean water to drink, and as a result water management problems can arise. If we don’t do something soon then our civilization will collapsed just as all others before us.