Planting a tree for tomorrow, 19. August 2008

In his book Diamond asks what the world will bring to collapse, over-exploitation, population growth, politics? What has to be done to prevent the decline of our civilization? He does not claim the impossible. He does not want to be too idealistic, he proposes to find a solution on the ground of accepting the economic realities. He came to his conclusions with the help of scientific research as a source of data to understand in what situation we are now. He shows the examples of some cultures that were successful and others who did not survive and tries to draw conclusions. As we have acted wrong in the past and as we are subdued to natural changes the most important thing seems to be to find the right reactions on the emerging problems. Diamond starts in his book with a detailed demonstration of the economical history of Montana where a overuse of groundwater effects the fertility of the soil. He was many years a researcher in New Guinea where as a representative of WWF he had to develop a nature protection project. It was the usual business there to build broad streets to exploit the oilfields in the forest which was destructive to the fauna. In Haiti the French had another colonial politic than the Spaniards. The wealthy agrarian economy had to be paid by the destruction of the forests and soil. When the French left the country, the slaves destroyed the plantations and the economic downfall of Haiti began. There is no forest on Haiti as a result of deforestation. There is no timber for construction, a retreat of soil fertility, steady erosion, the failure of rain. In China the most decisive reason for the environmental pollution is the per capita waste of resources and the production of garbage. The Vikings cultivated Greenland successfully with traditional methods. But as a result of over-pasturing the soil erosion started, additional to climatic changes. The author wants to make clear that since we produce the environmental problems we are not only responsible to solve them. We are also able to do this. He says that the most important thing for success is to make the right decisions on two fields. The long-term planing and the willingness to think again about central values. The Vikings refused this and vanished. France and Germany changed their attitude towards one another which led in former times to war and destruction, but now became the driving force for innovative members of the EU. This is mentioned as an encouraging example.

      Nicht alle der vielen Seiten lohnen das Lesen, 12. Oktober 2006

Eines muss man wohl sagen: Diamond ist ein begnadeter Beobachter. Die Fallbeispiele im Buch profitieren davon, dass der Autor nicht nur intensiv Fakten recherchiert, sondern diese durch eingen Beobachtungen ergänzen kann, die einem weniger aufmerksamen Betrachter in der Regel entgehen. Ein Deja Vu für mich: Die intensive, aber seit Jahrhunderten nachhaltige Waldwirtschaft in Deutschland wird im Buch sehr gelobt. Wie grün Deutschland eigentlich ist, habe ich erst nach dem Besuch einiger Länder in Asien und Amerika verstanden. Auch die Tatsache, dass fast jede Landschaft, der wir auf unserem Planeten begegnen, von Menschen gemacht, zumindest aber beeinflusst ist, schafft der Autor hier Aufmerksamkeit. Es ist schon erstaunlich, wie der Mensch als - scheinbar - überlegene Tierart ein Monopol auf die Gestaltung der Welt errungen hat. Auch sehr spannend ist im Buch die Beschreibung der untergegangenen oder noch existierenden Kulturen als Formen der Bewirtschaftung von Land. Lebensumstände von Wikingern und Bewohnern der Osterinsel, von Majas und Ruandern werden klar. Tatsächlich habe ich einige der Lebensweisen bisher nirgendwo so lesbar dargestellt gefunden. Insofern waren auch die meisten der über 500 Seiten des Buches gut lesbar. Schwächen bis hin zur Naivität zeigt das Buch jedoch aus meiner Sicht dann, wenn es um die Bewertung politischer und gesellschaftlicher Vorgänge geht. Hier ist der Höhepunkt sicherlich die Deutung des Völkermordes in Ruanda vor dem ökologischen Hintergrund, sowie die scheinbar durch eine "gut funktionierende" Diktatur intakte Landschaft in der Dominikanischen Republik im Gegensatz zu Haiti. Hier scheint mir der Autor die Motivationen der Handelnden nur unvollständig zu verstehen und zu erfassen, und dadurch kann beim Leser der Eindruck entstehen, dass hier Ökologie zu einem Argument für undemokratische Regierungsformen beiträgt. So kann die Rettung der Welt wohl doch nicht aussehen, Ökodiktatur bleibt Diktatur. Die Defizite in der Bewertung der gesellschaftlichen und politischen Vorgänge finden sich leider auch in der Erklärung des Untergangs bzw. Überlebens der im Buch dargestellten Kulturen wieder. Der Autor verfolgt hier ein sehr einfaches Modell mit weinigen Faktoren, die die Komplexität von menschalichen Gesellschaften nicht wiedergeben. Es gibt einfach nicht nur ein halbes Dutzend Parameter, die über das Überleben entscheiden. Beispielsweise ist das Scheitern einer Gesellschaft wie der Europäischen Antike und Roms bereits seit Jahrhunderten umstritten. Und Erklärungen mit Schwerpunkt Ökologie können hier gerade nicht überzeugen. Aber selbst die durch Diamond selbst gewählten Beispiele sind umso schlechter erklärbar, umso größer und komplexer die genannte Gesellschaft ist. Wirklich überzeugend fand ich seine Analyse nur im Fall der Wikinger in Grönland, und hier stellt sich selbst Diamond die Frage, ob man gegen den Klimawandel hätte erfolgreich gegensteuern können. Sobald es um die Analyse der Vorgänge geht, liest sich das Buch auch weit weniger spannend, es wird langatmig und der Autor verliert viel Zeit damit, seine Gliederung zu erklären und seine Thesen einfach zu wiederholen. Hier wäre weniger mehr gewesen, wirklich überzeugende Argumente sind aus sich heraus verständlich, man muss sie dazu nicht permanent in ein vereinfachtes Weltbild zwängen. Fazit: Wichtige Fakten, aber kein wichtiges Buch.

       Fifteen Years., 31. August 2006

It was Jared Diamond's answer to the last question of a presentation of "Collapse" at Frankfurt University's Museum of Natural Sciences. Given the comparative shortness of human existence in our planet's entire history, what does it matter, someone asked, "if in 20,000 years or so we do exterminate ourselves, and another species takes over. It's happened to the dinosaurs and the mammoths ... why should we be any different?" My own thoughts had run along similar lines earlier that evening: surrounded by skeletons of species extinct for 100,000s of years, I had recalled a recent visit to a historic museum chronicling social development in a part of Germany -- and I, too, had reflected on the rocket speed that had brought us from the Stone Age to the 21st century, and I had wondered, "what if?" Yet, even knowing the book presented that evening and its author, his answer came as a clarion call. "I don't think we have another 20,000 years," Jared Diamond said in his impeccable German and with the same unassuming, polite composure with which he had answered all preceding questions. And he added: "I think it's closer to fifteen years." Fifteen -- not fifteen thousand or even just fifteen hundred. In the grand scheme of cosmological development, that's less than a millisecond. And this is precisely why "Collapse" is so important. For much more than exploring select past societies' failures (primarily those of pre-European Easter Island, the Anasazi, Maya and Vikings), which it contrasts with select success stories (New Guinea, Japan), it actually asks what we, living today, have to learn from the past in order to avoid the fatal mistakes of those unable to secure their own survival; a question highlighted even by the book's very first chapter, which examines no past society at all but modern-day Montana: serene, sparesly-populated, big-skied, mountain-river-and-valley-graced Montana, which both geographically and figuratively seems leagues away from the problems associated with modern metropoles like New York and Los Angeles (or isolated Polynesian Easter Island, for that matter), and whose social, political and ecological landscape is nevertheless every bit as fragile as theirs. Indeed, for us today the issue is no longer a mere matter of one society's (or species's) extinction in favor of another. For us, Jared Diamond emphasizes, the issue is that of our planet's survival as such. In this, our situation actually does very much resemble that of the Easter Island's inhabitants, who had nowhere to go after depriving themselves of their natural resources by reckless logging and their island's resulting desertification, and who were ultimately driven into cannibalism. Like their island to them, our earth to us is the only inhabitable world ... in our own solar system (tried to settle on Mars or Venus lately?) and probably also beyond: for all we know, those far-away galaxies of "Star Trek," "Star Wars" and Discworld belong to the world of science fiction only; "fiction" being the operative word. Bearing this in mind, the subtitle of "Collapse" is as important, and even more telling than the book's title itself: "How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." It indicates that: (1) failure, even under adverse conditions, is not a necessity; and (2) whether (or how well) a society survives depends crucially on its values and goals, and the choices resulting therefrom, both collectively and individually. And of all the factors that Jared Diamond highlights as impacting a society's survival -- environmental changes, changes and conflicts of interest within that society, changes in neighboring societies and in the two societies' relationships, technological advances, and the inability, unwillingness or other failure to anticipate or acknowledge the impact of choices made -- it seems to me that this last point, the question how we play the hand we've dealt ourselves by our past and present choices, will ultimately prove decisive. The author himself likes to say he is "cautiously optimistic" in this regard, pointing to his eighteen-year-old twins, who have practically their entire life yet to live. I hope, however, that his answer will also prove justified by the growing respect he enjoys in public opinion and with national and international decisionmakers. So does he have all the answers? No -- and he himself would probably be the first to emphasize that he actually has more questions than answers (only coming from him, it wouldn't sound like a cliche). Is "Collapse" argued less stringently than, say, his Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Guns, Germs and Steel"? Personally I don't think so, but I'm admittedly biased. What's the use of "popular science writing" anyway -- why doesn't he, like any other good scientist, seek peer review and a discussion with his colleagues? Well, I believe that he does enjoy a spirited scientific debate and welcomes comments that force him to put his own theories to the test. Yet, it only takes one look at the broad space that pseudo-arguments like those he refutes as "one-line objections" at the end of "Collapse" still occupy in the public debate ("The environment must be balanced against the economy," "Technology will save us," "This is just another end-of-the-world-prophecy like the many that have already proved false in the past," "Environmental concerns are a first-world luxury," and of course the ubiquitous, "Why shoud I care anyway?") to realize this book's necessity. This is also why I have decided to set aside my reluctance to review any of his books; although personal acquaintance and unconditional respect render me patently incapable of objectivity, and a review like this might be construed as an exercise in flaunting an association with an internationally renowned scientist and award-winning author (even worse, one occasioned not by any achievement of my own but by mere coincidence). But "Collapse" concerns us all -- it's as simple as that. In signing my copy, Jared referenced the aforementioned never close, but long-lasting acquaintance: "to 2005 ---." Both on a personal and a global level, I hope those three dashes stand for much, much more than fifteen years.

       Interessantes Buch zu einem Themas das ungewöhlich ist, 15. August 2006

Interessantes Buch zu einem Themas das ungewöhlich ist. Den Aufstieg von Ländern und Kulturen das ist immer en vogue. Über die Schattenseiten von Kulturen die untergegangen sind spricht man nicht gerne und wenn dann liegen diese soweit weg oder zurück, dass man sich nicht betroffen fühlen muß.Echt lesenswert!

      Excellent Anthropology Coupled with a Confused Look at Today, 26. Juli 2006

I've always been fascinated by ghost towns, civilizations that have disappeared and ways of life that have vanished. Naturally, Collapsed appealed to that part of my interests. I was pleased to find convenient summaries of the latest research on what happened to Easter Island, the Norse on Greenland, the Mayas, and many other interesting cultures around the world that failed to survive until today. A pleasant bonus in the book was to find out about many cutting edge scientific methods used to sort out what happened and when in past civilizations.Collapse also looks at some of the current problem areas of the world using the lens of what went wrong in earlier societies. The materials on Australia and Rwanda were particularly well done and added to my knowledge of those countries.If the book had stopped there, I would have graded it as a five star effort.The book continued, however, and falls into mediocrity when it starts to look at today's world and what needs to be done. The only strong section within this part of the book came in the discussion of efforts by large companies to make "good citizenship" profitable by both avoiding more costly remediation later and being more attractive to customers in the meantime.The rest of the book is an oversimplified argument that extrapolates trends in areas that harmed former civilizations (like deforestation) into presenting a dire threat for our collective future today. To make that argument stick, you have to look deeply at the countertrends that can offset the potential harm from the trends. Collapse briefly acknowledges some of those trends, but doesn't get below the surface.My own reaction to the book is that in today's increasingly specialized, global economy (remember Adam Smith in his book, The Wealth of Nations?) each country will do fewer things for itself and rely more on its fellow humans who can do other things better. Many of the contemporary issues raised in this book can be seen in that light rather than as civilization threatening. I don't know which view is correct (or if both are), but Collapse doesn't really add much to the argument for either side.