Diamond Key Insights collaspe: "...a drastic decrease in human population size and/or political/economic/social complexity, over a considerable area, for an extended time (p.3)."

Legacy of collapse These collapsed societies all left behind monumental ruins of "often spectacular and haunting beauty. (p. 3)"  Diamond made the following important observations:"The scales of the ruins testify to the former wealth and power of their builders...Yet the builders vanished, abandoning the great structures that they had created at such effort." (p. 3).

Compelling Questions for E8 How could a society that was once so mighty end up collapsing? What were the fates of its individual citizens? -- did they move away and (if so) why, or did they die there in some unpleasant way? Lurking behind this romantic mystery is the nagging thought might such a fate eventually befall our own wealthy society?

Unintended ecological suicide Deforestation and habitat destruction; Soil problems (erosion, sanitization, soil fertility losses); Waste management problems; Over hunting; Over fishing; Effects of introduced species on native species;Human population growth; and Increased per-capita impact of people.

Modern aspects of ecological suicide Deforestation and habitat destruction In the world. In the United States

Soil problems (erosion, sanitization, soil fertility losses) In the world. B. In the United States

Waste management problems A. In the world. B. In the United States

Over hunting: In the world. B. In the United States

Over fishing: In the world. B. In the United States

Waste management problems A. In the world. B. In the United States

Soil problems (erosion, sanitization, soil fertility losses) A Soil problems (erosion, sanitization, soil fertility losses) A. In the world. B. In the United States

Human population growth A. In the world. B. In the United States

Increased per-capita impact of people: A. In the world. B Increased per-capita impact of people: A. In the world. B. In the United States

Diamond’s threats facing modern societies 1. Human caused climate change; 2. Build-up of toxic chemicals in the environment; 3. Energy shortages; and 4. Full human utilization of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity.

Why did only some societies collapse? Diamond makes the point that not all former societies that damaged their environments collapsed (p. 10).Therefore, he posed the following significant question: "...the real question is why only some societies proved fragile, and what distinguished those that collapsed from those that didn't." (p.10) What are the consequences of ecosystems being so complex? (Think about the complexity of the "A Civil Action" case) "...the complexity of ecosystems often makes the consequences of some human-caused perturbation virtually impossible to predict even for a professional ecologist." (p. 10)