I just finished reading an article written in 2004 and
published in Harper’s Magazine. The author was Jared Diamond, Professor of
Geography at University of California at Los Angeles, and author of more than
600 articles including his book that won the Pulitzer Prize “Guns, Germs and
Steel”.
The article with the provocative title. “The Last Americans”
is especially relevant to Americans today, given the current political leadership
that seems intent on removing all our hard-won regulations governing
environmental abuses of the soil, air, and waters that constitute the glorious
environment that we call home. I was so taken with the article that I wanted to share it with you. Here is my ‘Readers Digest’ version of Mr.
Diamond’s noteworthy essay.
One of the disturbing facts of history is that many previous
civilizations collapsed soon after reaching the peak of their development. Some
collapsed only a few decades after reaching a peak in their population, wealth
and power while others held on for a century or more. Studies of these
civilizations from the ancient Mesopotamians, Romans, Mayans, and several
American civilizations, have revealed a common contributor to their downfall:
these civilizations succumbed to various combinations of environmental
degradation and climate change, followed by aggression from their enemies who
took advantage of their resulting weakness and loss of wealth. Most lost much
of their land and became a tiny shadow of their former glory.
The role of environmental degradation preceding a society’s
collapse has been proven by scientists who have studied the evidence in human
bones, soil and water chemistries, and numerous artifacts at archeological
sites where the ancients lived. Upon reflection, the explanation for a
collapsing society seems obvious; as societies become more prosperous their
populations grow, wealth increases, and the rate of resource consumption
increases as does their production of waste. Soon, their consumption of
resources outstrips the ability of the environment to produce what they want
and need. Often, the leaders of these societies fail or refuse to recognize the
circumstance of dwindling resources and the society faces a rapid decline.
Those who recognize the fragility of their resources often
use the faulty logic that human needs must be balanced against the
environmental resources. That is faulty logic. Human needs and a healthy
environment are not opposing factors that must be balanced. The reverse is
true. Humans need a healthy environment because we need clean air to breathe,
unpolluted water to drink, healthy soils to grow our crops, abundant forests
for wood to build our homes, and so on. Our strongest argument for a healthy
environment is that we need it to survive and thrive.
Many who ignore this logic and the problems of environmental
damage, do so in the ignorant belief that the problems are overstated. After
all, our grass is still green, our forests still grow, and most of our waters
can be used for bathing (much of the time anyway, if you want to ignore the
warnings of coliform hazards.) So, what is the concern in America? The
short-sighted view that all is still right with the world fails to examine
global problems. Today, billions of our world’s citizens live in places where
environmental damage has rendered their homelands all but unlivable.
Environmentalists can name numerous countries and entire
regions of the world where water is undrinkable, soils are depleted, droughts
and fires are regular occurrences and the populations are starving due to a
history of environmental damage. Comparing such a list of nations with another
list, those nations that are the trouble spots with civil war, terror, and
warfare between nations, and you’ll find several nations that are on both
lists. When people are unable to care for themselves and their families because
they lack clean water, clean air and other basics of life, they will revolt.
The resulting wars often engage other nations.
So, what has this to do with us in America? Critics argue
that we have a seemingly stable environment and a technology that puts us at
the peak of our power with wealth that can only be imagined by those in the third
world countries. Surely, we can apply new technology to whatever environmental
problems arise. Or so the arguments go. Some think that we are fundamentally
different from those societies that collapsed in the past. We understand so
much more than the ancients and we can now apply new technology to our problems
only when we need. The issue, they contend, is that data is needed to prove a
problem exists.
Let’s look at one of the historical societies in America
that collapsed due to environmental damage to see if their experience offers us
any guidance. Mayan civilizations in the Yucatan Peninsula offers an excellent
opportunity for study since their former cities and temples still exist in the midst
of forests, unattended and unmaimed by the building of later cities on top of
the historical ruins. Their great cities of the past are now unused; the great
population centers of this region have become entirely de-populated as people
left when the necessities of life were no longer available to them.
The Yucatan region where the great civilizations of the Maya
evolved and grew for hundreds of years was a region of limited resources and
unusual environmental challenges. (These challenges may have been one of the
reasons for their success as competing civilizations left them alone.)
The Yucatan region has a water problem. The rainy season is
from May to December while the dry season lasts from January through April.
Rains are unpredictable during the rainy season while the dry season is
predictable with virtually no rain at all. The lack of moisture is further
exacerbated by the rocky soil that consists mainly of karsts, a sponge-like
soil made up of limestone, that allows water to run straight into the earth
leaving little moisture on the surface to nurture plants. Much of the Yucatan
region is a desert with occasional sink holes that are filled with water. These
sites provided the Maya with a toehold on this otherwise arid region.
So what accounts for the spectacular success of the Maya? In
a word, it was the technology they developed that effectively dealt with the
water problems. The Maya became adept at plugging natural depressions to create
reservoirs for water storage. They developed wells, established water systems
for distributing water, and were prudent in its use and handling. Maya farmers
grew corn and established the practice of using fields for several years and
then allowing the fields to lie fallow for 15 – 20 years before re-establishing
a crop.
Mayans had no beasts of burden. Human power was required for
all tasks. Perhaps for this reason, Mayan kingdoms were small, containing no
more than 50,000 persons in an area with a radius of two or three day’s walk
from the King’s temple. Most people in a kingdom were peasant/farmers, as each
farmer had little more than enough food to support his family and pay the king
for his services that included the all-important prayers for rain and good
crops. When needed, of course, the King also had the prerogative to command the
farmers to work on the spectacular building projects and rain-saving reservoirs
that are still evident today.
The city of Copan in the former Mayan area has been
carefully studied for clues concerning the loss of its population. The city was
founded along the Copan River in a valley surrounded by steep hills. The city
area was small; there were just five pockets of flat land totaling about one square
mile of fertile soil. Beyond were steep hills of poor soil. Studies show that
the city grew from a tiny beginning around the fifth century to its peak
population of 27,000 between 750 and 900 AD. An especially massive King’s
Temple was erected in 650 AD. After 700 AD other notables got into the act and
began erecting smaller temples short distances from the King’s place. Peasants
were required not only to build the massive structures but also to feed and see
to every need of the royal families. During the initial founding of Copan, farming
was restricted to the largest of the flat bottom land. As the city grew farming
was extended to all five of the fertile pockets of soil and then to the less fertile
soils on the hillsides. As demands for building materials and more land grew,
the trees on the hillsides were systematically cut down. Soil analyses now
reveal what the ancients were unable to learn; the erosion of the hillsides
sent acidic materials into the bottomland. The pockets began to lose their
fertility. The deforestation also likely caused a man-made drought as the loss
of trees reduced the area’s natural water recycling.
As time wore on, the area was becoming unable to produce enough
food to meet the demands of the growing population. Studies of hundreds of skeletons
show porosity in the bones and stress lines in the teeth of those who lived
during this era. Fighting broke out among farmers as they competed for the
remaining fertile farmland. The King was held accountable for the lack of rain;
no new temple buildings were constructed after 822 AD and the largest temple
was burned in 850. In the next 50 years the population of Copan declined precipitously,
reaching 50% of its peak, and then slowly falling to near zero by 1250. This
from the people who had developed and used new technology for conserving skimpy
water supplies to produce huge stockpiles of corn that was available for use
and trade. It was all for naught when the use of resources outstripped the area’s
capability to produce more. The King and his nobles failed to apply the
resources of their people to the slow depletion of their natural resources,
ending the dominance of the nation.
The relevance of this history lesson to the United States is
easy to grasp. Our leaders’ refusal to recognize and act on environmental
problems is staggering. While we dither, the oceans continue to serve as a
sewage dump for trash and our air continues to be a giant sponge for carbon
dioxide. We have allowed the loss of American Chestnut trees throughout the Appalachian
Mountains, elm trees across much of the country, sardines along the West Coast,
and oysters from Chesapeake Bay. These are only a few examples of the many environmental
problems that we have created. Knowing about them is sadder because we have
solutions to most, but the lack of will to address them. Climate change is a
particularly egregious problem for which the solution is already known –
eliminating and or controlling the use of coal and other fossil fuels by using non-polluting
wind and solar power, yet we are unable to make inroads to their solution while
we have leaders who fail to even recognize the problem.
The question before us is whether we will learn the lesson of
the Mayans. Will we become the Last Americans?
