Jared Diamond: Collapse

[sparkchaser]

Hi

His book provoked some public discussion a couple of years ago, but seems to have faded. We have our own home-grown Jared Diamond, Tim Flannery (former Australian of the year), who has carried the torch. It is generally accepted that Diamond is on the money (in fact, much of what he says is blindingly obvious to us in Oz).

So, there hasn't been any long term planning to counteract the damage being done?

Right now I'm reading Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood and many of the same thoughts on over-harvesting that Diamond talked about are being highlighted in this book. Recommended read.

 

[sparkchaser]

Doogster, do you know anything about an Oz politician called Colin Mason?
I've just ordered his book The 2030 Spike from the library thinking it was about population growth, but it looks more general than that. I was rather disappointed to see that the author's a politician/journalist rather than an academic....

That's not always a bad thing. Most times the books are easier to read because they're not written by an academic. Then again, you're more likely to run into an agenda being pushed when a journalist or politician writes it.

 

[text_maniac]

Then again, you're more likely to run into an agenda being pushed when a journalist or politician writes it.

Yes, that was my point. The quality of argument tends to be better from an academic too.
I'm about a third of the way through it, and it's a bit of a curates egg so far. It was refreshing to see that he realises that the current quest for carbon free energy is not really the point but the chapter on world government fails to even recognise the Prisoners Dilemma let alone debate it, as does the chapter on nuclear disarmament. In fact it's downright question begging in places, eg:
"It would therefore appear that our world faces potential military horrors which no reasonable person can consider accepable".