Collapse, by Jared Diamond

14.5.23.
11:17 Collapse, by Jared Diamond – Building another world is possible for us
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Building another world is possible for us
This blog offers presentations and summaries of works and works relating to the ecological transition.
Collapse, by Jared Diamond
Posted May 11, 2023
Jared Diamond is a biologist, physiologist, professor of geography and environmental historian. He has published
several popular popular science books, including The Third Chimpanzee in 1991, On Inequality Between Societies in
1998, and Collapse – How Societies Decide Whether to Disappear or Survive – in 2005.
Two main factors explain the success of Collapse: Jared Diamond transforms the history of societies into a real
adventure story, and he knows how to make the multitude of scientific explanations he provides fascinating.
Since the publication of this book, several authors have questioned some of his theses, in particular in the collective
book Questioning collapse . Some of these criticisms are based on archaeological work which sometimes
contradicts his theories. Others stem from a reading that seems to me to be erroneous.
Part of the responsibility lies with Diamond itself. Indeed, if the latter took care to give his definition of collapse, he did
not do so for the concept of society. The classic definition is: a “group of individuals united by a network of
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relationships, traditions and institutions” . But we understand, on reading Collapse ,that Diamond adds an essential
characteristic: it is that this group is established in a given geographical space. This precision fits logically in his study
of the relationship between a human group and the environment in which it tries to thrive, and in his analysis of the
reasons why, sometimes, it ends up failing. But it would have deserved to be clarified. This would have avoided
criticism that a society, say the Vikings of Greenland, did not collapse as the people concerned continued to prosper
elsewhere.
Ultimately, once the well-founded criticisms have been taken into account, this book remains a considerable
contribution to understanding the behavior and the future of societies faced with major degradation of their
environment.
This article summarizes each chapter of Collapse by recalling the main criticisms. He tries each time to make sense of
things and to identify the main lessons that can be learned.
Prologue
Jared Diamond explains that he wrote this book to warn about the risk of collapse that our society runs because of the
degradation of the environment it causes.
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14.5.23. 11:17 Collapse, by Jared Diamond – Building another world is possible for us
First, in order to illustrate the seriousness of the situation, he recapitulates the environmental damage suffered by the
American state which is the least degraded and which he knows well: Montana.
Then, it analyzes how certain ancient societies collapsed in a similar context of environmental degradation, and how
others knew how to take the necessary measures to survive. Because, for him, such a collapse is not inevitable, if we
know how to learn from past experiences.
Then he takes stock of the environmental situation of several contemporary societies.
Finally, it examines the reasons why companies can make catastrophic decisions, as well as why large companies take
into account or not the environmental consequences of their actions.
Some presentations of Collapse indicate that, for Diamond, all societal collapses have environmental degradation as
their primary cause. However, he specifies that other mechanisms of collapse can occur, as in the case of the USSR,
and that it is his objective that led him to study only collapses against a backdrop of ecocide.
Jared Diamond defines the concept of collapse as “a drastic reduction in human population and/or political
/economic/social
complexity , over a significant extent and duration”. It is an extreme form, he tells us, of several types of lesser declines,
and the threshold at which one speaks of collapse is necessarily arbitrary.
There are other definitions of the concept of societal collapse, but it is only by one's own yardstick that one can judge
one's conclusions. In particular, for him, a society could collapse without the people who constituted it having
disappeared. Those who deny his conclusions about the collapse of a society on the grounds that part of the population
survived, in fact have a different and more radical definition of collapse.
Jared Diamond finds that collapse is never due to environmental damage alone. One or more other factors come into
play. It can be climate change, hostile neighbours, or business partners failing (or even turning into hostile
neighbours). In any case, one last factor proves to be decisive: the response given by society to its environmental
problems.
Because he asserts that certain ancient peoples destroyed their environment, he is sometimes accused of a
contemptuous attitude towards them. He denies it: for him the ancient peoples are no different from those of today,
and managing natural resources in a sustainable way has always been difficult. He also emphasizes that these peoples
did not usually have the means to know the extent of the damage they were causing, unlike us. It should also be
remembered that he proposes to take inspiration from those of the ancient peoples who were able to preserve their
environment, and that he has moreover devoted a book to what the Western world can learn from traditional societies:
The World until yesterday , published in 2012.
Montana
Montana calls itself the "big sky state." It is one of the largest and least densely populated states in the United States,
and one of the most beautiful.
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It was also one of the richest, until the 1980s, thanks to mining and forestry, and agriculture. It is now one of the
poorest, despite the arrival of new rich inhabitants, attracted by the beauty of the landscapes and coming to hunt, fish,
ride horses, play golf...
Montana is affected by multiple environmental issues.
Toxic waste from 20,000 abandoned mines threatens some rivers and water supplies, including that of Missoula, the
state's second largest city.
Forests are threatened by fires that cannot be extinguished, due to droughts due to global warming, flammable waste
left by logging, and insufficient maintenance due to lack of funding.
Agricultural practices have destroyed soil fertility: apple monoculture has depleted nitrogen, overgrazing has eroded it,
land clearing and irrigation have caused salinization .
Water resources, in decline, can no longer meet needs that are growing with the population. In this dry region, it
depends on glaciers and snow, which climate change is wiping out. Only 35 glaciers remain of the 150 that existed at
the end of the 19th century , and all of them will have disappeared by 2030. Irrigation rights have not been adapted to
this deficit, and now stretches of rivers can be dry in summer. Due to a lack of assessment of the quantity of water
available, building permits continue to be granted without knowing whether it will be sufficient.
Waterways are damaged by forest fires, low water levels, fertilizers, toxic products, sediment brought by erosion.
Valuable native species are disappearing: fish, deer and elk.
Conversely, around thirty harmful species, imported accidentally or intentionally, proliferate; inedible for animals,
even toxic, they are expensive and reduce agricultural productivity.
For Diamond, Montana's difficulty in managing these problems is due to the lack of a common vision of the
inhabitants regarding their environment and the future of their state. The former inhabitants would remain attached to
the freedom of everyone to dispose of their land, and they would be suspicious of the regulations imposed by the
federal level.
Either way, Montana's situation has gotten noticeably worse since Collapse appeared . Giant fires now hit it every year,
ravaging tens of thousands of hectares of forest.
Societies of the past that collapsed

Easter Island
Jared Diamond's account of the collapse of Easter Island society is arguably the best known – and most controversial.
When around 900 AD. JC Polynesians landed there and settled there, the island is covered with a luxuriant forest,
composed in particular of giant palm trees. When the Europeans discovered the island in 1722, the landscape was very
different. They find a vast savannah and huge toppled statues.
In the meantime, the island has suffered total deforestation. It is the result of excessive slaughter combined with the
appetite for palm nuts of the rats who arrived with the Polynesians. This process spanned four centuries, with the trees
becoming progressively rarer and smaller, and the locals were unaware of it.
At the same time, the way of life of the Easter Islanders has changed significantly.
Originally, they fed not only on their agriculture, but also on wild fruits, land and sea birds, porpoises and deep-sea
fish. With the disappearance of the forest came the disappearance of the fruits. wildlife and birds, as well as the
impossibility of fishing on the high seas, for lack of a suitable canoe. Their diet was then limited to what they could get
from agriculture and raising chickens. They developed an ingenious technique to overcome the lack of water
aggravated by deforestation: lithic mulch. They brought and spread pieces of basalt in the fields, with a triple benefit:
capturing the morning dew, limiting erosion and reducing the differences in soil temperature between day and night.
Their religious and funerary practices also evolved. They abandoned cremation for burial. They renounced the worship
of the ancestors and no longer erected moa ïs , and they turned to the worship of the god Make-make , responsible
for designating during an annual ritual the "man-bird": a representative of each clan went to an islet where the
seabirds still nested, everyone posted themselves next to one of the nests, and the first hatching designated the one
who would be the arbiter of the conflicts between clans for a year.
The arrival of Europeans was devastating for the Easter Islanders: smallpox epidemics decimated them and slavers did
the rest. In 1872, there were no more than a hundred.
The facts above, reported by Diamond, are consensus. However, there is disagreement about how Easter Island society
changed.
For Diamond, deforestation and its consequences generated famines, conflicts, and cannibalism; the population
collapsed, going from 10,000 or even 15,000 inhabitants to around 2,000. It would be during the wars between clans
that the moais were overthrown. The elevation of these giant statues would have played an important role in
deforestation, their transport requiring numbers of logs. The desire of clan leaders to assert their power with
increasingly tall statues would therefore be partly responsible for the disaster.
Diamond relied on traditional accounts that chronicled these fights. However, archaeological research does not seem
to have found any traces of it. Moreover, it is now established that the moais were moved upright, by making them
“walk” with the help of ropes, and that they were not thrown to the ground but carefully deposited. Finally, the
maximum population reached on Easter Island could not be established with certainty.
Anthropologists Terry L. Hunt and Carl P. Lipo deduce, in Questioning Collapse , that Easter Island society simply
adapted, not collapsed – at least until the arrival of Europeans.
We can all the same remember that deforestation has made the living conditions of the Easter Islanders much more
difficult. Indeed, if the lithic mulch is an ingenious solution, it requires a lot of work. In addition, the disappearance of
firewood has certainly reduced the level of comfort.
If it is not possible to affirm that there is a link between these evolutions and the modification of social and religious
practices, I believe that the nature of some of these modifications leads one to think so: the renunciation of cremation
wood consumer; the removal of the protective moïas, which, perhaps, had not ensured their mission; the symbolic
importance given to seabirds, the last wild species.
With or without crisis, Easter Island society has profoundly changed under the effect of deforestation, and its living
conditions have become more difficult.
Pitcairn and Henderson Islands

2,600 km from Easter Island, Mangareva Island, the main island of the Gambier archipelago, experienced similar
difficulties.
This hospitable island, blessed with a vast and rich lagoon, was teeming with many resources, including large black-lip
pearl oysters. Inhabited from the year 800, it counted several thousand islanders.
These practiced commercial exchanges with other islands, in particular the small islands Pitcairn and Henderson. The
latter were much less hospitable, but the former was rich in basalt suitable for making hatchets, and the latter in a
large population of birds, shells and sea turtles. Their inhabitants could exchange these resources for the food.
Like Easter Island, Mangareva was gradually deforested by its inhabitants. Erosion reduced the productivity of the
gardens with which they had covered the island. Rafts replaced canoes, putting an end to deep-sea travel. According to
Diamond, again from the accounts of the islanders, famines, civil wars and cannibalism ensued. It is in any case proven
that trade with the other islands ceased around 1500.
The end of their trade with Mangareva caused the decline of Pitcairn and Henderson. These populations survived for a
while, necessarily increasing their pressure on their environment, and then died out.
The fate of these two islands is characteristic of a collapse linked to trade partners who are lacking. Diamond wants, by
this example, to make us reflect on our dependence on resources coming from ecologically fragile countries – like the
oil-producing countries.
The Anasazi Indians

The pre-Columbian civilizations of the southwestern United States were made up of peoples comprising a few
thousand individuals. They were able to adapt to an arid environment and managed to live there for nearly a thousand
years, in much greater numbers than the current inhabitants.
They developed agriculture using three methods: by collecting runoff water in canals and ditches, or by settling at
higher altitudes to benefit from better rainfall or in canyons where the water table was sufficiently close to the floor..
They built villages in sites suitable for agriculture. The most developed site was Chacos Canyon . There are the
largest and tallest dwellings – up to 5 or 6 floors. Wide roads connected it to other villages. The whole formed a small
empire, with a complex social structure and important exchanges.
Chacos Canyon, an economic and religious center, developed strongly. This was done to the detriment of the nearest
forests, and it was necessary to fetch the wood from further and further away. Water and therefore agricultural
production became insufficient. The site became dependent on other villages for its supply. When a particularly harsh
period of drought occurred, this supply ceased. The site was then abandoned, as evidenced by the remains of dwellings,
empty of any object.
For Diamond, the organization in mini-empire allowed that the population develops on this site well beyond the
possibilities normally offered by its resources. If Chacos Canyon had not had satellite villages to supply it, its
population would have remained less and perhaps it would have been able to withstand this new drought.
For him, the organization into independent villages that prevailed in the rest of the region was more suited to the type
of environment; these villages prospered for a thousand years, and the Chacos society for about 600 years – which, he
points out, was already remarkable in terms of the climate.
However, it also indicates that this civilization as a whole experienced local collapses: many other sites, which were
villages not grouped together in an empire, were abandoned to be rebuilt elsewhere.
In Questioning Collapse , Michael Wilcox, an archaeologist descended from Native American ancestors, rails against
Diamond's version. He emphasizes the role played by Europeans in the difficulties encountered by his people and
recalls that Chacos Canyon is still inhabited.
However, most of the elements that he considers omitted in Collapse are there. And if the site is indeed inhabited
today, it is established that Chacos Canyon was abandoned by its inhabitants around 1250. It was not until six
centuries later that the site was again inhabited by Navajo shepherds.
The Anasazi civilization disappeared, but its people survived by settling elsewhere. An option that no longer exists on a
land that is almost entirely inhabited.
The Mayas
The Maya civilization is the most advanced Native American civilization, and the only one with writings that could be
deciphered. Its history is therefore easier to trace. In addition, there are more excavations and the Mayan languages
are still spoken by some descendants.
The Maya civilization had three periods: preclassic – 1000 BC. AD 250 AD. JC, classic from 250 to 900 and postclassic
from 900 to 1521.
The classical period is characterized by these monumental constructions which were abandoned then engulfed by the
forest, and which populate our imagination like the pyramids of Egypt or the statues of Easter Island. It is the collapse
of this society composed of city-states, led by divine kings, that Diamond is interested in.
Unlike previous examples, the Maya benefited from a less fragile environment, where vegetation grew easily. But they
had the same difficulty: unpredictable rains.
The basis of their food was corn; they grew various vegetables and raised turkeys, ducks and bees; to compensate for
periods of drought, they dug vast reservoirs.
The construction of the cities required a lot of wood, in particular to make the plaster with which the walls were
covered – the thickness of stucco being a sign of wealth. The resulting deforestation, as always, aggravated droughts
and promoted erosion.
Around the 800s came a period of drought worse than any known before, with several peaks to which corresponded
the abandonment of various cities in the south of the territory.
Between 800 and 900 the population decreased drastically, against a backdrop of wars between cities. The political
system based on divine kingship collapsed and construction ceased. The Mayan civilization was maintained in the
north, however, but with profound changes, particularly in terms of political organization.
By Diamond's own admission, archaeologists disagree on the causes of the collapse of Classic Maya society. From his
point of view, five factors have come into play: population growth, which is too high for the available resources;
deforestation and hillside erosion; increasing the frequency of battles between cities; particularly severe drought;
leaders who failed to identify and solve the problems that were ruining their company.
In Questioning collapse, the anthropologists Patricia A. McAnany and Tomás Gallareta Negrón discuss the influence
that these different factors may have had without denying them (apart from the increase in wars). They believe that the
Maya farmers cannot be blamed, who did all they could to prevent land degradation and promote water retention. This
is also what Diamond describes; simply, for him, these measures were not enough when the drought worsened. They
consider it inappropriate to accuse the divine kings of inconsistency, and to compare them as Diamond does to the
rulers of today. Indeed, the latter have information that the former did not have. Above all, they refute the
qualifications of failure and collapse. For them this civilization has simply adapted to a changing world.
It seems to me that the term adaptation is a bit weak for a society forced to abandon such cities. In any case, the Mayas
were unable to maintain themselves where they had settled and invested so much, and this is indeed a societal
collapse, at least as Diamond defines it. As for the divine kings, it would indeed be vain and unjust to blame them. But I
note that the Mayas saw fit to modify their political system: subsequently the kings no longer governed alone, but
accompanied by military orders and various social bodies. It seems they were wise enough to realize that it is unwise to
place the responsibility for the fate of a people on one man alone.
The Vikings of Iceland and Greenland

The Vikings, experts in naval architecture, embarked from the 8th to the 11th century on multiple expeditions, first to
trade, then to plunder or colonize increasingly distant lands.
In this period of mild climate, when the Atlantic was not covered by ice, lost ships from Norway discovered the Faroe
Islands in the year 800, Iceland in 870, Greenland in 980 and Vintland in the year 1000.
Iceland offered a landscape similar to Norway, which turned out to be deceiving. The soils, composed of ashes and
maintained by a slowly growing vegetation, were much more fragile and only renewed slowly. The Vikings exhausted
them in a few decades, without being aware of it. The forest that covered a quarter of the island disappeared to 80%,
and half of the soil was blown away into the ocean.
When the climate cooled at the end of the Middle Ages, the Icelanders had to abandon agriculture, and be content with
sheep farming supplemented by hunting and fishing. Volcanic eruptions regularly contaminated fodder, causing
famines. Overgrazing worsened soil erosion year after year.
Eventually the farmers became aware of the problem and organized joint management of the pastures. They achieved a
certain balance: they were poor but at least they survived.
Today only 1% of Icelandic territory is forested, and it is the most damaged state in Europe. But it is no longer the
poorest, quite the contrary, thanks to geothermal and hydraulic energy, as well as a wealth of fish that it can exploit
since the boats are no longer made of wood. He is now working to reforest and retain the land.
The Vikings who landed in Greenland found mostly an expanse of ice, but also some lush land at the bottom of the
fjords. There they established themselves with their own way of life. For almost five centuries, they erected a cathedral
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and churches there ; they wrote texts in Latin and Old Norse, made metal tools, raised animals, hunted and fished,
dressed in the latest European fashions. Then they disappeared. English explorers who landed in the 1580s found only
the Inuit.
Climate change played a decisive role, there is consensus. Indeed “ the climatic optimum of the Middle Ages ”,
which softened the climate of the regions of the North Atlantic, ended in the 14th century and the Little Ice Age
succeeded it. This aggravated their difficulty in producing fodder. A recent study shows that this was accompanied by
more than a strong rise in water levels.
For Diamond, another cause is that their way of life was poorly adapted to this environment, and that they never
changed.
For lack of trees, they turned to peat for heating and construction, and its extraction seriously deteriorated their land.
Their precariousness was great and the hazards numerous. Each year they had to bet on how much fodder they could
produce, and therefore how many animals they could afford to keep for the winter. The arrival of the seals in May,
when supplies of dairy products, cheeses and dried caribou meat were running out, was decisive.
Diamond considers that their worship cost them a lot of trouble and time: for the construction of the churches of
course, but also to obtain the tusks of narwhals, the skins of bears and the hawks which enabled them to pay the tithe
and buy cult objects and bronze bells.
Unlike the Vikings, the Inuit survived the Little Ice Age. They were at the peak of hundreds of years of cultural
evolution in the arctic and mastered their environment. They used whale blubber for heat and light; they could fish
with their sealskin kayaks; above all, they knew how to hunt the ringed seal, which spends the winter under the ice
instead of migrating, and thus had a sure source of food during the winter.
Diamond regrets that the Vikings learned nothing from the Inuit, unlike the Danes: the latter adopted their techniques
as soon as they began to colonize Greenland in 1721. For him, contacts between Vikings and Inuit were increasingly
more hostile but remained rare, and it was above all the hunger and the cold that annihilated the population.
In Questioning collapse , the Swedish archaeologist Joël Berglund says on the contrary that, according to the general
opinion of researchers, the Vikings left under pressure from the Inuit, without however that we really know neither
how nor where. Furthermore, according to him, the Vikings of Greenland were not shown to be as rigid as Diamond
asserts, and they adapted their way of life as much as their culture allowed them.
The Inuit may have played the role of "unfriendly neighbours" in the disappearance of the Vikings from Greenland.
This takes nothing away from the limit of adaptation constituted by their culture. However, Diamond himself might
have judged that if the Vikings had renounced their cult and adopted the Inuit way of life, their society would no longer
have been the same.
However, these examples show that a culture may not be suitable for certain environments. Sometimes, as in Iceland,
simple adjustments can allow him to found a lasting society despite everything. But in other cases, a profound change
in lifestyles would be necessary, to the point of contravening the values of this society. This, the Vikings of Greenland
show us is extremely difficult.
Their fate also alerts us to the fact that climate change can effectively put an end to a society whose environment is
already fragile. The Little Ice Age corresponds to a cooling of less than one degree, and this was enough to sharply
reduce agricultural production, to cause numerous famines in the world, and to end the Viking society in Greenland.
The one degree rise we are currently experiencing has already produced similar effects: agricultural productivity is
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falling, and the number of food insecure people has started to rise again since 2017 . The prospect of another extra
degree is frightening.
The societies of the past that ensured their survival

Diamond emphasizes that ecological cataclysm is never inevitable: Iceland, which has lived for more than eleven
hundred years in a difficult environment, as well as many other societies which have maintained themselves for
thousands of years, demonstrate this.
It proposes to examine three societies which, faced with a degradation of their environment, knew how to take steps to
remedy it: New Guinea, the island of Tikopia in the Pacific Ocean, and Japan of the Tokugawa era.
New Guinea
This island has been inhabited for 46,000 years, and agriculture has been developed there for 7,000 years. The
inhabitants grow taro, bananas, sugar cane, and sweet potato; they raise chickens and pigs.
They were considered primitive, because they used only wood or stone, while they were able to design a sophisticated
agriculture. This, adapted to heavy rains and the risk of landslides, includes a whole set of techniques: vertical
drainage, compost, crop rotation, terraces, etc.
The development of agriculture was accompanied by massive deforestation, with all the consequences that implies.
Faced with this, the New Guineans embarked, 1,200 years ago, on forestry, in particular the cultivation of casuarina
(ironwood). This enabled them both to obtain wood and to improve the land.
For Diamond, this decision resulted from a consensus and was allowed by the particular culture of this company. In
New Guinea, there are no chiefs, strictly speaking, all live in exactly the same conditions and experience problems in
the same way, and the people are particularly curious and inventive.
Today, New Guinea is home to extremely rich biodiversity and is a megadiverse country .
Tikopia
It is a small island, with no more than 4.5 km 2 of arable land, where 1,000 to 2,000 Polynesians live. Very isolated, it
was condemned to autarky. The few imports were rock for tools, or luxuries such as decorative shells.
Arrived around 900 BC. JC, the Polynesians deforested to practice slash and burn cultivation and quickly eradicated
the fauna. They planted orchards and raised pigs. However, it turned out that the pigs ravaged the gardens and
required a lot of food. Also, the Tikopiens took the collective decision to kill all the pigs around 1600 AD.
They took other measures to ensure the sustainability of their society, including the limitation of fishing, which can
only be practiced by authorization, and the regulation of the population.
Thus they have managed to live for 3,000 years, with an agriculture adapted to a significant but unpredictable rainfall:
they cultivate orchard-gardens on several floors, and fields of taro, yam or cassava with a lot of mulch.
However, today they are threatened by the consequences of global warming, which motivated the first trip to the
Western world of a Polynesian king. King Ti Namo came to Grenoble in 2018 to present the film Nous Tikopia and
raise awareness of the multiplication of cyclones. These now strike their island no longer every ten years but every two
years.
Japan in the Togukawa era

From 1185 to 1868, Japan was administered by a government outside the imperial court, headed by a shogun, whose
title was hereditary. The last shogunate was that of the Togukawa family and it began in 1603. It collapsed in 1868
when it became clear that it could no longer protect Japan from the Americans who arrived in 1853.
The first shogun Togukawa succeeded in unifying the country and initiating a long period of peace and prosperity.
There followed a population explosion, with the population doubling in a century. From the beginning of the 18th
century, this caused an almost complete deforestation of Japan, whose mountains, which make up 80% of the territory,
were originally covered with forests.
Indeed, wood was used for everything: buildings, heating, coal production. To the deforestation due to these uses, was
added that carried out for cultivation. The consequences were a shortage of wood, conflicts, erosion, and flooding in
the lowlands.
From then on, a national regulation of the use of wood and a strictly controlled forest management system were put in
place, accompanied by a silviculture policy. At the same time, the Japanese made more economical use of wood, thanks
to more efficient methods and lighter constructions. In addition, population and consumption were stabilized by
appealing to Confucian principles.
All of these measures bore fruit, since two hundred years later, Japan had regained its verdant landscapes. It worked
because in Japan trees grow fast, and there are no goats or sheep. But above all thanks to the stability and foresight of a
government that managed its country according to its long-term interests.
Today Japan is two-thirds covered by forests, and this share remains stable. By way of comparison, forests in France
cover less than a third of the territory.
How do companies ensure their sustainability?

Diamond distinguishes two ways of dealing with ecological problems: by managing them from the bottom (bottum up)
or from the top (top down). The islands of Tikopia and New Guinea are examples of management from below, as are
many self-sufficient rural societies. Togukawa-era Japan is an example of top-down management.
In both cases, the factor that determines the sustainability of a society is its ability to choose a profitable economy
adapted to the level of fragility of its environment.
Contemporary societies
Rwanda
Rwanda and Burundi are the most densely populated countries in Africa. Their population was originally composed of
85% Hutu farmers and 15% Tutsi herders. The ethnic distinction was established by the Belgian colonial government,
which imposed an ethnic card in 1931 and valued the Tutsis.
At independence in 1962, a struggle against Tutsi domination began, which caused many deaths. This domination was
maintained in Burundi, while in Rwanda the Hutus took over. Civil peace returned in 1963, and both Rwanda and
Burundi prospered for fifteen years.
By the 1980s, the population density had become such that the entire territory was occupied by farms. Young people
could no longer live together. Disputes related to the possession of land multiplied.
To the usual consequences of deforestation and overexploitation of the land (erosion, aggravated droughts), were
added in 1989 the decline in the price of coffee and tea, then the austerity measures imposed by the World Bank.
Famine developed, hitting 40% of the population in 1990 against 9% in 1982.
Civil wars ensued. In August 1993 a peace agreement was signed, but in October Tutsi extremists assassinated the
Hutu president of Burundi. In 1994 the new president of Burundi as well as that of Rwanda were killed. In the
following weeks more than 800,000 Tutsis were massacred.
In Diamond's eyes, the link between demographic pressure and genocide is obvious here. He believes that, if Malthus'
catastrophe scenario is far from being systematic, since many other countries live with a higher population density, in
this specific case it has come true.
It has not, fortunately, been renewed despite a much larger population. The population of Rwanda and Burundi is now
double what it was before the genocide: it has increased from 13.5 to 26 million inhabitants in total. Food insecurity is
still strong there. More than half of children are stunted, and more than 40% of Rwanda's population is
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undernourished (data not available for Burundi) .
For anthropologist Christopher C. Taylor ( Questioning Collaps ), Diamond omitted an important cultural dimension:
the sanctity of Rwandan royalty. The king was responsible for directing and controlling the important flows for life and
reproduction: blood, sperm and breast milk. Popular imagery shows that the president was viewed the same way as
ancient kings. The famine therefore meant that the President of Rwanda had become a “bad king”, and it motivated his
sacrifice. However, this did not take away from the fact that the murderers of a sacred person are considered enemies
of the moral order. This is why the Hutu extremists were able to involve their community in the genocide of the Tutsis.
In the end, whether the Tutsis were killed for murdering a sacred person or to reduce the number of mouths to feed
(and probably for both reasons, one put forward and the other underlying) , the famine is indeed at the origin of the
drama. This example reminds us that famine generates social unrest and conflicts, and the resurgence of hunger in the
world should concern us.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Hispaniola was an island covered with lush forests, populated by Arawak Indians. These were decimated by the
Spaniards in the thirty years following their installation in 1494.
To exploit the gold mines and cultivate sugar cane, the Spaniards brought in African slaves. A century later, French
settlers settled in the western part and intensified its development. In 1785 there were 700,000 slaves on the French
side against 30,000 on the Spanish side.
In 1804, the French part became the Republic of Haiti, and in 1844 the Spanish part became the Dominican Republic.
From the start, the situation was more difficult in Haiti, which contained two-thirds of the population on only one-
third of the territory. Deforestation was also already greater there, because the many ships that had brought the slaves
had left with timber.
Subsequently, the two countries fell prey to political instability and dictatorships. However, Diamond tells us, the
dictators of the Dominican Republic had at least the concern to perpetuate the source of their wealth: the resources of
their country.
Logging was strictly controlled. Nature reserves and national parks were created very early, and about 30% of the land
is now protected. Thus forests cover 28% of the Dominican surface against only 1% for Haiti.
Despite these measures, the Dominican Republic suffers from many environmental problems: erosion, sediments in
the rivers, overfishing, pollution due to mines, pesticides, piles of waste...
For Diamond, however, she can handle it. On the other hand, the situation in Haiti seems hopeless to him. He thinks it
would be logical for the Dominican Republic to come to his aid, but doubts that it wants to.
Today the situation in Haiti seems indeed desperate. The country, already very fragile before, never recovered from the
terrible earthquake of 2010, followed by several hurricanes and cholera epidemics. The GDP has been falling since
2018. There has been no president since the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. The country is prey to gangs.
We can consider, alas, that the society of Haiti has collapsed.
As Diamond feared, the Dominican Republic is unwilling to help its neighbor. It is now also populated (11 million
inhabitants) and, if it remains a poor country, its income level is five times higher. Consequently many Haitians seek
refuge in the Dominican Republic. Half a million live there, not to mention the tens of thousands of descendants of
irregular migrants, who are considered stateless. They form the poorest community, and face racism, discrimination
and exploitation.
Diamond presented these two examples to show that there is no environmental determinism. Two societies sharing the
same island can have very different fates, depending on the care they take of their environment. It should be noted,
however, that the Haitians are hardly accountable for the deforestation bequeathed by the French colonists, nor for the
negligence of the dictators who governed them for a long time, and that the compensation demanded by France at
the time of its independence hampered the development of Haiti.
China
China is the most populous country in the world, with 1.4 billion people at the end of 2022. Birth control introduced in
1979 limited the rate of population growth, and the population "only" doubled between 1953 and 2001. The number of
households has grown more strongly, due to living apart. China has thus experienced galloping urbanization,
accompanied by strong and rapid economic development.
This has resulted in considerable damage to the environment, aggravated by the transfer of polluting activities and
millions of tons of waste from Western countries. Environmental protection was declared a fundamental national
principle in 1983, but economic development remained the priority.
The development of China has impacts on the rest of the world, in particular through its CO 2 emissions and through
its wood imports linked to the regulation of logging since the 1998 floods.
Diamond estimated that this situation would worsen with China's entry into the WTO on December 11, 2001. Imports
and therefore the externalization of environmental damage would increase. And if China caught up to the level of
consumption of the West, it would double the resource use and environmental impacts of humanity as a whole. That
China manages to ensure its development by controlling its environmental impact is therefore a challenge for all
humanity.
Diamond hoped that his central power would allow him to have an environmental policy as effective as his family
planning. Hope which translates, according to the historian Kenneth Pomeranz in Questioning Collapse , a
misunderstanding of the complexity of the relations between the central power and the local powers.
Today, Diamond's predictions are partly confirmed.
China's GDP has increased tenfold in 20 years, and represents 18% of global GDP. Its per capita GDP is half that of
France and a third of that of the United States. If it has not caught up to the current Western level, it has caught up to
that of the United States in 2005.
The pressure on resources has effectively doubled between 2005 and 2021, since world GDP has doubled. China's
economic rise is not, however, solely responsible for this: it represents only 30% of this increase. Nevertheless, it had
considerable environmental consequences, for China itself and for the whole world. Chinese CO 2 emissions , in
7
particular, tripled over the period .
At the same time, the preservation of the environment has also accelerated. The "airpocalypse", a cloud of fine particles
that blocked Beijing for almost three weeks in January 2013, acted like an electric shock. The legislative system was
strengthened in 2014, and a national control body, the CEIT, was created to remedy the shortcomings in the local
8 9
application . In fact, CO2 emissions, for example, have increased much more slowly since then . But they are still
increasing, and there is still a long way to go for China to reach its goal of carbon neutrality in 2060.
Diamond found it difficult to predict, as with all other countries, which would win the race: environmental damage or
environmental preservation. Today, if the efforts made by China are colossal, it is difficult to imagine that they will be
sufficient as long as economic growth is the priority. A new parameter will weigh in however: in 2022 China saw its
demographic curve reversed.
australia
Australia is a mining country. Not only because the mine is the key to its economy, but because it has an extractivist
behavior with all its resources: it is no more concerned with the renewal of its forests and fisheries than if it were
minerals. Therefore, these will disappear before its reserves of coals and iron are exhausted.
While it only has 20% of wooded area left, it continues to exploit what remains of native forests, in particular to sell
wood to Japan, which preserves its own forests.
It devotes 60% of its territory and 80% of the water it consumes to agriculture which represents only 3% of the GNP
and destroys the land. Until recently, clearing was encouraged and funded, as well as overgrazing. The soil depletion
thus caused increases erosion, which damages the Great Barrier Reef. Excessive watering, as well as rain on soils left
bare between two crops, cause salinization of the topsoil. This already affects 9% of the land and can only get worse.
But its environment is fragile. Its soils are very old, not very productive and the substrates are often rich in salt. The
waters are also not very nutritious, and the fisheries are quickly overexploited. The rains are weak and unpredictable,
except in the southwest, the only area where farmers can hope to harvest each year – hope now compromised by
https://construireunautremondenousestpossible.wordpress.com/2023/05/11/effondrement-de-jared-diamond/?fbclid=IwAR1GdnQXd_unNfj604HwaUX3gSlb… 10/23
climate change. Fresh water comes mainly from the Murray and Darling rivers, two-thirds of which are captured, and
which are loaded with toxins, pesticides and salt.
Its population is well-educated, with a high standard of living, and its institutions and policies and economics are
relatively honest by world (sic) standards. Its environmental problems therefore do not stem from poor ecological
management due to poverty, nor from a lack of awareness of the common good, nor from mere short-sighted business.
A first cause is the disconnection between Australians and their environment. 58% of them live in five major cities
(Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide) and are mainly connected to the outside world.
A second cause is the importation of British cultural values unsuitable for the Australian environment, such as the
habit of eating beef and lamb.
Australians are doomed to see their standard of living decline if they continue down this path. Their challenge is to
decide, among the fundamental values inherent in their society, which are compatible with its survival, and which they
will have to give up.
Awareness takes place. Clearing is now prohibited. The damage caused by overgrazing is recognized, and the minimum
number of sheep has been replaced by a maximum. Throughout the country, private and governmental initiatives are
multiplying to remedy the various problems.
Australia is engaged in the same race as China: between measures to preserve the environment and the damage caused
by development, who will win?
Diamond concludes by saying that the easiest way for Australia to meet its climate commitments would be to remove
its livestock. A somewhat pithy conclusion intended to strike the spirits, but very little appreciated by the Australian
archaeologist Tim Murray. This one rebels in Questioning Collaps against the too cataclysmic presentation in his eyes
made by Diamond. It highlights the extent of the efforts made by the government against salinization, soil depletion
and deforestation. In particular, he places his hope in the process of reconciliation with the indigenous people, who
play a vital role in land management.
We would like to share Tim Murray's optimism. But for the moment the measures taken by Australia leave doubtful.
The creation of a water rights market, intended to optimize this resource, has above all enabled its appropriation by
10
agro-industry and speculation . The decision to apply the Paris agreements to combat climate change was finally
11 12
taken in September 2022 , but concrete measures are yet to come. During this time, the effects of salinization or
mega-fires become catastrophic.
The current debate over wild horses in Kosciusko Park, which are destroying the ecosystem but are seen by some
Australians as part of their identity, shows that Diamond's diagnosis is correct. Australia's ability to meet its challenges
is partially hampered by its culture, and it is essential that its people take the necessary distance to see what they can
keep without compromising their survival. Isn't this ultimately what all industrial societies are forced to do today?
Practical lessons
The catastrophic decisions
Diamond identifies four categories of factors that lead a company to make the wrong choices.
The first relates to the inability to anticipate. A company can fail to predict the problems it will encounter for several
reasons. For example because it has never experienced a similar problem in the past (or has forgotten about it), like
Easter Island or other ancient societies. Or because she has erroneous references, what Diamond calls "reasoning by
bad analogy": thus the Vikings believed that they could practice the same agriculture in Iceland as in Norway, since the
two islands seemed so similar.
The second category concerns the inability to see the problem when it occurs. This may be due to a lack of means: in
Australia the soils were exhausted long before we could analyze them. Or because of the distance between the
managers and the place where the problem arises. Or because fluctuations mask a heavy trend, as with climate change
in Greenland or among the Mayas. Finally, it may be an effect of “landscape amnesia”, which makes us get used to slow
degradation, like the Easter Islanders, for example, to the gradual disappearance of palm trees from their island.
The third category brings together the factors that prevent trying to solve the problem. They can be rational or
irrational.
The former are numerous. It may be selfishness, as with the mining companies in Montana who operate and then close
their mines, letting arsenic, copper and acid leak out. This can be the “tragedy of the commons”: in the absence of
regulation, everyone helps themselves before the others do and thus pastures or fisheries can be exhausted – while
some commons have been preserved for hundreds or even years. thousands of years, if users recognize their common
13
interest and themselves impose prudent harvest quotas , as did the Icelanders. It can be the behavior of the
“wandering bandit”, such as the international forestry companies which sign short-term leases from country to
country, and do not care about the preservation of the forests they devastate. It can also be the behavior of elites
withdrawn into their sphere, who, in order to preserve their interests and their prestige, take decisions harmful to the
rest of society – conversely, the immersion of the elite in society obliges leaders to be aware of the effects of their
action, as is the case in New Guinea.
The drivers of inaction that Diamond calls irrational are: denial; conflicts between long-term and short-term
motivations, in particular the need to feed one's family; religious values, as for the Vikings of Greenland; secular
values, such as Australia's rural and British identification values. I'm not sure that we can qualify as irrational the
respect of its values, but it is in fact a factor of inaction.
The fourth category, finally, relates to the reasons why the attempt to solve the problem may fail. The latter may be
beyond our present abilities to resolve; or a solution may exist but be too costly, such as maintaining the forests of
Montana to prevent fires; or our efforts may be too late or too little.
Environment and large companies

All our societies depend on the extraction of resources, renewable or not. Who says extraction says significant capital
and therefore large companies. It is therefore important to understand the motivations that lead a large company to
respect or not respect the environment. Diamond reviews four types of resource extraction: oil extraction, metal ore
extraction, logging and fishing.
Oil extraction in the Pacific offers two completely opposite examples, the first in Indonesia on the island of Salawati,
and the second in Kubutu in Papua New Guinea. On the island of Salawati, 100 m access roads have been created to
access the well, flares are constantly burning, oil leaks are contaminating the ground. In Kutubu, on the other hand,
access to the borehole is by helicopter, the roads are no more than 10 m wide, the gas is injected into reservoirs, strict
safety and environmental protection instructions are enacted and controlled, and hunting is prohibited; you don't see
any puddles of oil, and animal species abound.
Diamond explains this difference in several ways. He visited the first in 1986, when Indonesia was a military
dictatorship, and people could not make themselves heard. The operation was carried out by the Indonesian national
company, whose activity depends only on government decisions. Finally the island of Salawati is for Indonesia a colony
considered as a simple source of income. Conversely, Papua New Guinea is a democracy where local communities have
significant influence and control any damage to the environment. Mining there was conducted by an international
company, aware that environmental disasters such as delays due to public opposition are costly,
Mining is responsible for half of the industrial pollution in the United States, and it is on the verge of extinction there
in large part because of its misdeeds. The extraction of ore, in addition to the enormous quantity of water which it
requires, is a particularly destructive activity for the environment. The upheavals on the surface are the most visible
consequence, but the most serious is the flow of toxic substances which pollute the water for a long time. In the event
of rupture of the dams behind which the sludge and waste from the mine are stored, this pollution is catastrophic; yet
there is one accident of this type per year on average in the world. Sometimes entire rivers are polluted by toxic
products, leading to the ruin of the entire region,
In the case of metalliferous extraction, the operators content themselves with cleaning up and restoring the zone at the
end of the operation. It is very insufficient. It would be necessary to capture and treat groundwater as well as that
which flows off the site during operation, and continue as long as it is polluted, ie most often forever.
In addition, the direct and indirect costs of cleaning are very underestimated, and companies often declare bankruptcy
at the end of operations in order to avoid them.
The cost then falls to taxpayers, including the cost of water treatment in perpetuity.
As a result, public opinion increasingly blocks projects, and there are fewer and fewer students for these courses. It
may come as a surprise that this sector has such a suicidal behavior, unlike those of oil or coal. The reasons for this are
that margins are lower and profits uncertain, clean-up costs are higher, and pollution problems are more insidious. In
addition, oil and coal extraction have caused enormous disasters which have concerned the United States itself (those
of the Buffalo Creek mine in 1972 and the oil tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989) and this has generated demands
stronger.
Diamond identifies only two mines in Montana that are responsibly managed in collaboration with local
environmental groups. But these are very special cases, because they are platinum and palladium mines of exceptional
value, which moreover are underground and require little acid drainage .
Logging and fishing are renewable, but on condition that the harvest is lower than the reproduction rate.
The challenges of preserving forests are known: they filter the air, absorb carbon, promote rain through the
transpiration of vegetation, retain soil and keep water there, and constitute the habitat of most other beings. alive on
earth.
Sustainable forest management methods exist, but are far from always being respected. In Indonesia, for example, 70%
of the wood cut comes from illegal activities, and loggers do not hesitate to use force, sometimes with the help of the
government.
Thus deforestation is accelerating. However, only 12% of forests are protected. In the worst-case scenario, all accessible
unprotected forests will be exploited within the next decade. However, the world could satisfy its needs with a reduced
share, around 20%, if well managed.
Diamond hoped that the creation in 1993 of the FSC label would contribute to this objective. To date, it seems that this
14
label is useful but perfectible and by no means sufficient . However, the forest area remained stable between 2005
and 2020, but with a very contrasting situation depending on the continents .
Fishing is also subject to a label which aims to limit the damage of overfishing, which reduces stocks, kills other species
and destroys habitats. The MSC was created in 1997, but it remains too little widespread and especially unknown
because of the large number of labels concerning fishing.
Diamond concludes by recalling that companies are intended to make a profit, and that those listed on the stock
exchange are under an obligation towards their shareholders to maximize their profits. Blaming them doesn't help
much in his opinion. For him, only the public has the power to make environmental damage illegal and unprofitable,
by taking companies to court, by preferring sustainably collected products, and by pushing governments to enact laws.
and regulations requiring good practices. It's not that he thinks it's their responsibility, but it's what he's seen working.
The world as a polder

Diamond identifies twelve processes by which societies damage their environment.
Eight are ancestral: deforestation and destruction of natural habitats; soil destruction; poor management of water
resources; excessive hunting or fishing; the introduction of alien species which compete with or even destroy native
species; population growth and increasing human impact per capita.
Four additional threats are recent: human-caused climate change; the release of toxic chemicals; energy shortages; the
maximum use of the photosynthetic capacity of the earth.
15
This last limit is, to say the least, poorly substantiated . Apart from that, Diamond intersects quite well with the nine
planetary limits not to be exceeded which were established in 2009.
All these processes interact and we need to act on each one. We must understand that everything is connected, as we
must realize that all parts of the world are now interdependent. This is why we must see the world as a polder: a place
where everyone shares the same danger and must help each other to face it. It is this common awareness that makes
the Dutch have such a level of environmental concern.
We thus have a terribly difficult dilemma to solve, because the third world will not be able to reach the standard of
living of the West without the latter reducing its pressure on resources.
For the first time we run the risk of a global decline. But, unlike the Mayans, we have a deep understanding of what's
going on as well as the solutions. All we need is the collective will to implement them.
What I remember
A recurring pattern appears in the various examples studied by Jared Diamond: a society settles in a given
environment; it develops according to its values and its culture; its demography is growing and so is its environmental
footprint; the potential of its territory is diminishing even as its population has increased; at this stage, either it adopts
measures that limit its footprint and retains most of its culture, or it finds itself weakened; in the latter case, an event
can precipitate it into such a serious crisis that it forces it to leave its establishment or to fundamentally change its
culture; and sometimes this event can cause its complete disappearance.
At the level of overcoming planetary limits that we have reached, and faced with the crises that now follow one another,
the alert launched by Diamond on the risk incurred by our civilization deserves to be taken seriously.
One can reproach him for having, in his desire to be heard, sometimes forced the line by dramatizing the decline of
certain societies and seeing in their history what he wanted to see there. It can also be pointed out that the choice of the
subtitle “how societies decide on their disappearance or their survival” was questionable. In fact, we can only speak of a
decision in this area for companies that have had the possibility of foreseeing the consequences of their choices.
However, as he says himself, this was not the case with ancient societies. His desire to call to action our society, which
is effectively in a position to decide, has led him to expose himself to controversy and to be accused of contempt.
One can equally reproach the authors of Questioning Collapse for a somewhat excessive vigor in combating Diamond's
hypotheses. This led some of them to denials of reality or to shift the debate. The systematic interpretation of the
decline of societies, even dramatic, in simple adaptation, reflects a rejection of the very concept of societal collapse.
This refusal, by its vehemence, makes me suspect a counter-fire to preserve "business as usual". However, it ignores
societies that are already collapsing or on the brink – in the process of desertification or threatened with submersion –
and this because of the world's accumulated emissions of greenhouse gases. western. This shows, in my opinion, a
much more tangible contempt.
Beyond the controversy, Collapse is a work that deserves our full attention. Among the multitude of lessons to be
learned, I would highlight four.
The first is the role that political organization plays in the ability of a society's leaders to make the right decisions. A
system where the population is involved in decisions, and where the leaders live in the same conditions as the rest of
the people, offers a better chance of making the right choices. Failing this, the company's survival will depend on the
foresight and sense of long-term interests of its leaders.
The second is that, among the twelve processes cited by Diamond, deforestation and poor management of water
resources are fundamental. In all the examples of collapses quoted, except Greenland, they constitute the genesis of the
catastrophe. Preserving forests and the water cycle should be a top priority, especially in times of climate change.
The third is that the extraction of metals is not only an extremely polluting activity, but that it is very difficult to reduce
16
its impact. But the energy transition requires a lot of metals. This is an essential issue , which should lead us to limit
the need for extraction thanks to designs allowing recycling, and to question the development of digital technology well
beyond our real needs.
The fourth is that after a collapse due to environmental deterioration, the regeneration of the environment is not self-
evident. The engulfment of the Mayan cities by the forest is even rather an exception. The quasi-sterilization of the
earth is much more frequent. This frightening observation is an additional motivation to act quickly.
S.F.G
1 Source: Wikipedia
2 Complexity is understood here as the richness of institutions
3 Copper, gold
4 The Vikings converted to Christianity around the year 1000
5 Source: Statista – World hunger is getting worse – July 2022
6Source : https://www.fao.org/3/I7695f/I7695f.pdf page 97
7 Source: https://donnees.banquemondiale.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KT?locations=CN
8 Source : https://vert.eco/articles/ecologie-la-chine-ne-fait-pas-les-choses-a-moitie-pour-le-meilleur-
comme-pour-le-pire
9 Source : https://donnees.banquemondiale.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.KT?locations=CN
10 Read the article in Great Rivers Future Initiative : What's next for water management in Australia? .
Watch the documentary on Arte: “Hands down on water” .
11 Source https://reporterre.net/Apres-dix-ans-d-inaction-climatique-l-Australie-vote-une-loi-climat
12 Voir « Salis », le sel d’Australie vu du ciel, photographies de Fanny Arlandis
13 Voir mon article sur la gestion des biens communs
14 Grennpeace : FSC, protection ou exploitation des forêts
15 https://www.cairn.info/revue-ecologie-et-politique-sciences-cultures-societes-2008-1-page-
147.htm
16 Voir : Ruée minière au XXIè siècle : jusqu’où les limites seront-elles repoussées ? – Aurore Stephant
à USI
sylviefoucher 11 mai 2023 Non classé Diamond, effondrement
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11:17 Collapse, by Jared Diamond – Building another world is possible for us

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Collapse, by Jared Diamond

Posted May 11, 2023

Then he takes stock of the environmental situation of several contemporary societies.

Montana is affected by multiple environmental issues.

Valuable native species are disappearing: fish, deer and elk.

Societies of the past that collapsed

Pitcairn and Henderson Islands

The Anasazi Indians

The Vikings of Iceland and Greenland

The societies of the past that ensured their survival

Japan in the Togukawa era

How do companies ensure their sustainability?

Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Today, Diamond's predictions are partly confirmed.

Environment and large companies

The world as a polder

2 Complexity is understood here as the richness of institutions

4 The Vikings converted to Christianity around the year 1000

5 Source: Statista – World hunger is getting worse – July 2022

6Source : https://www.fao.org/3/I7695f/I7695f.pdf page 97

12 Voir « Salis », le sel d’Australie vu du ciel, photographies de Fanny Arlandis

13 Voir mon article sur la gestion des biens communs

14 Grennpeace : FSC, protection ou exploitation des forêts

sylviefoucher 11 mai 2023 Non classé Diamond, effondrement

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