Jared Diamond on WBUR

Jared Diamond, of Guns, Germs, and Steel fame was on WBUR's On Point. They discussed his new book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.

I had earlier read his article in the NYT which summarised the arguments in the book: the collapse and obliteration of once-mighty empires and societies chiefly because of environmental depradation. These people literally cut off the branch they were sitting on...or the tree they lived off, as it were, such that the societies could no longer support the populations.

His term for such reckless behaviour is 'ecocide.'

While environmental damage has been an issue the world has become aware of increasingly since the dawn of the industrial age, I still wonder if it is safe to draw parallels between those societies and modern First-world societies.

For instance, what checks and balances did those societies have to see where they stood resource-wise: financially, environmentally etc? Of course, one may argue, without an attempt at humor, that even in the modern days in the first-world, some societies seem to proceed merrily with what seems like financial suicide despite a thousand indicators which urge restraint, yet, it seems unlikely that a major debilitation of a great power is likely to occur without it being noticed well in advance...