http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3686490Oh my.
tmfun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 08:42 PM
Original message
The Easter Island effect
As I understand it, anthropologists think that the residents of Easter Island, either from not understanding the necessity of husbanding their natural resources or from just plain greed, used up everything on the Island that sustained their life and they all died off.
Today, I heard a report on NPR that just stunned me. Apparently, climatologists predict that this summer, for the first time in recorded history, the North pole will be without ice. Common sense tells us that this should be a BIG, HUGE, WARNING FROM MOTHER NATURE! DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON! YOU ARE ****ING UP THE PLANET IRREPARABLY! The effects on our little blue dot, spaceship Earth, our tiny island in the Milky way galaxy from the continued pressures of overpopulation and limitless greed and over consumption of our planets natural resources should be obvious to everybody and the final result should be apparent to all. The end of civilization as we know it.
So what are are world leaders and corporate masters doing about it? THEY ARE GLEEFULLY ANTICIPATING THE UNPRECEDENTED OPPORTUNITY TO GET UP THERE AND DRILL AND PLUNDER THE NATURAL RESOURCES THAT WILL BE MADE ACCESSIBLE BY THE ICE MELT!
God help us all.
Atman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 08:45 PM
Response to Original message
1. Maybe if we build some statues...
It's pretty ****ing crazy, no? I think it stems from a defeatist attitude; it will take eons to reverse the damage we've done, so why not just go for it now while we, the still living, can benefit from it? **** our kids and grandkids. There's profits to be made!
tmfun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 09:10 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. I saw this comming when I was in my teens and decided not to have children. Now, at 57, I fear what the next 30 +- years I have remaining are going to look like. I feel especially sorry for my wife's grand kids. I just don't see the leadership or the enlightenment of the global population to turn this around.
Yeah, right.
The tumbum primitive decided to not have children because it would take attention and resources away from the tumbum primitive, who thinks he should get all of it for his selfish self.
Remember, the primitives always disguise base motives under a facade of principle.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 09:31 PM
Response to Original message
9. Jared Diamond is a dumbass
In "Collapse" he says that the Easter Islanders cut down all their trees in one chapter, but he also says that all the tree seeds were eaten by rats in another chapter. Maybe the Easter Islanders didn't cut down all their trees, but the trees failed to regenerate on their own?
He comes up with some half-assed theory, and cherry-picks anecdotes to fit the theory, ignoring all conflicting data.
donco6 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 09:34 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. That's a pretty harsh assessment.
I liked both Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse. I don't find him to be a dumbass.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 09:38 PM
Response to Reply #10
12. I know it's harsh
but I think it's deserved.
A real scholar wouldn't ignore or dismiss contradictory evidence.
Also, Collapse was very badly written. He needs an editor badly.
Fumesucker (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 10:02 PM
Response to Reply #9
16. Trees and the seeds of trees are two different things..
The inhabitants of Rapa Nui cut down the trees on their island to make tools for moving and carving the stone statues that are lying all over the place there. That rats also ate the seeds of the trees, making it impossible to grow more trees, has nothing to do with whether or not the actual trees growing in the ground were cut down.
Eventually the islanders got to the point there were no trees left needed to make the canoes for fishing, where a great deal of the protein for human consumption came from. Also, with no trees for canoes it became impossible to leave Rapa Nui and the inhabitants descended to barbarism and cannibalism.
Rapa Nui is indeed a good analogy for our island Earth and a cautionary tale to those who would rape the environment for short term gain.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-28-08 12:22 AM
Response to Reply #16
24. All trees have to regenerate, and all trees naturally die.
Even giant redwoods naturally die after a thousand years. Most tropical trees don't even live that long.
How does Diamond know, with no written record, that the trees did not naturally regenerate?
freethought Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 10:44 PM
Response to Reply #9
19. There was definite evidence that Easter Island was once covered in trees, a jungle island. Now, there isn't a tree on it. The island looks more like a short grass prairie. The PBS show "NOVA" did a fantastic job on the theories and evidence indicating what possibly could have happened.
The trees were there, there is no doubt about that. The natives cut down the trees for canoes, fuel, building material etc... As the culture thrived, they cut down more trees. The trees simply could not grow fast enough to keep the ecosystem sound. Rats were probably just another part of the problem.
One thing archeologists noted, aside from the large stone figures, was the presence of a symbol carved into the rocks, I tend to remember a bird. It appears everywhere. And one thing they were able to find out was that the bird carvings post-dated(came after) most of the stone figures. It is theorized that a "bird cult" sprung up in the wake of the resource problems that besieged the Island. Those that worshiped the stone figures now had an opposing force to deal with in a "bird cult". Essentially, when the resources became scarce and the competition for what was left became so intense, the people of the Island turned on each other. They don't know how violent things may have become but likely it was not pleasant to put it mildly.
Easter Island should be a monument for what happens when you destroy the systems that sustain you.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-28-08 01:07 AM
Response to Reply #19
28. So there were competing theories...
Diamond only has one theory, the theory that fits what he wants.
tmfun Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 10:50 PM
Response to Reply #9
20. Who cares how the trees vanished? ?The point is that their civilization couldn't sustain itself when they did!
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-28-08 01:09 AM
Response to Reply #20
29. There is a big difference between destroying your own environment, and having your environment collapse around you.
javadu (261 posts) Mon Jul-28-08 01:16 AM
Response to Reply #9
30. These Two Pieces of Evidence Are Actually supporting JD's theory, suggesting that you are probably the dumbass. It is unlikely that rats were able to eat ALL the tree seeds, until there were very few trees, because they CUT THEM DOWN!! Then, the rats also started starving, ate the few seeds produced by the few trees, and now there are NO TREES. I think you are the dumbass.
XemaSab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Jul-28-08 01:38 AM
Response to Reply #30
32. He said in "Collapse" that EVERY tree seed found had been eaten by rats.
Rats are smart, and YES, they could eat all the tree seeds.
At any rate, it seemed like really flaky scholarship to say one thing in one place and something totally different in another place.
Spouting Horn Donating Member (181 posts) Sun Jul-27-08 10:05 PM
Response to Original message
17. We're all gonna die!
Yeah, I'm still waiting for the primitives to off themselves, so as to save the eart--er, planet.
But no, the primitives expect other people to off themselves.
oktoberain Donating Member (1000+ posts) Sun Jul-27-08 11:28 PM
Response to Original message
22. Um, the Rapanui natives of Easter Island *didn't* all die off.
It came pretty close at one point, with a little over a hundred of them left, but the population has recovered and is now over 3000. Their population loss was due to a cluster**** of deforestation, invading Peruvian slavers, smallpox and tuberculosis brought by missionaries and explorers, and inter-clan wars between the people themselves. The deforestation alone didn't do it--it didn't even do *most* of it.
That's most of the bonfire; one primitive challenges the last-quoted primitive here, the octopus brain primitive, to prove his comment, and the octopus brain primitive does (quoting wikepedia), but damn, it's too hot to copy and paste any more.
