Jared Diamond Speaks at Alma College, Michigan

Anecdote
Way back in the winter Kim and I learned that scientist and popular author Jared Diamond would be visiting Alma College that fall after Kim graduated. What a shame that we would miss his visit! He had written on topics that interested both of us very much, particularly environmental factors that contribute to the rise and decline of societies, though neither of us had read any of his books. When we decided to get married later that spring, the date we chose was October 11 -- allowing us to "catch" both the peak of fall color and Jared Diamond's talk at Alma College. During our road trip to and around Michigan we listened to his 27-hour-long audiobook Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and enjoyed very much learning the minutae of different past and present societies' responses to their environments. We arrived at Alma College a bit earlier and met Jared Diamond as he was entering the auditorium to get ready. Kim mentioned that we had chosen our wedding date around his visit, and he used this as a preface to his talk, making the audience laugh and applaud. The next day during the question and answer session for Alma College students only (and a few "spies" like us), he mentioned marriage a few times as a useful metaphor and clearly was referring to our recent wedding. We got to ask him a few questions during the session, get his autograph on a family copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel, and talk to him briefly after his second talk with students. Like a few million of his readers, we would have liked to sit down and chat with him for a few hours, but are grateful for at least getting to meet him in person and -- more importantly -- read his books.

Talk on Collapse

Jared Diamond's talk at the Alma College auditorium on Oct. 14 was free and open to the public, which came close to filling the premises. He chose to use a clip-on microphone so that he could pace the stage and entertain the audience with frequent gesticulation. His presentation closely followed the structure and major points of his most recently book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005) and lasted exactly one hour. Namely, he mentioned each of the past and present societies discussed in Collapse and talked about the five factor framework under which all societal collapses studied by him can be understood: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, loss of trading partners, and the society's own responses to its environmental problems.

According to Diamond, there are 12 grave problems facing modern society, all of which are "ticking time bombs" that must be solved successfully within the next 10 to 50 years. The first eight of these problems faced collapsed societies of past eras, while the last four are unique to modern civilization:

1. deforestation
2. soil problems: erosion, salinization, and loss of soil fertility
3. water management problems
4. overhunting
5. overfishing
6. effects of introduced species on native species
7. overpopulation
8. increased per-capita impact of people
9. human-caused climate change
10. buildup of toxins in the environment
11. energy shortages
12. full utilization of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity

During the question and answer period, Diamond demonstrated "cautious optimism" about humankind's ability to cope with these problems. He talked about exponentially increasing environmental problems and exponentially increasing environmental action and awareness as a "horserace" where each horse is steadily gaining speed, but the outcome will be unknown until the very end. The race will play itself out within the lifetimes of the students in the audience. Our primary advantages over past civilizations are science and information networks. These allow us to understand the past, monitor and understand environmental changes, and be aware of what is happening in other parts of the planet.

Q&A Sessions with Jared Diamond

Globalization
Globalization, or the increase of international trade and migration, presents new problems as well as advantages. The benefit of international trade is that impact on particularly sensitive environments (semi-deserts, areas with thin topsoil, etc.) can be reduced by getting necessary goods (wood, food) from trading partners who can grow these things in more robust environments with less effort and environmental impact. The problem with globalization is that it makes a worldwide collapse far more likely than before, as environmental problems in one country now inevitably spill over into others. For instance, famine produces environmental refugees which emigrate to neighboring lands to survive. If neighbors are already densely populated and straining their environment, an influx of refugees could in turn push them over the edge. Wealthy countries such as the U.S. will be helpless to stem the tide of refugees and illegal immigrants. In addition, many modern environmental problems have no borders, such as overfishing of ocean waters and global climate change. Now, the United States and other first-world countries have a serious stake in helping countries in distress avoid collapse. Sending peacekeeping forces and humanitarian aid may help treat the social and humanitarian symptoms of collapsing states, but they do not treat the causes and may in fact prolong them.

What should be done?
The first world needs to reduce its consumption of nonrewable resources, and the third world needs to halt its population growth. Diamond gave an example of students at a college in the East who took the idea of reducing consumption to heart and approached their university dean about getting the university to reduce its environmental impact. The dean realized that their recommendations would save the university money and began to implement them. Students then traveled to other colleges in the region promoting energy-saving measures that would cut down on both resource consumption and costs. Diamond stated that action must be taken as soon as possible -- "tonight when you go home" -- which drew audience applause.

During both Q&A sessions Jared Diamond was asked about "the most important thing that needed to be done." To this he passionately replied that the most important thing to understand is that there is no single most important thing to be done. There are 12 potentially deadly problems facing our civilization, and every single one of them must be solved, "or else we are done for." These problems are complex and will require great political will and societal adjustment to solve. It is a great mistake to suppose that there is one simple thing we can change that will fix everything. Only a complex and multi-pronged effort can address them.

New York City in 2050
Diamond was asked by a student what he expected New York City to be like in 2050. He answered that one of two scenarios was likely. It might be much the same as today, but with much more efficient energy use and no personal automobiles, since those will almost certainly be gone by then. Or, New York City might well look like modern-day Haiti or Somalia, with the country in ruins and people eking out an existence by whatever means they can find, with the economy in shambles.