vendredi 8 mai 2009

You decide who lives or dies.

For once, I will have an optimistic post... 

If you haven't had the opportunity to get your hands on a very good book lately, I would like to recommend you reading Jared Diamond's awesome essay Collapse. How societies chose to fail or succeed. The book is now a few years old but it has recently been published pocket-sized in France. (If anybody has a pocket large enough to fit it in, please let me know...)

By analyzing how former civilisations survived or collapsed facing a major (usually environmental) problem and how actual civilisations chose to react facing the same problems, Diamond delivers a fascinating opus. Really. It is not that often that I get carried away by essays. But this one is dealing with one major issue that I am deeply interested in. Sustainable development.
But not only. There is also a lot of history going on in that book. About some civilisations I had never heard about. 

Diamond analyses every society the book is about through a five factor grid : environmental damages, climate change, conflicts with neighbours, trade relations and answers given by a society facing an environmental issue. 

The book itself is divided into two sections : past societies, whether they survived or not and the measures they took in front of a problem, and nowadays societies, facing an issue.

How can this be an optimistic post?
 
Because this post is about how, maybe, we could find solutions to the destroying of the earth. I think it is a book to be read. And a book to give to our political leaders. And it is clear. And the examples taken are relevant. 
I already think that we are heading towards a catastrophe, and this book is just a confirmation of what I thought. 

But reading about how societies succeeded in overcoming their problems in the past, gives a little hope. 
If they did it, so can we. 

The world is getting more and more fucked up at the moment. This book is analyse of the mess we're in. And a good start for finding a solution.

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