Thursday, April 19, 2007
Australia's Potential for Collapse Mirrors Our Own
“While many other countries besides Australia are mining their environments,” Jared Diamond says in Collapse, “Australia is an especially suitable choice for this final case study for several reasons. It is a First World country, unlike Rwanda, Haiti and the DR, but like the countries in which most of the likely readers of this book live. Among First World countries, its population and economy are much smaller and less complex than are those of the US, Europe or Japan, so that the Australian situation is more easily grasped.
“Ecologically, the Australian environment is exceptionally fragile, the most fragile of any First World country except perhaps Iceland. As a consequence, many problems that could eventually become crippling in other First World countries and already are so in some Third World countries – such as overgrazing, salinization, soil erosion, introduced species, water shortages, and man-made droughts – have already become severe in Australia.
“That is, while Australia shows no prospects of collapsing like Rwanda and Haiti, it instead gives us a foretaste of problems that actually will arise elsewhere in the First World if present trends continue. Yet Australia’s prospects for solving those problems give me hope and are not depressing. Then, too, Australia has a well educated populace, a high standard of living, and relatively honest political and economic institutions by world standards.
“Hence Australia’s environmental problems cannot be dismissed as products of ecological mismanagement by an uneducated, desperately impoverished populace and grossly corrupt government and businesses, as one might perhaps be inclined to explain away environmental problems in some other countries.” More Monday, tomorrow, Friday Funnies.
“Ecologically, the Australian environment is exceptionally fragile, the most fragile of any First World country except perhaps Iceland. As a consequence, many problems that could eventually become crippling in other First World countries and already are so in some Third World countries – such as overgrazing, salinization, soil erosion, introduced species, water shortages, and man-made droughts – have already become severe in Australia.
“That is, while Australia shows no prospects of collapsing like Rwanda and Haiti, it instead gives us a foretaste of problems that actually will arise elsewhere in the First World if present trends continue. Yet Australia’s prospects for solving those problems give me hope and are not depressing. Then, too, Australia has a well educated populace, a high standard of living, and relatively honest political and economic institutions by world standards.
“Hence Australia’s environmental problems cannot be dismissed as products of ecological mismanagement by an uneducated, desperately impoverished populace and grossly corrupt government and businesses, as one might perhaps be inclined to explain away environmental problems in some other countries.” More Monday, tomorrow, Friday Funnies.
