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30 Comments
- inactive, on 11/09/2008, -1/+9Jared Diamond's book "Collapse" goes into this in depth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_by_Jared_Dia ...
This book employs the comparative method to understand societal collapses to which environmental problems contribute. My previous book (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies), had applied the comparative method to the opposite problem: the differing rates of buildup of human societies on different continents over the last 13,000 years. In the present book focusing on collapses rather than buildups, I compare many past and present societies that differed with respect to environmental fragility, relations with neighbors, political institutions, and other "input" variables postulated to influence a society's stability. The "output" variables that I examine are collapse or survival, and form of the collapse if collapse does occur. By relating output variables to input variables, I aim to tease out the influence of possible input variables on collapses. - keithloughnane, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4newspeak is double-plus-good
- Mujokan, on 11/10/2008, -1/+5What bollocks. Just because things always change doesn't mean some changes aren't disastrous.
- TunaFishGangsta, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4There was a 200 year drought at the time of Mayan decline. For the past five years or so, it's been common knowledge in the science community that this was the cause. I think these researchers of this article need to do a Google search.
http://www.google.com/search?q=mayan+drought - SillyRabbits, on 11/10/2008, -0/+4Something as simple as a 2-3 years of bad luck with multiple hurricane hits could have produced similar results. Destroyed crops, destroyed reserves, reduced wildlife populations, food shortages. But I guess it makes better news to blame it on mismanagement or human activity ravaging the environment.
- TunaFishGangsta, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3The "environmental disaster" was drought.
http://www.google.com/search?q=mayan+drought - inactive, on 11/10/2008, -1/+4Must of been all those Mayan Escalades, Hummers, Suburbans, and Excursions they drove around. All that deforestation and heavy industry pollution. They should have listened to all those tree hugging activists instead of sacrificing them. Yeah...and then that happened...
- Mujokan, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3On the upside, megafauna extinction was probably responsible for human civilization ever starting in the first place.
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id ... - omnithought, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3There's a book by Daniel Quinn called "Beyond Civilization" where he suggests that the Mayans simply walked away from civilization and went back to a tribal lifestyle. Agriculture and civilization means a lot more work for less return than hunting and gathering.
Nobody knows if this is the case or not, but it's interesting to think about. After all, the remains of their civilization show that much was left intact, as if it had simply been abandoned. - DaftMonk, on 11/10/2008, -0/+3Pshh, everyone knows they disappeared to the Galactic Center, using their expert skills in thaumaturgy! Also, two relevant phrases that happens to be awesome:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_al-Ard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefitzat_Haderech
Reminds me of Jumper... only not as lame. - Nosyn, on 11/10/2008, -0/+2You say "/sarcasm"... mwahahaha.
- kakwakas, on 11/10/2008, -1/+3It was climate change. These things are natural and they happen.
- iLoveGoogle, on 11/10/2008, -0/+2SWEET!
- igorthetroll, on 11/10/2008, -0/+2Maybe they ran out of Virgins to sacrifice?
Looks like America running out of them as well. First the British, Russian, Muslim. Will China be the Manchurian Virgin at the Imperialistic alter? - satanatnmtedu, on 11/10/2008, -1/+3This is not a new story. It has been speculated on for many, many years.
- stonebear, on 11/10/2008, -0/+2I'm surprised it didn't mention the deforestation theory: All the Mayan monuments and buildings were covered with white lime plaster, and the big shots were real sticklers about it. In the moldering tropics, they had to be replastered every couple of years. As the empire, and its plethora of buildings, grew; the many voracious lime kilns devoured the forest and brought about micro-climate changes which affected agriculture and the lifestyle of the many forest dwellers the political and religious centers relied on for labor and other resources. In short; because of the hubris of empire, wealthier Mayans lived an unsustainable lifestyle at the expense of everyone else and the environment. Sound familiar?
- crushfan, on 11/10/2008, -1/+2Why no.
- FACT, on 11/10/2008, -1/+2The pollution from their Hummer H2s did them in
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -1/+2If there was an environmental disaster we would have seen the impacts on their building structures. We would have seen physical evidence.
No such evidence exists so... - inactive, on 11/10/2008, -2/+3More likely religious zealotry and violent control by a few eventually forced those with the capacity to think for themselves to abandon the cities leaving the nut jobs to their temples and twisted realities. Such realties seems to continue to this day.
- eRenee, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1Hurricanes. Massive, repeated hurricanes.
- ogremidget, on 11/10/2008, -1/+2You ask for physical evidence that there was an environmental disaster. Well, the evidence may be destroyed because the forests took over.
When I was in Mexico, I went to a few of the Mayan ruins. At one of the locations our group hired a guide to take us on a tour. During part of the tour, we walked through the jungle surround the ruins and while on the trail, the tour guide pointed out that some of the larger stones that we were stepping over had corners and had carvings on them. He then explained that the city was overtaken by the forests and even with all the money in the world, there still wouldn't be enough resources to excavate all of the Mayan ruins.
So maybe the (possible) physical evidence was right under my feet. - inactive, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1The Spanish, that is...
- demiurgency, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1Dugg for Jared Diamond. I'm a big fan of "Guns, Germs, and Steel." Looking forward to reading "Collapse" now.
- breetah, on 11/10/2008, -0/+1"Collapse" should be required reading. Excellent book.
- vault, on 11/10/2008, -3/+3buried for eco-marxist revisionism
- inactive, on 11/10/2008, -2/+2But but..there was no car or industrial revolution back then. How could modern society have caused such a problem?
Ahh..we invented a time portal an pumped our pollution thousands of years into the past so it won't be our problem.
/sarcasm - byukid, on 11/10/2008, -1/+1I would think that more them hunting eachother down and killing everyone via mass genocide (not sure of the word for different tribes, if there is one). The way they fought was literally until extermination- much like the Asiatic plainsmen of 2000 b.c. who would fight until there were 10 people left on each side, and then fight until only one group remained.
At least, that's the theory. Some evidence supports it, other evidence doesn't support it, but doesn't nullify it either. - inactive, on 11/10/2008, -4/+1Hmm.. I always thought it was white people that came and killed off the Mayan culture.
- Beautyon, on 11/09/2008, -13/+5Ther is no such thing as an 'environmental disaster'. The geological record tells us that there are many changes on many time scales. The world is constantly in transiiton; there is no stable state, no base state to achieve, and this is what everyone has to get to grips with; the large scale. I'm sick and tired of this double-speak, the Orwellian misuse of English to boost the environmentalists agenda.
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