History: Environmental Factors


Figure 1.--.

Some authors have stressed environmental factors or probably more accurately states how societies effectively utilize their environments. There are many examples in history of great socities collapsing. Attempting to understand the forces at play have facinated historians. Historians debate over the causes for the collapse of these societies. One of the great works of history is Gibon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Historians have often persued the collapse of civilizations as romantic mysteries. Rome has been one of the civiizations most studied, but many other scocities have attracted the interest of historians, including the Egyptians, the Maya, the Toltecs, and other civilizations. Many of these societies built magnificent cities envolving sophisticated arvhitecture and stunning works of art involving a huge effort and expenditure of resources. Some of these great cities were subsequently abandoned. which they then abandoned. This leaves historians with the need to explain why these cities were abandoned. after building them with such great effort? Rarely in early histories were ebnvironmental factors stressed. More modern historians are giving increasing attention to environmental factors. One historian points to environmental factors as a major cause for the decline of Angkor Wat, the Mayan civilization, the Easter Islands, Greater Zimbabwe, the Indus Valley and other civilizations. [Diamond] In more modern terms there are many failed and failing countries which have are exhausting their environmental resources, countries like Afghanistan, Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Somalia.

Astronomical Events

Astronomical events have the potential of causing huge environmrntal damage. This is because tgey are so powerful uncommon. Life evolves to normal environmental conditions. These events can abruptly change such conditions. A collpsing nova has the potential of emiting a burst of energy in the form of X-rays which even frim the great distances involved could whipe out all life on earth. Such an event is, however, highly unlikely. Much more common are meteors and comets striking earth. Depending the size of the object, these events can have a massive climatic event. Most meteors are small shooting stars which are vaporized in the atmosphere. Larger meteors have struck the planrent.There have beem much larger events. The best known is the Chicxulub event off Yucatan which is believed to have caused a planet wide winter which destroyed the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. Most meteors cause only localized damage. Comets can also have disatrous impacts. The Tunguska event in Siberia is believed to have been a comet impact (1908). The local impact was devestating. A much more common astronomical event is sun spots which can have significant climatic impacts. Astronomers have detected an 11-year cycle, although it is subject to significant variation over time.

Collapsing Civilizations

Some authors have stressed environmental factors or probably more accurately states how societies effectively utilize their environments. There are many examples in history of great socities collapsing. Attempting to understand the forces at play have facinated historians. Historians debate over the causes for the collapse of these societies. One of the great works of history is Gibon's The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire. Historians have often persued the collapse of civilizations as romantic mysteries. Rome has been one of the civilizations most studied, but many other scocities have attracted the interest of historians, including the Egyptians, the Maya, the Toltecs, and other civilizations. Many of these societies built magnificent cities envolving sophisticated arvhitecture and stunning works of art involving a huge effort and expenditure of resources. Some of these great cities were subsequently abandoned. which they then abandoned. This leaves historians with the need to explain why these cities were abandoned. after building them with such great effort? Rarely in early histories were ebnvironmental factors stressed.

Enviromental Collapse

More modern historians are giving increasing attention to environmental factors. One historian points to environmental factors as a major cause for the decline of Angkor Wat, the Anasazi, the Easter Islands, Greater Zimbabwe, the Indus Valley, the Mayan civilization, and other civilizations. [Diamond] A wide range of archaeological and other studies now suggest these previously poorly understood collapses reslted from environmental factors, in many cases "self-inflicted ecological suicides", human activity which undermined the environmenal underpinnings of the civilization. Until modern times most civilizations were agricuktural civilizations and thus the collapse of civilization were largely human activity which exhausted agricultural land or otherwise impaired agiculture.

Environmental Problems

Ancient civilizations faced many of the same environmental challenges faced by modern countries. The greatly increased population and resource utilization has exacerbated the environmental problems, but many are not new. In addition technology has created new tools to deal with environmental challrnges. Some of the major environmental concerns are: deforestation, destruction of tropical rainforests, intensive commercial ishing, soil erosion, soil desalinization, climate change, exaustion of fresh water resources, photosynthetic ceiling, depletion and over utilzation of fossil fuels, rising levels of toxics in water, food and soil, population groth, and rising per capita resource utilization. These and other environmental problems have overcome some, but not all civilizations.

Modern Civilizations

The echological dynamic that destroyed ancient civilizations are many of the same concerns that confront modern society. There are, however, some differences. The world's population, resource utilization, and resulting population is far greater than ever before. This is on a global scale. There are countries and areas which today have smaller populations than in ealier times, such as Easter Island, Ireland, Peru, Yuvatan, and other areas. Modern societies also have greater technological resources to address the problem. Modern science provides a far more sophisticated understanding of ecological processes. Even so, the same political processes which prevented ancient civilizations from preventing environmental collapse are still present in modern civilizations.

Communism

One interesting development in the 20th century was the pillaging of the environment by Communist countries. A Marxist might have argued in the early 20th century that capitalist would ravage the natural resources and destructively pollute the environment. There were certainly many instances of just that in America and Wrestern Europe. Yet the democratic countries of Western Europe and North America managed to regulate industry to limit the impact and in many cases repair some of the environmental damage. Marxist might have also argued that state ownership of the means of production would prevent environmental damage because the state would manage industry in the best interests of the people and nation. Since the collspse of Communis in the late 1980s we have found this was not the case. Not only were workers not protected from unsafe workplaces, but enormoous environmental damage was done in the name of increasing production. All of the former Communist states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia now confront serious environmentall problems including industrial sites that are ecological nightmares.

Failing Countries

In more modern terms there are many failed and failing countries which have are exhausting their environmental resources, countries like Afghanistan, Haiti, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Somalia.

Sources

Diamond, Jared. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.








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Created: February 16, 2003
Last updated: 7:43 PM 12/16/2010