These buildings today can be visited in Mesa Verde National Park, the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, and several other areas. The large-scale abandonment, hundreds of years ago, of many large dwellings in the Southwestern USA. Diamond also describes the abandonment of three other Polynesian Islands, Pitcairn, Henderson, and Mangareva. Recent analysis suggests that the following events occurred relatively rapidly, destroying the local environment and its resources, after humans migrated to the island around 900 AD: agricultural intensification, deforestation, the killing of many wild species of fish, birds, and porpoises for food. Here is a brief list of the examples Diamond provides:Įaster Island – a once-prosperous society that completely disappeared hundreds of years ago. These stories are well-worth reading, as they assist the reader in understanding the extent to which we are already “doomed to repeat” our past mistakes. Several chapters in Diamond’s book describe in detail the collapse of a number of previous societies. He points out, for example, that the dairy industry in the Bitterroot Valley of southwestern Montana has declined from 400 dairies in 1964 to only nine by the time he published the book. He chose Montana to start the book for various reasons, partly because he has had many visits there and was able to describe specific examples of these problems, and to point out that if Montana has these problems, then those issues are greatly heightened in other states that have a much higher population density and much more loss of natural habitat. In his book, Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed (2005), Jared Diamond’s first chapter uses cases in Montana as examples of problems of environmental degradation, climate change, drought, deforestation, population growth, contamination of water and soil from mines, habitat loss, soil loss and degradation, water loss, wildfires, and increases in invasive plants. The Collapse of Previous Complex Civilizations In the section of this website on “ Ecosystems, Economics, and Paradigm Shifts,” and its various subsections, I describe a number of factors that contribute to degradation of ecosystems, which results in degradation of our soil and water resources, which impacts our ability to raise food.Īlso refer to the section, " The Dust Bowl Revisited," for the historical context of soil and water degradation in the USA. Within this website, refer to the sections on Herbicides, and in particular, the section, “ How Research on Pesticides is Funded,” where you will learn that research funding comes from the chemical corporations that produce these pesticides, essentially allowing the fox to guard the henhouse (to use another overused adage). And we seem to be ignoring the role that all plants, even invasive ones, play in protecting soil and water resources.Īnd in our management strategies, rather than carrying out carefully researched (and well-funded) strategies, in most locations, the first strategy is often the only strategy – loading fields (and therefore, soils, waters, and ultimately, our foods) with herbicides, insecticides, and other pesticides, with little attention paid to the long-term consequences of such actions. For example, when we dub any plant as “weed” or “invasive,” we often ignore the historical reasons that these plants are here in the first place. In my research on management of invasive plants, I found numerous instances where we seem to be ignoring history. No matter the origin, the sentiments are eternal. The old adage, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it,” is pertinent here.Īccording to the modern oracle known as The Internet, the original source of this adage may be the Spanish philosopher, George Santayana (The Life of Reason, 1905), who stated: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”Īnd in a 1948 speech to the British House of Commons, Winston Churchill said, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Unless we pay attention to the many factors that have enabled non-native plants to invade farmlands, we will be continuously wasting many resources on a losing battle, and we may in fact make the problem worse. I became interested in creating this website for a variety of reasons, but one of them is my concern that, if we don’t figure this out, we may be dooming ourselves for a disastrous future. Delena Norris-Tull, Professor Emerita of Science Education, University of Montana Western, May, 2022. History: Those who ignore it are doomed to repeat it Photo: Degradation of farmland on the Loess Plateau, north of Xi'an, China.
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