Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway -- The collapse of Western civilization
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This book is a bit of a spoof, actually, but a very serious and grim
one.

Oreskes and Conway decided to write science fiction that shows you a
future will be like if you, if all of us, do not change our ways.

You can compare this with "Collapse", by Jared Diamond, where
Diamond looks back at past societies that have collapsed, describes
them, and asks something like: "What were they thinking when they
used up the last tree or exhausted their important resources in some
other way.

Oreskes and Conway are, analogously, trying to prod us into asking
ourselves what we could possibly be thinking as we trash our own
environment and the essential resources that we need.

But, this is, as we say, a fool's errand, because there are so few,
if any, historical examples of societies that voluntarily voted to
*not* use the resources that are available to them.  A democratic
government is intended and explicitly designed to give the people
what they want, and we all want more.

This may be why Oreskes and Conway suggest that China is doing a
better job than the Western democracies.  Well, maybe marginally
better, but the Chinese government also knows that they have to
give lots of their citizens what they want in order to stay in
power.  And, that may partially explain what we hear about the
massive pollution of the atmosphere and rivers and the dramatic
depletion of underground water resources in China.

If you read "The collapse of complex societies", by Joseph Tainter,
you will take away the idea that a society is a resource consuming
organism.  That's part of it's inherent nature.  A society is an
organism that consumes resources, then grows as it does so, then
consumes more resources, then ...  repeat.

Look at what is our best hope of slowing the birth rate and the
growth of population of lesser developed societies -- Educate the
women and raise the standard of living, which will, we believe, lead
to each woman bearing fewer children.  Perhaps by doing so we would
move toward a lower birth rate and a slowed increase in population,
but since we would attain that by raising the standard of living in
that society, we would also likely use even more resources than we
formerly did.

Unfortunately, the alternative scenarios that reduce our destruction
of our environment and resources are so horrific that we refuse to
think them through.  A pandemic might do it, but that is frightening
to think about.  Perhaps that's why Oreskes and Conway's description
of that future is short, vague, and sanitized.  Oreskes and Conway's
dystopian future, is a future where it is too late for prevention,
and the only option is a slow rebuilding after that destruction.
And, note that Oreskes and Conway suggest that the future government
that guides these societies are not democratic and do not, give
their citizens what they want.  Although, I feel that it's mistaken
to believe that *any* government, whether democratic or autocratic,
can refuse to give it's citizens what they want and stay in power
for long.

It's a sobering book containing some very dark humor.

01/01/2015

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