About the Global Footprint Network
Our mission is to promote a sustainable economy by advancing the Ecological
Footprint, a measurement tool that makes the reality of planetary limits
relevant to decision-makers.
Book Review: Collapse: How Societies Choose or Fail to Succeed, by Jared Diamond
For the first time in history, human society as a whole is facing
the possibility of ecological collapse. In Jared Diamond's new book,
the Pulitzer Prize winning author presents the reasons why certain
human populations throughout history have experienced collapse. He
explores the factors, often based in ecological limits, that led to
the collapse and explores why populations fail to see collapse
coming or if they do, why they often fail to act.
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Diamond asserts that these cases present important implications for the present
and future saying that: "even the richest, technologically most advanced
societies today face growing environmental and economic problems that should
not be underestimated. Many of our problems are broadly similar to those
that ... many other past societies also struggled to solve. The past offers us a
rich database from which we can learn."
