Pensava eu que o meu pessimismo em relação ao futuro do mundo era apenas uma coisa geracional, afinal de contas é indiscutível que estou a ficar velho.
Isto até ouvir uma palestra por Jared Diamond numa Universidade australiana gravada e distribuida em Podcast.
Afinal não é da minha idade. O mundo está mesmo a ficar mal. Ou melhor, a sociedade humana, está a ficar mal.
Para os interessados: Ideas Lecture 2005 – Griffith University Podcasts – June 2nd,2005
Jared Diamond presented his strong ideas about the choices societies make, what we will face in the future and how we can learn from the past. (como citar um podcast em NP-405?)
Os pensamentos que atravessaram a mente do homem que cortou a última àrvore na ilha da páscoa é imperdível, e provavelmente profética dos pensamentos do homem que gastar o último barril de petróleo na Terra.
A palestra foca principalmente o mais recente livro do académico cujo resumo informa:
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
The ruined cities, temples, and statues of past societies that vanished pose famous romantic mysteries. Recently it has been appreciated that these societies pose more than romantic mysteries: their collapses were due in part to the types of environmental problems that beset us today. The long list of victims includes Easter Island, the Anasazi, the Lowland Maya, Angkor Wat, Great Zimbabwe, and many others.
But this subject is complicated, because many other societies did not collapse, and self-inflicted environmental damage inevitably interacts with climate change and relations with friendly or hostile neighbors. What makes certain societies especially vulnerable? Why didn’t their leaders perceive and solve their environmental problems? What can we learn from their fates, and what can we do differently today to help us avoid their fates?
