A Tale of Two Farms

"The monumental ruins left behind by those past societies hold a romantic fascination for all of us." (Diamond 20).

We often are amazed as children when we first learn of these interesting ruins through pictures and when we grow up we plan many vacations just so we can experience seeing them up close. We gain this attachment to the spectacular beauty of it all and you can tell that the ruins tell an incredible story. When you look at all these huge and mighty buildings you begin to wonder how can a society who created such power in their buildings not still be around today. This makes me think about America and how we are seen as such a powerful country but how long will that power last? Rome may not have been built in a day but it is now just a monument of a once great people the Romans; the rate America is going it might not be long until America falls as well.

Photos by: pixelkuss.com

"It has long been suspected that many of those mysterious abandonments were at least partly triggered by ecological problems: people inadvertently destroying the environmental resources on which their societies depended." (Diamond 20).

This suspicion has been confirmed by discoveries found in recent decades by archaeologists, historians, climatologists, etc. Past societies have brought their own downfall on themselves by damaging their environment with deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems, water management problems, overhunting, overfishing, human population growth, etc. Population growth made people adopt increased means for agricultural production so they could supply food to the growing number of people who needed it. Consequences of this was food shortage, starvation, and wars between the people fighting over the little resources available. In the end population decreased and the society lost their political, economic, and cultural edge that it once had. 

 

Photos Concept by: Jason Reid

"Environmental problems that are hard to manage today were surely even harder to manage in the past." (Diamond 25).

In the past societies we were not able to read about ecological damage and other things like we can today. The societies that ended up collapsing were just like us and they were prone to either fail or succeed. Yes, there may be be some differences between the situations the past faced and what we face today but there are still enough similarities that we can learn from thanks to what happened in the past. We are lucky that now we have the technology and knowledge to help us out so that we will not become a collapsed society but actually flourish for generations to come. 

Photo Concept by: Lisa Crew