Yet the opposite is true: radiocarbon dating of middens revealed a former pinyon-juniper woodland that is now absent from the canyon. Another chapter contends that the ancient people of the American southwest, the Anasazi, did not deforest Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, that “there was never a forest in the canyon” and that analysis of plant remains in ancient pack-rat middens there “reveal a climate and ecology almost exactly like that which exists today”. CONFUSE: HOW JARED DIAMOND FAILS TO CONVINCE Julian Morris In his latest book, Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed, Jared Diamond attempts to provide a scientific account of the causes of societal collapse: 'This book employs the comparative method to understand societal collapse to which environmental problems contribute. For instance, one chapter claims that the Greenland Norse people emigrated rather than dying out, despite no evidence for that claim and despite graphic archaeological evidence of starvation - bones and debris in the topmost archaeological layer from the final winter of the Greenland Western Settlement's existence.

However, in forcing all of history into their framework, they resort to errors and implausible extremes. Diamond first explores the behavior of corporations in resource extraction industries such as petroleum, hardrock mining, logging, and fisheries, showing the interplay of factors that drive ecologically benign or harmful behavior. The editors state that each contributing author is “deeply concerned about the inaccuracies of popular portrayals and feels that students and laypersons alike deserve to read a better story”.

Jared diamond collapse pdf