Analysis Of Collapse By Jared Diamond

Even though they might not be the main reason, it is clear that social problems play an important role in environmental troubles. One environmental problem that we continue to see again and again is famine. Famine is an important issue because it can lead to malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increase in mortality. In the article Collapse, written by Jared Diamond, he discusses how societies seem to be failing. One of the main reasons why societies are failing is because individuals or groups fail to solve their problems such as population growth, poverty, and resource degradation. Looking back to week nine of Professor Cliggett’s lecture, we talked about issues that come about because of population growth. Some of the main issues included lack of food and lack of resources. We talked about a man named Thomas R. Malthus who stated, “Human population grows exponentially, but agriculture increases linearly.”(Cliggett 2014a) He believed that if we

One concept that Diamond brings up in his article and we saw in lecture during week eight is the term “Tragedy of Commons.” This term was proposed by Garret Hardin and projected that “individuals using a common pool resource would degrade it as they tried to maximize their utility (unless government imposed regulations).”(Cliggett 2014b) This is saying that when people are going to make decisions, they are only thinking about helping themselves. This causes some people to get more, while others get less, causing a line between the rich and the poor. The poor that are left with very little then lack basic needs and can become malnourished. Another term that is related to this process of decision-making was brought up in Diamonds article called “crowd psychology.” It refers to how the thought processes and behavior patterns of the individual often vary from those of a larger group. Individuals in groups tend to follow what everyone else is