People often ask, "What is the single most important environmental population problem facing the world today?" A flip answer would be, "The single most important problem is our misguided focus on identifying the single most important problem! Jared Diamond More Quotes by Jared Diamond More Quotes From Jared Diamond The metaphor is so obvious. Easter Island isolated in the Pacific Ocean — once the island got into trouble, there was no way they could get free. There was no other people from whom they could get help. In the same way that we on Planet Earth, if we ruin our own [world], we won't be able to get help. Jared Diamond ocean easter islands History as well as life itself is complicated -- neither life nor history is an enterprise for those who seek simplicity and consistency. Jared Diamond consistency simplicity complicated The adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. Jared Diamond agriculture adoption way Forced to choose between limiting population or trying to increase food production, we chose the latter and ended up with starvation, warfare, and tyranny. Jared Diamond warfare population trying Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping the outcomes [of the various societies' histories] towards success or failure: long-term planning and willingness to reconsider core values. On reflection we can also recognize the crucial role of these same two choices for the outcomes of our individual lives. Jared Diamond reflection two long Our biggest threat is not an asteroid about to crash into us, something we can do nothing about. Instead, all the major threats facing us today are problems entirely of our own making. And since we made the problems, we can also solve the problems. Jared Diamond motivation inspiration today In much of the rest of the world, rich people live in gated communities and drink bottled water. That's increasingly the case in Los Angeles where I come from. So that wealthy people in much of the world are insulated from the consequences of their actions. Jared Diamond community water people We're uncomfortable about considering history as a science. It's classified as a social science, which is considered not quite scientific. Jared Diamond uncomfortable social literature Human societies vary in lots of independent factors affecting their openness to innovation. Jared Diamond openness innovation independent The history of interactions among disparate peoples is what shaped the modern world through conquest, epidemics and genocide. Those collisions created reverberations that have still not died down after many centuries, and that are actively continuing in some of the world's most troubled areas. Jared Diamond modern epidemics world [W]hat makes patriotic and religious fanatics such dangerous opponents is not the deaths of the fanatics themselves, but their willingness to accept the deaths of a fraction of their number in order to annihilate or crush their infidel enemy. Jared Diamond crush patriotic religious But this was the only way of life that humans knew for their first 6m years on the planet. In giving it up over the past few thousand years, we have lost our vulnerability to disease and cold and wild animals, but we have also lost good ways to bring up children, look after old people, stave off diabetes and heart disease and understand the real dangers of everyday life. Jared Diamond real heart children The southward advance of native African farmers with Central African crops halted in Natal, beyond which Central African crops couldn't grow - with enormous consequences for the recent history of South Africa. Jared Diamond natal crops literature Biology is the science. Evolution is the concept that makes biology unique. Jared Diamond biology evolution unique In contrast [to trees and fish], oil, metals, and coal are not renewable; they don't reproduce, sprout, or have sex to produce baby oil droplets or coal nuggets. Jared Diamond oil baby sex Much of human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between the haves and the have-nots. Jared Diamond human-history conflict humans One person making a wrong decision affects the whole country. Jared Diamond wrong-decision decision country Technology has to be invented or adopted. Jared Diamond adopted technology [T]he values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs. Jared Diamond inappropriate triumph people Perhaps our greatest distinction as a species is our capacity, unique among animals, to make counter-evolutionary choices. Jared Diamond choices unique animal
