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12/29/2004: "Greenland Paradise Lost"

On Christmas Eve I wrote about the demise of the Easter Island ecosystem. By an astounding coincidence, this week’s New Yorker had a review of the book “Collapse” by Jared Diamond. The coincidence was that the review spotlighted the same collapse, echoing many of the same points. For example, the reviewer quotes Diamond: “I have often asked myself, ‘What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it.’” I didn’t write based on Diamond’s book, which I discovered only yesterday. Indeed, I wrote most the text for the 12/24 entry several years ago (long story). In any case, great minds think alike. Diamond cites another example of societal self-destruction that the New Yorker devoted even more attention to than Easter Island: the demise of the Viking civilization in Greenland. The Viking settlement was doomed by their insistence on maintaining a European lifestyle in an ecosystem much smaller and more fragile than Europe’s. The key point is that simple compromises could have saved this society, but their culture did not have the flexibility to adapt. In other words, they were doomed by their attachment to unsustainable practices, even far past the point where it had to be clear that these practices could not be sustained. While some might see this in the abstract, Rush Limbaugh is a personification of the attitudes that must have preceded the demise of the Easter Island and Greenland cultures. Rush is the poster child for the attitude that “God gave us this way of life so of course we can continue it forever.” Just look at today’s Rush Insight to Ponder! Case closed.