The Women’s College CORE 2401
University of Denver The Human Population
Dr. Narey Spring 2005
Collapse Discussion Points – Part IV
Continue mapping locations mentioned in Collapse, and developing the vocabulary list. Add new outline maps as you need them.
Chapter 9
1. What contrasting approaches may be brought to bear upon environmental problems? Which scale of society can best employ which approach? Why? What is expected of the King of Tonga? What problems beset medium-sized societies but not large or small ones, in this context? What problems may arise from overlapping jurisdictions? [277-279]
2. How long has New Guinea been inhabited? What sort of subsistence strategies do they pursue? What did Europeans think of the country? How is that perception ill-informed? What can be the outcome of intervention? Does environmental familiarity matter? Why is there such a disregard for obviously successful indigenous strategies? How do New Guineans manage their resources? How do these practices promote sustainability? Evaluate the available wood resource. What is “silviculture” in this context? Evaluate Casuaria oligodon ecology. What distinguishes New Guineans, according to Diamond, in reacting to new objects or information? What population problems beset the New Guinea highlanders? [279-286]
3. Consider the case of Tikopia. What strategies worked for them? How were their resources limited? How did they manage to control population and provide an adequate food supply? What major decision points faced the Tikopians? What is the current structure of Tikopian society? How do they manage their resources now? [286-293]
4. Consider feudal Japan. What principles does Japan apply to forest management? What were the social impacts of centralized Tokugawa control? What factors allowed the population to grow quickly? How receptive to trade was Tokugawa Japan? ... to missionaries? What was the outcome of self-imposed isolation? How did Japan function economically? How did they manage their resources? Consider the critical imortance of wood resources. ... of agricultural resources. What side outcomes did logging produce? What conflicts did “multiple use” generate? What were the impacts on other resources? [294-299]
5. What Confucian principles promoted sustainability? What subsistence strategies changed? How did this affect indigenous Ainu? How did Japan manage population control? What, essentially, came to be Japan’s “Energy Policy”? How was the resource protected? How do tree plantations differ from forests? [299-304]
6. What social institutions led to Japan’s environmental solutions? ... physical advantages? Is democracy a destabilizing influence on environment? How do expectations for the future affect resource management choices? [304-306]
7. How have bottom-up solutions to sustainability worked? Does world-view matter? Does planning horizon matter? What societal requirements seem to be involved? How does the Indian caste system function in this regard? Consider this statement, well-known in environmental literature: “The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment.” What does this imply for sustainability? [306-309]
Chapter 10
1. What are population growth rates like in Africa? What are the proximate causes of this population growth? Draw a graph of the Malthusian process as Diamond describes it. By what eventual means is population growth halted? Is intervention by social institutions possible? [311-313]
2. What were the proximate causes of genocide in Rwanda? ... the ultimate causes? How did it all boil over? How many were killed? How many fled? [313-317]
3. What political motives impelled the Rwandan genocide? What happened to the Twa people? How are Hutu and Tutsi similar? [317-319]
4. Consider population density in Rwanda. What limitations were missing there? What changes in family life and composition were critical for Rwanda by 1993? Was the food supply sufficient? What about a gap between rich and poor in this context? What is land tenure like? ... conflict mediation? What were the outcomes of disputes over land? How did adversarial legal relationships develop? What happened to “social security” in Rwanda? [319-324]
5. How are crime rates, high population density, and food shortage related? What was variable about death rates? Who were the likeliest targets? What is the purpose of internecine war? [324-326]
6. How did proximate and ultimate causes become mixed in Rwanda? What misunderstandings arise when linking cause and effect? Who benefitted? Who succumbed? [326-328]
2