Jared Diamond of Guns, Germs and Steel fame came to give a talk at UC Davis today. Scott Rozelle teaches the book to his development economics class, so he organized a bunch of us to attend the talk. It was held at the medical building all the way across campus, past the fields, cows, walnut trees, and dirt plazas. The 4pm sun made us sweat where our back, shirt, and backpack meet.
The room was crowded with people sitting on tables and standing where they could. We sat on the shiny smooth concrete steps bordering the lecture hall. It was probably double the stipulated capacity that make fire marshalls comfortable.
Diamond's talk was on the sudden decline of societies from environmental degradation, with a focus on Easter Island. Easter Island being the extreme case of deforestation and environmental suicide. They chopped down all the trees on the island and killed off all the land birds and most of the sea bird species to the point where the subtropical island became desolate. No more canoes to hunt porpoises and no more wood to erect monster stone statues. His aim was apparently to get us to find the analogue in our own world; our ongoing process of depleting the rainforest and our fisheries and closer to home, the salinazation of Central Valley soil (why the fertile crescent is no longer fertile served as the warning).
His talk was good, but was like dialup. I need the broadband, you $5000-a-lecture-bum. Where are the pictures? Where are the stories of Papua New Guinea? When are you going to get up and dance?
I think reading his book is much more exciting and immersing than his talk - but it's still worthwhile to do either.
