Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (103 page)

mons"
Annual Reviews of Political Science
2: 493-535 (1999); Elinor Ostrom et al.,
"Revisiting the commons: local lessons, global challenges"
Science
284:278-282 (1999); and Thomas Dietz, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul Stern, "The struggle to govern
the commons"
Science
302:1907-1912 (2003).

Barbara Tuchman,
The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
(New York: Bal-
lantine Books, 1984) covers disastrous decisions over exactly the time span that she
names in the book's title, also reflecting en route from Troy to Vietnam on the follies of the Aztec emperor Montezuma, the fall of Christian Spain to the Moslems,
England's provocation of the American Revolution, and other such self-destructive
acts. Charles Mackay,
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
(New York: Barnes and Noble, 1993, reprint of the original 1852 edition) covers an
even wider range of follies than does Tuchman, including (just to name a few) the
South Sea bubble in 18th-century England, tulip madness in 17th-century Holland, prophecies of the Last Judgment, the Crusades, witch hunting, belief in
ghosts and sacred relics, dueling, and kings' decrees about hair length, beards, and
mustaches. Irving Janis,
Groupthink
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983, revised 2nd
ed.) explores the subtle group dynamics that contributed to the success or failure of deliberations involving recent American presidents and their advisors. Janis's
case studies are of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, the American army's crossing of
the 38th parallel in Korea in 1950, American's non-preparation for Japan's 1941
Pearl Harbor attack, America's escalation of the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1967,
the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and America's adoption of the Marshall Plan in
1947.

Garrett Hardin's classic and often-cited article "The tragedy of the commons"
appeared in
Science
162:1243-1248 (1968). Mancur Olson applies the metaphor of
stationary bandits and roving bandits to Chinese warlords and other extractive
agents in "Dictatorship, democracy, and development"
{American Political Science Review
87:567-576 (1993)). Sunk-cost effects are explained by Hal Arkes and Peter
Ayton, "The sunk cost and Concorde effects: are humans less rational than lower
animals?"
(Psychological Bulletin
125:591-600 (1999)), and by Marco Janssen et al.,
"Sunk-cost effects and vulnerability to collapse in ancient societies"
[Current An
thropology
44:722-728 (2003)).

Chapter 15

Two books on the oil industry's history and on scenarios for its future are: Kenneth
Deffeyes,
Hubbert's Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage
(Princeton, N.J.: Prince
ton University Press, 2001); and Paul Roberts,
The End of Oil
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004). For a perspective within the industry, a place to start would be the websites of the major international oil companies, such as that of ChevronTexaco:
www.chevrontexaco.com

.

Fact-filled publications on the state of the mining industry were produced by

). Some books on environmental issues raised by mining
are: Duane Smith,
Mining America: The Industry and the Environment, 1800-1980
(Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 1993); Thomas Power,
Lost Landscapes and
Failed Economies: The Search for a Value of Place
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press,
1996); Jerrold Marcus, ed.,
Mining Environmental Handbook: Effects of Mining on the Environment and American Environmental Controls on Mining
(London: Impe
rial College Press, 1997); and Al Gedicks,
Resource Rebels: Native Challenges to Min
ing and Oil Corporations
(Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 2001). Two books
describing the collapse of copper mining on the island of Bougainville, triggered in
part by environmental impacts, are: M. O'Callaghan,
Enemies Within: Papua New
Guinea, Australia, and the Sandline Crisis: The Inside Story
(Sydney: Doubleday,
1999); and Donald Denoon,
Getting Under the Skin: The Bougainville Copper Agree
ment and Creation of the Panguna Mine
(Melbourne: Melbourne University Press,
2000).

Information about forest certification may be obtained from the website of the
Forest Stewardship Council:
www.fscus.org

. For a comparison of forest certification by the FSC with other forest certification schemes, see Saskia Ozinga,
Behind
the Logs: An Environmental and Social Assessment of Forest Certification Schemes
(Moreton-in-Marsh, UK: Fern, 2001). Two books on the history of deforestation
are John Perlin,
A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization
(New York: Norton, 1989); and Michael Williams,
Deforesting the Earth: From
Prehistory to Global Crisis
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).

Information about fisheries certification may be obtained from the Web site of the Marine Stewardschip Council:
www.msc.org

overfishing is: Jeremy Jackson et al, "Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems"
{Science
293:629-638 (2001)). The discovery that aquacul-
tured salmon contain higher concentrations of toxic contaminates than do wild
salmon was reported by Ronald Hits et al, "Global assessment of organic contami
nates in farmed salmon"
(Science
303:226-229: 2004).

It would be impossible to understand environmental practices of big businesses
without first understanding the realities of what companies must do to survive in
an intensely competitive business world. Three widely read books on this subject
are: Thomas Peters and Robert Waterman Jr.,
In Search of Excellence: Lessons from
Americas Best-Run Companies
(New York: HarperCollins, 1982, republished in
2004); Robert Waterman Jr.,
The Renewal Factor: How the Best Get and Keep the
Competitive Edge
(Toronto: Bantam Books, 1987); and Robert Waterman Jr.,
Ad-
hocracy: The Power to Change
(New York: Norton, 1990).

Books that discuss the circumstances under which businesses may be environ
mentally constructive rather than destructive include Tedd Saunders and Loretta
McGovern,
The Bottom Line of Green Is Black: Strategies for Creating Profitable and
Environmentally Sound Businesses
(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993); and
Jem Bendell, ed.,
Terms for Endearment: Business NGOs and Sustainable Develop
ment
(Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf, 2000).

Chapter 16

Some books, published since 2001, that provide an overview of current environ
mental problems and an introduction to the large literature on this subject include:
Stuart Pimm,
The World According to Pimm: A Scientist Audits the Earth
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001); Lester Brown's three books
Eco-economy: Building an Economy for the Earth
(New York: Norton, 2001),
Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and Civilization in Trouble
(New York: Norton, 2003), and
State of the World
(New York:
Norton, published annually since 1984); Edward Wilson,
The Future of Life
(New
York: Knopf, 2002); Gretchen Daily and Katherine Ellison,
The New Economy of
Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press,
2002); David Lorey, ed.,
Global Environmental Challenges of the Twenty-first Cen
tury: Resources, Consumption, and Sustainable Solutions
(Wilmington, Del: Scholarly Resources, 2003); Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich,
One with Nineveh: Politics,
Consumption, and the Human Future
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2004); and
James Speth,
Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).

The Further Readings for Chapter 15 provided references for problems of de
forestation, overfishing, and oil. Vaclav Smil,
Energy at the Crossroads: Global Per
spectives and Uncertainties
(Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003) offers an account
not only of oil, coal, and gas but also of other forms of energy production. The biodiversity crisis and habitat destruction are discussed by John Terborgh,
Where Have

All the Birds Gone?
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1989) and
Requiem
for Nature
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999); David Quammen,
Song of the
Dodo
(New York: Scribner, 1997); and Marjorie Reaka-Kudla et al., eds.,
Biodiversity
2: Understanding and Protecting Our Biological Resources
(Washington, D.C.: Joseph
Henry Press, 1997).

Some recent papers on coral reef destruction are: T. P. Hughes, "Climate
change, human impacts, and the resilience of coral reefs"
{Science
301:929-933 (2003)); J. M. Pandolfi et al., "Global trajectories of the long-term decline of coral
reef ecosystems"
{Science
301:955-958 (2003)); and D. R. Bellwood et al, "Con
fronting the coral reef crisis"
{Nature
429:827-833 (2004)).

Books on soil problems include the classic Vernon Gill Carter and Tom Dale,
Topsoil and Civilization,
revised ed. (Norman: University of Okalahoma Press,
1974), and Keith Wiebe, ed.,
Land Quality, Agricultural Productivity, and Food Secu
rity: Biophysical Processes and Economic Choices at Local, Regional, and Global Levels
(Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2003). Articles offering different perspectives
on soil problems are David Pimentel et al., "Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits"
{Science
267:1117-1123 (1995)); Stanley
Trimble and Pierre Crosson, "U.S. soil erosion rates
—myth and reality"
{Science
289:248-250 (2000)); and a set of eight articles by various authors, published in
Science
304:1613-1637 (2004).

For issues concerning the world's water supplies, see the reports authored by
Peter Gleick and published every two years: e.g., Peter Gleick,
The World's Water,
1998-1999: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources
(Washington, D.C.: Island
Press, 2000). Vernon Scarborough,
The Flow of Power: Ancient Water Systems and
Landscapes
(Santa Fe: School of American Research, 2003) compares solutions to
water problems in ancient societies around the world.

A global accounting of the fraction of solar energy utilized by plant photosynthesis (termed "net primary production") was offered by Peter Vitousek et al., "Hu
man domination of Earth's ecosystems"
{Science
277:494-499 (1997)), and updated
and broken down by region by Mark Imhoff et al. "Global patterns in human con
sumption of net primary production"
{Nature
429:870-873 (2004)).

Effects of toxic chemicals on living things, including humans, are summarized
by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peterson Myers,
Our Stolen Future
(New York: Plume, 1997). One specific example of the high economic costs of toxic
and other impacts on an entire ecosystem is an account for Chesapeake Bay: Tom
Horton and William Eichbaum,
Turning the Tide: Saving the Chesapeake Bay
(Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1991).

Among books offering good accounts of global warming and climate change
are Steven Schneider,
Laboratory Earth: The Planetary Gamble We Can't Afford to
Lose
(New York: Basic Books, 1997); Michael Glantz,
Currents of Change: Impacts of
El Nino and La Nina on Climate and Society,
2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-