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As George Carlin said, we don't need to save Earth, we must save ourselves! Because after humans are gone, the planet will go on.

And that's no joke.

Daddyo wrote:

If only they had quit burning fossil fuels and eating meat they would be here today, someone should have warned them.

You're being sarcastic, but civilizations have frequently consumed themselves to death. Easter Island, for example, had a thriving culture on it until they chopped down all of their trees. This caused an environmental collapse that resulted in a starvation-induced die-off. There's no reason to believe that we're above such an end.

Sternum wrote:

Daddyo wrote:

If only they had quit burning fossil fuels and eating meat they would be here today, someone should have warned them.

You're being sarcastic, but civilizations have frequently consumed themselves to death. Easter Island, for example, had a thriving culture on it until they chopped down all of their trees. This caused an environmental collapse that resulted in a starvation-induced die-off. There's no reason to believe that we're above such an end.

You're right, I am being sarcastic. I understand the relationship between humans staying alive and the environment surrounding them, but I have a problem with "experts" when they claim to know the exact reason something happened 1500 years ago.
This theory is "the definitive " one until someone else comes up with another theory. So the pollen density changed, we don't know if it was because they chopped all the trees down, that is an assumption. Maybe a disease ravaged the forrest or possibly something like the pine beetle killed them off. These experts know that the forrest went away but everything else is conjecture.
Then again, maybe the Nazca did chop all their trees down.

Other than proving that the forrest disappeared, where did they state the proof that humans chopped all of the trees down?

Sounds like some good 'ol stratigraphy.

Wrong. It was Aliens. From outer space.

I read an article somewhere which asserted that European were, in fact, among the guilty parties. I wish I could remember where I found it. War and political struggle aren't the same as chopping down every tree and killing every animal. There is strong evidence that the few surviving Easter-Islanders were willing to go along with the bogus story that their own people were responsible for the decimation because they no-longer knew their own history, were rewarded for making statements which supported the false history, and punished for saying things which contradicted it.

Lots of books are based on "received wisdom," and are therefore mistaken.

Precisely. Thank you.

You mean the article I mentioned? Like I said, I can't recall where I saw it.

Bren wrote:

Lots of books are based on "received wisdom," and are therefore mistaken.

This specific book is actually well researched, so either attack the specific book or STFU.

I'm not going to attack the book. I've heard the guy interviewed on NPR. I've read articles about his work in scientific publications. He's cool. I like him. Easter Island is just one of the civilizations his book deals with. I'm sure most of his book is correct.

But like I said, much of the received wisdom is wrong. There are plenty of very good books, for example, which will tell you the Egyptians built the great pyramid. They're wrong.