Date: May 26, 2008(Mon.), 10：30‐12：00PM
Venue:3rd floor,Center for Integrated Area Studies
【Record of Activity】
In this first seminar of the group to discuss works by Jared Diamond, there was a brief introduction of Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed and an introductory discussion on how Diamond’s arguments relate to the themes of G-COE.
In Collapse, Jared Diamond organizes the factors leading to the collapse of a society into five categories: environmental destruction, climatic change, presence of hostile groups, decline of aid from allies, and unsuitable social institutions and cultural values. He enumerates how past and present-day societies were forced into collapse by these factors or how they sustained themselves by successfully eliminating those factors. Through these examples, he shows that among these 5 factors, although climate change does not inevitably lead to collapse, for societies weakened, for example, by environmental destruction, it can be the final blow. Furthermore, he points out the possibility that a culture evolved in one location may hinder the ability to adapt to the environment in a different location, leading to environmental destruction and eventually societal collapse. In the final chapter, he suggests that the essential principle for survival of any society, regardless of how drastically cultural values change, is that there is a shift in values and policies to protect the environment and to not hope that technological advance always solve problems that threaten societies.
If we interpret the necessary conditions for sustainable humanosphere development, which is the theme of G-COE, using the framework presented in Collapse, it is necessary to first determine if a society under the present conditions (climatic, etc.) is sustainable -- which is to say that industry (agriculture, mining, manufacturing) is not environmentally destructive (exploitive). Next, it is necessary to determine if a society is responsive to climate change, and furthermore, whether it has the capacity (infrastructure) to carry out the necessary adaptations. Here, it is suggested that societies that are able to adapt to climate change can take one of two forms: societies in which sustainability concerns are overwhelmed by productivity and societies that are driven by sustainability . In the former case, a society which is robust enough to handle climate change is created in advance, whereby the population is limited to a sustainable level in terms of food production capacity or, conversely, the food production capacity is engineered such that a particular population can be sustained. In the latter case, preparation for emergency situations is made by creating strong networks between societies, or by putting aside old values and allowing more adaptive responses in times of emergency.
Participants’ responses to these comments included, for example, the opinion that it is necessary to think of a change in values and technological innovations not as two separate means to ensure a sustainable future but as parts of an inseparable whole.
(Keisuke Hoshikawa)