The Emperor Has No Clothes A Practical Guide for Environmental and Social Transformation (6 page)

If we consider the current status of how the
powerful vested interests are utilizing the techniques of PR to
shape a favorable climate for gleaning profits and power, their
presence has become much more pervasive and effective because of
the ubiquity of electronic communication, and advances in the
psychological and neuropsychological sciences.

Lets consider the current status of the
Military Industrial Complex and the PR themes that are being used
to support it. As I argued earlier the size and capabilities of the
U.S. military are far beyond what is needed to act as a deterrent
of an invasion of the United States by a foreign power. If we
consider the content of the current PR effort it has shifted from
creating fears of communism to creating fears of terrorism. Much of
the justification for the colossal defense expenditures is to have
adequate means to fight terrorism. If the nature of terrorist
activities are scrutinized, it is comprised of small numbers of
people in scattered locations. These are not large scale military
formations maintained by nation states for defense and/or conquest.
The terrorist activities have several political objectives: the
first purpose of their activities are to modify the national
policies of their targets. The second is to garner support of
sympathetic governments and their populations, basically it is an
aggressive and destructive form of PR. If we recall the stated
objectives for the recent invasion of Afghanistan by the United
States, the invasion was justified by the US government’s demand
that the Afghan government produce the terrorist Osama Bin Laden
for arrest by US authorities which didn’t occur. After the invasion
and conquest of Afghanistan took place it turned out that Mr. Bin
Laden decided to leave and wasn’t waiting there to be captured or
killed. If we consider terrorist group characteristics, I would
argue that combating terrorism is really more of a police style of
activity rather than one requiring large scale military forces.
Having another $13.5 billion aircraft carrier or greater numbers of
stealth aircraft simply isn’t useful for this application.
Fostering greater international cooperation would be though, and
perhaps if we practiced a less aggressive international policy it
would take some of the wind out of the terrorists sails.

From the current perspective how have the
fears of communism played out? China which was one of the greatest
communist Bogey Men during the cold war has turned out to be our
largest trading partner. Viet Nam is also a peaceful trading
partner and the domino theory used to justify the war with Viet Nam
simply didn’t take place.[13]

13.
The domino theory
indicated that if Viet Nam became a communist state the entire
region would like a row of dominoes progressively knocking
succeeding adjacent dominoes over.

Of course the United States is still being
threatened by communist Cuba, and the sanctions are still being
maintained. Don’t you feel threatened by Cuba? Also, why is Cuban
communism bad and Chinese communism now OK?

To sum up, it seems that what is really the
threat is one to the bottom line of the military industrial
complex, no Bogey Man no justification for huge defense
expenditures and profits!

~~~~~~~~~~

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

In this chapter we will consider a number of
societies and the most predominant factors that affected their
viability. The fundamental reason for a societies collapse, is an
inability of the members of the society to produce appropriate
responses to changes occurring in it's environment. The
contributing factors that underlay the maladaptive responses are,
rigidity arising from ignoring obvious problems, and flawed
appraisal of the situation. The most common underlying motivation
for this type of thinking is persistent ignorance, which arises
from being excessively invested in maintaining the status quo
and/or an ideology. The result, is an inability to realistically
evaluate the relative importance of options.

The first set of case studies:
these
are comprised of societies that collapsed as a result of an
inability to match the size of the population to the resource
base.

Easter Island
is located 3,500 km west
of the coast of South America and is one of the most remote islands
in the Pacific Ocean. It was originally colonized around 300 – 400
CE by Polynesians. [14

14. This date is the
generally accepted value but is not firm, the earliest radio carbon
dating is from 700-800 CE.

Using pollen analysis, tree casts, and plant
remains, it is known that prior to the arrival of the Polynesian
colonists the island was heavily wooded with tall trees and woody
bushes, composed of 16 plant species, the majority of them being
trees. The largest and most abundant trees were a now extinct
species of palm Paschalococos Dispertie, and is closely related to
the Chilean Wine Palm. The Chilean Wine Palm is still found in
South America where these trees grow to be 19.8 meters (65 feet)
tall with a trunk diameter of 1m (3 feet). The Paschalococos Palm
trees found on Easter island were the largest type of palm tree,
casts of trees that were buried in material from volcanic eruptions
have been found that are as large as 2.13 meters (7 feet) in
diameter. The sea surrounding the island had numerous fish species
and significant populations of porpoises. The underwater profile of
the base of the island slants down steeply causing the water to
deepen quickly thereby, significantly limiting fishing directly
from shore. The climate of the island is mild and receives adequate
rainfall, enough to sustain agricultural food production. The
surrounding ocean also could be used to provide additional food
from off shore fishing. All in all, one could say that Easter
Island was well suited for human occupation. The greatest
disadvantages for a human population was its isolation which
precluded oceanic trade and its small size (163.6 square
kilometers).

When the Polynesians set out to colonize a
new island they carried the kinds of plants and animals they
already had been cultivating or husbanding for food to be
established in the new location. The kinds of food that the
voyagers established on Easter island were chickens and the
cultivars taro, bananas, paper mulberry and sugar cane. They
usually were also accompanied by a few unintended additional
species that also arrived by hitching a ride primarily, rats and
insects.

Upon their arrival at Easter island the
Polynesian pioneers established their settlements on the most
favorable areas of the coast. The areas chosen were those that were
most agriculturally productive and also where it was convenient for
launching fishing expeditions. The pristine island provided a
robust means of subsistence for the early settlers. Over time the
population increased, in the initial stage of population expansion
the remaining most desirable areas were exploited for food
production. As the population continued to increase the less
desirable slanted hillsides were cleared of forest and put into
agricultural production. At the same time further pressure was
placed upon the islands forest resources to provide fuel for
cooking, and building materials in order to produce boats,
dwellings, and equipment.

The islanders practiced ancestor worship
which required the construction of colossal statues that were
generally around 10 meters high and weighed 82 tonnes. The largest
of the erected statues was an astonishing 18 meters high and a even
larger one that was being sculpted was 21 meters in length and
weighed 270 tonnes. The golden age of Easter Island statue
construction occurred between 1200 – 1500 CE, producing 887
statues. In order to move the statues to their mounting pedestals
and erect them required much large rope and many large timbers,
thereby, placing further demands on the islands forest resources.
Physical evidence suggests that deforestation of the island was
complete some time between 1400 -1600 CE which coincides with the
end of the statue building era. Moreover, in 1722 the first
European contact was made by a Dutch ship captained by master
Roggeveen, who noted that the island had no forests but many large
standing statues. Captain Roggeveen remained at the island for only
a short stay because he thought that the islanders where cannibals.
The island was subsequently visited in 1770 by a Spanish ship whose
records indicated that the statues were still standing. Later in
1774 Captain James Cook visited the island and reported that many
of the statues had been toppled. The prevalence of cannibalism or
how long it may have been practiced is not known. Some additional
sparse physical evidence exists besides Captain Roggeveen's
suppositions, that indicate that cannibalism was practiced. This
evidence is comprised of tool marks found on human skeletal remains
that are indicative of their use for the process of dismemberment.
During this period the Easter islanders where also living in stone
huts with very low entry ways that requires one to crawl in to the
dwelling. This type of architectural feature is usually
incorporated into buildings for defensive purposes. A low entryway,
places an intruder in a vulnerable position when entering, further
suggesting that violence was a feature of the society at that time.
The population when Captain Roggeveen visited has been estimated to
be around 2,000 – 3,000 persons, down from around 10,000 persons in
the 15th century. Archaeological evidence suggests that the
population declined from the 15th century level gradually to the
18th century value. In the 19th century it was further reduced to
around 1200, as a result of abductions by slavers and the
accompanying violence associated with this practice. In 1868
slavery had been made illegal in South America and the 15 surviving
Easter Islanders were repatriated at that time. By the 1870s the
population of the island had plummeted to just over 100 persons as
a result of the introduction of novel European diseases that the
islanders had no immunity to. Since then the population has
increased to 3,000.

The two most significant underlying factors
that caused the population to decline from a height of around
10,000 to around 3,000 was population expansion beyond the carrying
capacity of the island and an inability to import resources from
remote locations. After the arrival of the Polynesians their
population continued to increase requiring the conversion of the
pristine land they initially found into agricultural production.
Initially the low lying areas were put into food production until
all the choicest parcels of land were being used. Since the
location of Easter Island is so remote, and the amount of cargo
sailing canoes can carry is small, it was not practical for them to
import food to supplement domestic production. The remaining
options for them to meet their needs, was to limit population
growth or increase the level of exploitation of their immediate
area.

They chose to increase the level of
exploitation of the local resources available to them by clearing
the forests that occupied the hillsides and the flanks of the
volcano, thereby, increasing the area of agricultural production.
This strategy did provide a temporarily expedient to meet the food
needs of the expanding population. However, the flaw that made it a
temporary expedient occurred as a result of the sloping topography
of the newly exploited land. Erosion of sloping forested land is
prevented by trees which immobilizes the soil through a number of
processes. These processes originate from the roots of plants which
physically hold onto the soil, allow rapid absorption of rain
water, and reduce the flow rate of surface water. The forest canopy
is also important in preserving good soil condition because it
attenuates the force of the impact of the rain falling upon the
ground and also slows down the rate that rain reaches the ground. A
further benefit of stands of timber are that they serve to reduce
the effects of erosion caused by wind by reducing its velocity, and
capturing dirt particles. A third consequence of reducing forest
cover is that it reduces habitat for birds who provide significant
amounts of nutrients to the soil from their droppings (guano).
Thus, when the islanders cleared the land of trees it became
rapidly degraded through the processes of erosion, loss of nutrient
sources, and reduced water retention. The combination of these
factors resulted in a falling off of productivity. A further
consequence of hillside soil erosion is that it moves the soil in a
downward direction and ends up in streams which transport it to
coastal areas. Once the silt arrives at the coast it settles out
covering the sea floor with mud. The coating of mud on the sea
floor has the effect of reducing the productivity of inshore
aquatic resources.

As the process of soil erosion and
degradation continued, it became necessary for the islanders to
continuously move up the hillsides to replace falling food
production. The food shortfalls were exasperated by the continuing
expansion of the population. Ultimately the forests were completely
cleared, thereby denying them building materials which eliminated
boat building and terminated statue production. After boat building
ceased off shore fishing was no longer feasible, further
diminishing their food resources.

We know from archaeological evidence and
population estimates from European travelers that the population
was around 3,000 in the 18th century, and that it did plummet from
around 10,000 over a period of several hundred years. It is obvious
that they did not choose to voluntarily limit or reduce their
population to match their diminishing resource base. This can be
surmised from evidence that a change took place in their diets to
less desirable types of food such as rats, [
15]
which increase to 60% of their animal based food
while their other sources of food diminished.