For years people around the world, swayed mostly by Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, have thought Easter Island---2,300 miles west of the coast of Chile---suffered a population crash because its people used up its resources (chiefly palm trees) faster than they could be renewed. I haven't known what to think, but, though I knew of its inaccuracies on some other subjects, I assumed Diamond's story was likely. Now my friend Dennis Avery has educated me. The … [Read more...]
A Potpourri of Interesting Articles
Just been too busy to write much in the way of blog posts lately, but here are some articles I've thought particularly well worth sharing lately: Falling Sea Level: The Critical Factor in 2016 Great Barrier Reef Bleaching! by Jim Steele. "It is puzzling why the recent 2017 publication in Nature, Global Warming And Recurrent Mass Bleaching Of Corals by Hughes et al. ignored the most critical factor affecting the 2016 severe bleaching along the northern Great Barrier Reef – the regional fall … [Read more...]
