Jared Diamond on National Radio

On Sunday, National Radio's Chris Laidlaw interviewed award-winning author Jared Diamond about Collapse and our future. If you missed it, you can listen here.

One of the things many people miss is that Diamond is an optimist. While he documents the ways in which past societies have failed due to exceeding their environmental resources, and warns that modern society is on the fast track to doing the same, he's very clear in thinking that we have the power to change that. What he's not sure about is whether we have the inclination. Contrary to the panglossians, avoiding collapse will not happen by itself; it will take political will to push our societies onto a more sustainable path and to ensure that the sustainable technologies we need are adopted (I say "adopted" rather than "invented" because much of it exists already). And if we don't do this, it really will work itself out - in a way that none of us will like.