Journal Entry #4

Diamond begins his article by comparing two dairy farms, the Huls Farm and The Gardar Farm. Both share similar advantages and similar disadvantages with their farms. One of the biggest differences between both farms is their current status; Huls Farm is prospering in the mountains of Montana, while Gardar Farm has been abandoned for over 500 years now. 

Gardar Farm was located in Greenland Norse, a society that collapsed completely, leaving civilians to either migrate out of the area, fight for their food, or die of starvation. The strange thing about the collapse of Greenland Norse is that it was never anticipated. Greenland Norse is among many regions that have unexpectedly collapsed due to ecological problems and other contributing factors such as the five factors that Diamond has come up with: environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors and friendly trade partners, and society’s response to its environmental problems. Though these collapses leave behind ruins and a “romantic” mystery of what was, they also leave behind lessons for future societies. 

Today we are not naive to environmental damage; we have created technology, globalization, and modern medicine to work in our advantage. “Environmental problems that are hard to manage today were surely even harder to manage in the past.” (pg. 25) This statement shows that we are constantly trying to fix our environmental problems and even though we are fortunate to have all this technology, it still isn’t enough to fix the problems completely. 

What I enjoyed about this article is that Diamond was very factual about himself and what he sees when he visits environmental sites. He doesn’t fabricate anything that he sees and writes everything down at face value whether it be a good image for the company or a bad image.