Interesting that you would bring up the disappearance of the Chavin culture. I recently saw an action-packed documentary which went into this in great detail. Apparently, the Chavin worshipped a group of technologically-superior aliens, who initially taught them how to farm and thrive in the area. But the aliens depended on the crystal in their skulls for their life force. Several of the aliens lost their heads and once the heads were dispersed, the aliens lost their power and the Chavin couldn’t survive without their guidance . . .

On another note, I read a book once “A Green History of the World,” which talked a lot about the decline of the Roman Empire for environmental reasons. That stuff’s fascinating. I personally think the U.S. is headed down this path at the moment, though on the upside, I’d bet that the most likely accomplishment the next U.S. President will have (regardless of party), will be this “cap & trade” system for curbing global warming emissions.

The basic idea is that as complexity increases, resilience decreases – thus leaving us vulnerable to many things; the main focus of the article is pandemic but I have been working on this re: environment and cities for some time.

It’s also one of my bug-bears with many environmentalists; while the environment is increadibly important, it is part of a much wider picture. We should avoid getting too caught up in and noisy about minutiae (like CO2, or landfills) or people will just stop listening.