Human Societies Choose to Fail?

In “Lessons from Environmental Collapses Past Societies” Jared Diamond states “We are the ones who cause the problems, and so we can stop causing them.” He speculates that this can only be done given the proper political will and that we can solve these problems tomorrow if we all agreed to. I speculate that this idea may be true; however I fear that even with the political will it may be too late to prevent collapse. Can we even gain political will on all pressing issues if as Columbia University Psychologist states humans only have a “finite pool of worry?” (American Psychological Association, 2008) Our ecosystem is complicated with many feedbacks, some of which are only partially understood and others which have yet to be discovered. With this in mind, it is possible that infinite political will could be summoned today, and a perfectly sustainable system be implemented only to be undermined by our past follies. In either case success or failure was chosen at some point in our society’s history...