{"id":69307,"date":"2025-08-15T09:41:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T14:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=69307"},"modified":"2025-08-15T17:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T22:07:13","slug":"todays-contemplation-collapse-cometh-ccx-collapse-environment-and-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=69307","title":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXI\u2013Collapse, Environment, and Society"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Today\u2019s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCXI\u2013Collapse, Environment, and Society<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n
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Collapse, Environment, and Society<\/a>\u00a0is a 2012 article by geographer Karl Butzer (see:\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0here<\/a>) whose academic career focussed upon the relationship between humans and their environment.<\/p>\n

In this article (summarised in more detail below), Butzer takes issue with often oversimplified narratives regarding societal \u2018collapse\u2019. He argues that societal decline is rarely sudden or the result of individual factors such as environmental degradation that many suggest. He finds the meaning of \u2018collapse\u2019 is often used in an ambiguous fashion and that the process involves complex interactions between the environment, demographic factors, and sociopolitical systems.<\/p>\n

After providing some historical perspectives (i.e., Ibn Khaldun, Gibbon, social Darwinism, Spengler, and the Annales School) and reviewing some case studies (i.e., Old Kingdom Egypt, New Kingdom Egypt, Islamic Mesopotamia), he proposes an integrated model of collapse.<\/p>\n

This model considers:<\/p>\n