Easter Island was once covered with the largest palms that grow in the South Pacific. Eventually, all of the timber was cut down, employed primarily as rollers for the huge ceremonial statues that line the coasts there. These people were probably intelligent individuals with no desire to destroy themselves or their society, but the force of habit and the will of their kings overcame their instincts for preservation, and Easter Island was left a barren landscape, nearly devoid of human population, and left only with these massive silent idols that symbolize the folly of their builders.

Can't we, with clear indications of the destructive path we are on, change our behavior? We have the benefit of seeing that cultures in the past, from the Anasazi to the Greenland Norse to the Easter Islanders, have failed to protect their common resources in the face of population growth, and have been doomed because of it. But we also have examples, like Iceland, Japan, and New Guinea, where resources were protected and cultivated and continue to support their populations. Surely we have the intelligence and technologies to escape from the boiled frog syndrome...where a frog sitting in a pot of water brought slowly to boiling will not sense the gradual change, and die because of it.

Even in the face of opposition and greed and ignorance, we have to try to change things. Even though we lack leaders who could guide us, I believe we still have the strength to change things from the bottom up. We can't give up.