Twilight At Easter Island Analysis
In Jared Diamond's "Twilight at Easter," we travel across the mysterious Easter Island as he describes the most intriguing fact about this place: the island consists of monolithic stone statues that had once been found all over the island despite the apparent lack of means to create them or ways of transporting them to their different coastal locations. This central mystery of standing statues had been explored since the earliest recorded European contact by Jacob Rogeveen in 1722. While the mystery initially centered on why and how the statues were built on this denuded island, Diamond explores the mystery in modern terms and focuses on the environmental context, in particular the lack of trees that would have been used to sustain life in
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According to Environmentalist Eric Bastin, if we continue cutting tree's at the rate we cut now, we only have enough trees for about two generations. In our society we do not acknowledge this deforestation much because we feel we have an endless supply. On Easter Island, natives did not know they were limited to the trees they had cut down. Diamond tells us there could me many excuses for why they cut down the last tree. These excuses are identical to those used in today's counter arguments to deforestation. Prior to the conclusion of the piece, Diamond uses sarcasm to express these ideas. He relates the loggers of Easter Island to the loggers of our society. This sarcastic technique is used toBy relating an obstacle Easter Island's society faced with our society, Diamond justifies their actions. Since we are close to the conlusion of the piece, Diamond wants to clear up any doubt on may have about the islanders. Diamond concludes with such a harsh statement to further imply how resource management in our society needs to be taken seriously. Though this comparison was only a paragraph long, the idea of our society collapsing because of limited resources is discussed throughout the entire piece. This topic is specifically depicted in the piece because after resources are gone, a society is
According to Environmentalist Eric Bastin, if we continue cutting tree's at the rate we cut now, we only have enough trees for about two generations. In our society we do not acknowledge this deforestation much because we feel we have an endless supply. On Easter Island, natives did not know they were limited to the trees they had cut down. Diamond tells us there could me many excuses for why they cut down the last tree. These excuses are identical to those used in today's counter arguments to deforestation. Prior to the conclusion of the piece, Diamond uses sarcasm to express these ideas. He relates the loggers of Easter Island to the loggers of our society. This sarcastic technique is used toBy relating an obstacle Easter Island's society faced with our society, Diamond justifies their actions. Since we are close to the conlusion of the piece, Diamond wants to clear up any doubt on may have about the islanders. Diamond concludes with such a harsh statement to further imply how resource management in our society needs to be taken seriously. Though this comparison was only a paragraph long, the idea of our society collapsing because of limited resources is discussed throughout the entire piece. This topic is specifically depicted in the piece because after resources are gone, a society is