RE: Blue No More Part 1: The Salton Sea
Who would have thought that rampant water diversion to transform deserts into well-manicured lawns, encouraging export agriculture industry purely dependent on irrigation farming, constructing massive dams along a major water source will result in massive environmental catastrophe? It is not like we had multiple historical parellels and examples, upon which the government could draw the waters of knowledge in formulating rational policy for resource allocation. Besides, doesn't everything work better under decentralized, free-market, democratic, profit-driven non-system?
When examining ecologic policies, it seems that every type of political organization - despotism, monarchy, republic, totalitarian dictatorship - fails miserably to limit ecologic disasters. It may be that man is inherently incapable of living in harmony with his environment.
It's a repeated contention of mine that a civilization's ability to live in harmony is independent of its choice of political organization type. That being said, I think there are some civilizations that come to somewhat more stable harmonies than others- the Incans, for example, seemed to have a quite harmonious relationship with nature, or at least a stable one. Likewise with the pre-Colonial Balinese and a few others. But yeah, for the most part the vast majority of civilizations have utterly failed to achieve balance with nature, to the point where these exceptions might simply be proving the rule.