According to Einstein we now have an insane relationship with our environment. You see he defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Well that's what we are doing. We are a country that has great resistance to change. That's ironic since the only thing that doesn't change is change itself, but because of our aversion to change we are very slow in making the changes that we must make if we are going to leave future generations a sustainable life style.

The Union of Concerned Scientists [UCS] have warned us in no uncertain terms that we must change the way we relate to the Earth if we are to survive. If we do not, if we keep on destroying our life supports...our life-sustaining environment...the inevitable result will eventually be [in the words of the UCS] environmental suicide.

Before we say that's impossible we should take a look at past societies that have created their own demise. Which, more often than not, resulted in the destruction of their environment, which happened as a consequence of concentrating on short-term gain with no understanding of what was necessary to attain long-term sustainability. History is full of many examples but perhaps the model that demonstrates the problem most starkly is Easter Island. It was inhabited by the Polynesians around 800 A.D. and in the short span of eight centuries the population was reduced to cannibalism.

How could this happen? First of all, the Polynesians were gardeners and the soil on the island came from volcanic ash, which was very shallow. Their culture also demanded the harvesting of a great number of trees. They used them for the construction of various buildings, for boats in which they hunted dolphins...their main flesh food...for firewood, and the large logs were used to roll the huge stone sculptures...to which they had a strong cultural attachment...to their desired positions.

The inhabitants of Easter Island could probably have survived had the population remained at 800 when the first settlement was established. But that was not to be. Around 1600 the population had grown to nearly 30,000 and all the trees had been cut down. This was the beginning of the end. Without the trees the birds left, or had been hunted into extinction, and another source of food was gone. Without trees they had no firewood. Nor did they have the boats with which to go to sea to hunt the dolphins. They couldn't even try to reach another island. They were landlocked on their small isolated island. Without trees they had no mulch to fertilize their gardens and their agricultural yields dropped drastically. Famine was the result and the only way to survive was to eat each other. Starvation makes the human species do the unthinkable. Remember in the 1800's the caravan whose destination was California trapped in a severe winter storm in what is now known as Donner's Pass?

There have been many other civilizations that have crumbled and destroyed themselves but none that gets as much attention as Easter Island because the metaphor is so clear. The island was completely isolated and the inhabitants had to use only what nature had given them in a sustainable way if they were to survive. There was no one that could come and rescue them. It was essential for them to think, not just for the short-term gain, but how their present actions would affect their grandchildren and generations yet unborn. We too, on Earth, must think beyond the short-term gain and consider how our actions will affect those who follow, for we too, as inhabitants of the Earth, are isolated in the universe. We too must use what nature has given us in a sustainable way, for there is no one who can come and bail us out.

As the Easter Islanders were destroying their trees upon which their future depended we might ask, why didn't somebody say, "Stop it"? Well, perhaps someone did, but no one listened. Why? Well, one reason is that a group may not even try to solve the problem because of clashes of interest within the group. As Dr. Jared M. Diamond has explained,

It would seem the decision makers in our government, whose primary job is to look after the welfare of the citizens of our country, are also not thinking past their own short-term self-interest.

It has been said that if we do not pay attention to, and learn from the mistakes that history teaches us, that we are doomed to repeat them. So, what are the lessons that we can glean from the Easter Island experience? First, that we live on an isolated planet with limited resources, and we are in the process of exhausting them at a rate never before equaled. Second, that we must use our common sense and not overpopulate the Earth, for the population explosion that we are now witnessing will aggravate every problem we have be it environmental, economic, political or social and could eventually lead to our own destruction. As we lay waste to our limited resources, the threat of war to control those resources becomes more and more real. That would not exclude the possibility of nuclear war, which could leave none of us standing. Think about it, if we continue to settle our differences by force and wars it could escalate to that end. That possibility becomes more and more dire as more countries obtain nuclear capability. The problem is not that great numbers of people are not saying, "Stop it". The problem is that the elite are not listening. Third, we must never become isolated from our neighbors for the world is a connected and interdependent oneness and the more we help our neighbors the more they will be willing to help us. The more we make our neighbors secure the more we will strengthen our own security. And lastly, we are all living on this one home called Earth, and for the good of all we must learn to share the great bounty that it has lovingly given us in a fair way, in a way that brings peace, productivity and prosperity to all.