The Collapse of Western Civilization, by Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway

This is a weird little book.  Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes and Cal Tech professor Erik Conway have put their heads together again to write The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future.  This is a sort-of essay, sort-of science fiction.  Think of it as science fiction without an actual story, more like a background piece creating an alternative future for a sci-fi novel.

Oreskes and Conway take current trends and project an environmental and economic collapse in the coming decades, then write from the perspective of historians looking back at what went wrong in the late 20th and early 21st century.  Taking a worst-case scenario approach, they don't see much hope, and from the hindsight of the 24th century, they can't imagine how we, who were living in the years leading up to the Great Collapse, could have missed or ignored the signs of the coming catastrophes.

They make some valid points.  For instance, our era "had the technological know-how and capability to effect an orderly transition to renewable energy, yet the available technologies were not implemented in time."  I think they're right about this, that the combination of special interests, corrupt government, and the power of the market have colluded to distort market forces and prevent alternative energy from developing.

Speaking of the market, they place a large part of the blame for the collapse on "market fundamentalism: a quasi-religious dogma promoting unregulated markets over all other forms of human socioeconomic organization."  What they don't adequately acknowledge, in my opinion, is that the market is at its worst when working in conjunction with the government, as they pick winners and losers by distorting the market through regulations, tariffs, and tax breaks, which is what we frequently see today.  The irony they point out is that the very "centralized government and loss of personal choice was rendered essential by the very policies that [market fundamentalists] had helped put into place."

The Collapse of Western Civilization is not much fun to read, not only because of the authors' pessimism, but also because of the style--dry and pedantic.  They make some valid points, but I think place too much blame on the free market.  Where, today, can we find the cleanest air and rivers, least pollution, and most green space?  (I mean, besides maybe in a national park.)  In developed, capitalistic nations.  Go to a big city in China, then go to a big city in the U.S.  Visit the Kenyan countryside, then visit the countryside in Germany.  Swim in a lake in the U.S, then swim in a lake in India.  As a rule, the more developed and prosperous a nation, the better the environment.  I think there is certainly room to speculate that developing nations tend to place a higher priority on technologies and policies that lead to a cleaner environment.

Oreskes and Conway cover a lot of territory that sci-fi readers will find familiar, but they do it from an academic perspective that lends more credibility than fiction.  (No offense to sci-fi authors; I'm a fan of your work!)  It's an interesting, thoughtful and provoking read.  I did have to wonder how this passed the editorial review board of an Ivy League university press, though. . . .


Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!