Collapse Response 2

I think that the collapse is inevitable. Like Easter Island, workers may rebel to cause the economy to collapse (a good collapse) or people can continue to waste resources so that when we actually need the resources, there will not be any (causing a bad collapse). I believe that because of the Easter Islander's cultural values, they do not take into consideration of the amount of resources they were wasting. Because they build statues to show their status in the society, they waste amass of resources and energy building those statues. Similarly, in America, students are so into taking copious notes instead of taking the time to actually process the information and apply it to the world that they are wasting the materials - the resources - used to create the pencil, the pen, and even the paper (the enormous amount of trees that were cut down to create the paper). People are so into the same routine of waking up, brushing their teeth, and going to work that they do not realize the amount of water they waste when they leave the faucet on to brush their teeth. Others are so caught up in bumming at home that they do not realize the amount of electricity they waste by leaving the lights on and watching TV all day long. Americans are so eager to show their wealth in the country that they buy cars; not knowing the barrels of oil and energy needed to power the cars.

Although I think the collapse is inevitable, I think that it can be slowed down. Snyder says that "some mess in life is wildly disproportion to the mistake" so "if you're walking on the edge of the cliff and you accidentally step four inches off of where you were supposed to step, then you'd be dead". Then he says that "even if one person choose to turn the faucet off when brushing his/her teeth, it will not make a difference [to the collapse]" but I think that if you step four inches away from the edge of the cliff, then you would be less likely to step off the cliff. Snyder also believes that if there is strong organization, then a rebellion is possible even with the odds against it. For example, if a small group of workers want to get their rights, they would be able to with strong organization. So if a small group of workers can make such a big change, I believe that even doing the littlest thing to save resources would at least hinder the collapse.

At first, I had thought that no alternative source of energy would work because once everyone starts to use, for example, solar power, it would not be enough to power everything because it is unsustainable and because of entropy (the idea that everything tends to fall apart to the lowest level). The sun has a limited amount of power and it has to be divided among a lot of things so if a car runs faster with more power, then it would not be able to run very fast because solar power is scattered. Snyder made the comparison that it is as if you cut out the meat and ate vegetables only; then you would need to eat a lot more vegetables to meet your daily calories. I was thinking that if we could divide the population so that some would use oil and others would use alternative sources of energy, then it would take us further away from the collapse. But because our economy needs to grow, I do not think that even dividing the population would solve the problem.