Professor Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Guns, Germs, and Steel", "The Third Chimpanzee", and "Why is Sex Fun?" came to the University of Alaska Fairbanks this past Tuesday to give a free public lecture about his most recent book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed". He delivered it in the largest venue on campus, a ~1000-seat concert hall. We had hoped to nearly fill it, but instead it filled well beyond capacity, including all of the aisles and perimeter. Indeed, the police and fire marshall were not pleased, and forced a premature end to the event before Dr. Diamond could be asked any questions. Additional speakers had to be wired up so that an additional ~500 people in an adjacent room (also filled to capacity) could listen as well. And still more people were turned away at the outside door. Truly, this exemplified "catastrophic success"!
His lecture was entertaining and hard-hitting: what we've learned from previous societies' failures and successes is that forward-looking problem solving is essential to sustainability, and rigidity is fatal. Two things amaze me about this event.
First, this was all for a lecture on societal and environmental sustainability in a "red" state that is being confronted with climate change the way no other part of the U.S. is (arguably poetic justice, given the way ~2/3 of our state's voters clamor for additional oil development). It was astonishing that nearly 2000 people out of a city of ~35,000 people (80,000 if you count the entire borough) turned out for a lecture.
Second, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (our local right-leaning newspaper) all but ignored this, the single largest event ever to occur on the University campus. A News-Miner reporter did write about a geography class Q&A session with Dr. Diamond earlier that day, but his article made no mention of either the content of the main lecture that evening, or of the record-breaking throngs of people drawn to it. And nothing else has been in the News-Miner since.
I guess my bottom line is that self-censorship in the media is a powerful thing--that's one reason why it's so important that alternatives outlets, like this one, exist. Thanks for reading.