earth day reading: Collapse by Jared Diamond

I guess it's earth day, whatever that means. I've been doing some environmental reading lately. Mostly to impress the hippie girls at the coffee shops where I hang out. Except not really, because I don't hang out at coffee shops and the girls are already too intimidated by my good looks.

I recently finished Collapse by Jared Diamond. The book has been out for a while but the last Diamond book I read was wildly overrated and misrepresented - it is about germs, but has very little to do with guns or steel - so I wasn't much interested in Collapse; I ended up borrowing it from my friend's wife. Turns out that collapse is really very good. Meticulously researched, well argued, and intelligent, it's essential reading if you're remotely interested in the long-term future of the blue marble (lower resolution here).

Here's the synopsys: All is not lost, but we need to make some changes or society as we know it will collapse. Diamond spends about 400 inelligently-argued pages explaining why this is so. I recommend it.