GEOS 1004 Lecture Notes - Lecture 29: Sustainable Development, Societal Collapse, Resource Consumption
8 Mar 2018
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Document Summary
Sustainability: the capacity to maintain a population, remaining reproductively viable (diverse, healthy) and providing adequate resources for a given standard of existence. Sustainable development: meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability to meet future needs. There are many facets to sustainability; four cornerstones can be defined as: Case study of a civilization that wasn"t sustainable: the mayan empire. Mesoamerica; central mexico to honduras; 8 million people. When the spanish arrived (1511), there was no empire with millions of people. Hundreds of thousands of descendants only; large cities were unoccupied, forgotten. History: villages first appear at 1000 b. c. , borrowing from earlier cultures. Classic period begins a. d. 250 (first kings and dynasties). Population and building increase exponentially to peak 8th century a. d. Rapid collapse thereafter, with the last date inscribed a. d. 909. Monarchs served as priests connected to the gods. In return, the population supported the luxurious lifestyle.
