Collapse of civilization

The search for a technical fix is misguided for a further important reason. As already noted, many of the casualties of war are not the result of major military strikes. They are the result of factors such as the sectarian violence that results from the breakdown of provisions for law and civil order, the collapse of civil infrastructure and the collapse of medical provision. Thus, sophisticated weaponry may increase the initial intensity of conflicts but is very unlikely to promote beneficial outcomes for many civilians. 

Culbert, TP. 1988 The eollapse of Classie Maya civilization. In Yoffee, N. and Cowgill, G.L., eds.. The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilizations. Tucson, University of Arizona Press 69-101. 

He was born in Moscow on May 18, 1915 at the time of World War I. Russia was still a monarchy, ruled by Emperor Nicholas II. Nikolay lived through two revolutions, Democratic and Bolshevik, the Civil War, establishment of the USSR, Stalin s dictatorship, and World War II, during which time he spent six years in the army and at the front. He then relaunched his scientific career from level zero, worked through the period of developed socialism , Gorbachev s perestroika, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of a new Russia. His was quite a long and eventful life. .. 

In contrast, Professor Kletz documented that more people have been killed by the collapse of dams than by any other peacetime artifact. [28] He explains that in August 1979, a dam collapsed in India killing a large number of people. Various reports gave various counts of fatalities, between 1,400 and 25,000. This collapse could be responsible for more deaths than the dreaded Bhopal Tragedy. Kletz asked the question why people were more concerned about chemical engineering disasters than civil engineering disasters. It could be that water is a familiar chemical and pesticides or radioactive menaces are both poorly understood and not detectable by the man on the street. 

Question Did climate cause the collapse of Maya civilization ... 

Yaeger, J., D. Hodell. 2007 The Collapse of Maya Civilization Assessing the Interaction of Culture, Climate, and Environment. In El Nino, Catastrophism, and Culture Change in Ancient America, ed. by D.H. Sandweiss J. Quilter, pp. 197-251. Washington, D.C. Dumbarton Oaks. 

The question of what happened to the Maya - why their civilization and its inhabitants had largely disappeared by the time of the Spanish arrival - has intrigued scholars for decades. Many theories have been put forth concerned with either the demise of just the elite class or the collapse of the entire social system (Table 7.1). In the elite scenario, common folk continue to live in the region for some time, but eventually die out. Theories for the collapse of the entire society involve either short-term catastrophic events or long-term changes to explain the abandonment of the Maya region. 

Clearly climate change needs to be considered in debates about the collapse of the Maya. Clearly as well climate change is not the only possible cause. And, of course, the question still remains as to whether there were significant droughts during the period that the Classic Maya flourished and before the collapse. If drought was a periodic phenomenon in this region, it would not help explain the collapse. The reasons for the disappearance of the Maya civilization are still not understood. 

We must be aware, however, that widening development gaps, the collapse of public health infrastructure, poverty, urbanization, civil strife, environmental change and degradation, and the globalization of travel and trade can contribute to the new challenges posed by epidemic-prone and emerging communicable diseases worldwide. 

American Society of Civil Engineers. (2007). The Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse, http //www.asce.org/question-of-ethics-articles/jan-2007/. 

Wooward, R.J and Williams, F.W (1988) Collapse of Ynes-y-Gwas bridge. West Glamorgan , Proceding of the Institution of Civil Engineers Part I, 84... 

Within the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, significant reductions in uranium production occurred much later than in the West. Fissile material production was considered vital in the Soviet Union with central plans seeking to maximize production irrespective of civil reactor demand. This resulted in the accumulation of large quantities of materials in various forms. Uranium production began to fall sharply only from the late 1980s onward, largely as a consequence of the end of the arms race, but also of the exhaustion of some resources and the economic disruptions during the collapse of the Soviet Union. 

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