Resource Depletion

In Diamond's book he presents five possible causes for societal collapse.  I believe that resource depletion/environmental causes is the major reason.  If you have a prosperous society that encounters environmental issues you will probably see several of the other causes that Diamond states.  Trade becomes important when you run out of resources because you are now dependent upon another countries commodities to survive, therefore boosting the importance of the trade argument.  If a surrounding country is involved in the same environmental issue then that company may also be likely to attack to gain access to what resources your country have have left as well.  Climate change can sometimes be related, but may simply just make matters worse.  Finally, when there is an environmental emergency or resource depletion, the government can help out or get in the way.  If you your country is composed of many cultures, a government may decide to give one culture preference to the remaining resources, which can in turn spark a wide variety of social issues, possibly even a civil war or genocide.

While this may not be the case for all societies, I give environmental reasons away for the largest contributor of societal collapse due to a close relationship between all possible reasons for such a collapse.  In a sense, environmental reasons can be a last straw that is pulled, triggering several other reactions.

Population Control

We have now looked at the collapse of several civilizations and in some cases attributed it to population control/carrying capacity.  So if these civilizations collapsed at the hand on depleting environmental resources then what happens when China depletes the resources of several African nations?  Is it fair to these countries that their resources are being taken, regardless of compensation for these resources, possibly causing major environmental problems?  China will not be the civilization that suffers from resource depletion, it is the country that has the resources that will suffer.  I highly doubt these countries have a carrying capacity of the size of China.

So what role do other countries have in protecting other countries from resource depletion?  Is it right to sit back and watch a larger country pay off a smaller country to take their resources without regard of the environmental impacts?  Moreover, is it right to allow one nation to ruin it for the whole world?  I have a feeling that once the resources in Africa are gone China will find other places to extract resources from.  At some point we need to think about the world as a whole.