Apocalyptic Planet - Chapter 4: Civilizations Fall, Phoenix, Arizona

As usual the class started with me asking the class if everyone has been to Arizona…not everyone has, but for all of us there were surprising bits of information regarding Phoenix in this chapter.

Not surprising is that Phoenix is built on top of layers of ruins of past civilizations.  A 2006 construction project unearthed 40 pits homes dating back 3 thousand years.  Two local rivers allowed nearly year-round growing seasons which no doubt influenced the site of the settlements over the years.  Evidence was found of massive irrigation systems back to those times.  Evidence of the ruins were found early on by the first white settlers into the area thus giving credence no doubt to the name, Phoenix.  

Childs points out that this is typical around the world, what one group of people find as a suitable settling site typically holds true for future generations.  He cited examples of cities such as London, Mexico City.  He then transitions into why cities tend to fail; environmental decay, failure of top-heavy infrastructure, resource depletion, disease, war, etc.   Evidence suggests that after 700 years the Hohokam culture of Phoenix died out.  Its failure coincided with a severe drought.  

One aspect that helps hold a civilization together is its infrastructure.  If infrastructure starts to fail then the struggle for a civilization is strained even further.  He asks, how much can our current civilization support for land, air and water?  Considering the numbers….current world population is 7 billion people.  Within 50 years we are projected to go to 9 billion and within 100 years to between 10-15 billion.  The question is, can our world support this population?

Childs looks at several major populations and sees the same trends with the same outcomes.  The Maya was one example.  There are many others.  He cites that our global enterprise has not paused since its inception. As he said “the baton keeps being passed ahead.  This is the rule of the phoenix, the myth of eternal return.”