In a Chicago Tribune editorial dated September 18, archaeologists Gary Feinman and Christopher Fisher report how past civilizations such as the Vikings in Greenland and the Maya in Guatemala failed in their responses to environmental catastrophes, and compare those responses to the US government's abysmal response to Hurricane Katrina. Feinman and Fisher suggest that we can avoid repeating the collapses of the past, by paying attention to and learning from the history and science of how past civilizations responded to catastrophes.
Chicago Tribune | Time, tumult and the science of survival