I remember a teaching I once heard about how if a butterfly perched on the side of a giant redwood tree were asked if the tree ever changed he'd reply, "I've been on this tree my whole life and nothing ever changes around here."

From the weeks-long life cycle of the butterfly that observation would be understandable. But from our perspective of a human lifetime we would know that observation to be charmingly naive.

But are we really all that more insightful than the fragile butterfly on the redwood?

In his latest book, "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", Jared Diamond has written an insightful and powerful reality check to our own naiveté - and hubris.

Diamond, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning "Guns, Germs and Steel" and is a professor of geography at UCLA, brings the unblinking eye of the scientific historian to the question of why civilizations thrive or die. By reviewing the histories of human civilizations large and small, from the Big Sky ranching communities of Montana to Easter Island and the Anasazi southwest, the author develops the themes that divide history's winners from losers.

Unfortunately, most of the societies Diamond examines are little different than the butterfly on the redwood.

Diamond develops a thesis that the question of societal survival comes down to five basic factors. The first four are: environmental damage; climate change; hostile neighbors and advantageous trading arrangements. Those four may or may not prove decisive, but as Diamond notes, "The fifth set of factors - society's responses to its environmental problems - always proves significant."

Whether it was the cutting down of the last tree on tiny Easter Island or the inability of the early Greenlanders to adapt their agricultural and fishing practices to changing conditions, the inability - or stubborn resistance - to respond to shifting environmental conditions has, historically, sealed the fate of human endeavors ranging from an individual farm or an entire nation state.

By shifting back and forth between the micro example of small communities to the macro perspective of whole societies, Diamond is challenging us to understand that this tiny spinning blue ball of a planet we call home is afloat in a hostile environment and the lessons of our collective past are critical to our adapting now to things like depleting oil reserves, global warming, water shortages and over population.

While the plentiful historical examples of shortsighted human greed, arrogance and foolishness can leave the reader more than worried about our modern world; Diamond also examines cultures that have thrived despite staggering obstacles that could overwhelm the four initial factors of his model.

The wonderful thing about Diamond's work is that it shifts smoothly from the individual to the planetary. One can easily apply his five factors to our individual homes and businesses and all the way up to national and international concerns.

But history's lesson is clear - closely observe what is happening and then use creative human intelligence to craft appropriate responses. That has been the winning combination in the past and will be in the future.

M.L. Taylor