Jeremy Hildreth has written an interesting article about Easter Island for The Wall Street Journal. He captures the feel of the island, which is a very special place. The other DrC and I visited Easter Island a couple of years ago.
The article is worth your time if you can filter out the environmentalist cant. He alleges that the Polynesians (our term) or Rapa Nui (their term) destroyed the island's trees and thus trapped themselves on the island without boat-building materials. This is likely true.
Hildreth then tries to make an analogy from isolated Easter Island to planet Earth. For me, at least, that analogy doesn't work. Easter Island is an isolated, homogeneous environment whereas Earth is a interconnected, highly diverse environment; in my eyes they are not analogs. See what you think.
Hat tip to Roger Baum for alerting me to the article.
