What is surprising about Rapa Nui (indigenous name of Easter Island) as described by

Roggeveen? Think of this question from both an environmental and an anthropological view.

Well first, I always wondered why it was called Easter island so the fact it’s just because he
discovered it on Easter is kind of interesting to me. The very small amount of plant species is
interesting, especially there only being 2 types of trees. They also only had chickens when it
came to domestic animals.

2. What evidence did archeology, pollen analysis, and paleontology provide that shed some light
on these mysteries? Think of each of these lines of evidence in turn.

They were able to come up with some reasoning of how the statues were built and sculpted.
Including how many people, how long, what tools were used, how they used them etc. They
also used the pollen to see how old it was and what plants they had growing back then.

3. Why are we reading this right after reading about talking about the impacts of climate
change? In what ways is contemporary society both similar to and different from the Easter
Islanders? What can we learn from that society’s mistakes to ensure that we do not suffer the
same fate?
Think about these lines from the article in your answer,

“As we try to imagine the decline of Easter’s civilization, we ask ourselves, Why didn’t they look
around, realize what they were doing, and stop before it was too late? What were they thinking
when they cut down the last palm tree?

I suspect, though, that the disaster happened not with a bang but with a whimper. … In the
meantime, any islander who tried to warn about the dangers of progressive deforestation would
have been overridden by vested interests of carvers, bureaucrats, and chiefs, whose jobs
depended on continued deforestation.”

The article talks about the loss or lack of resources led to more and more problems for the
people living there. We can look at how they poorly used their resources and try to avoid doing
the same thing. We can also look at their positive resource usage and use similar techniques
and advance them to be useful in todays world. Easter island is similar to “our world” because it
has the same concept that a growing population uses up more resources, then we run out of
resources. However, it’s on a much smaller scale meaning it doesn’t impact as many people as
our problems do.
4. This essay was published in 1995. What changes (if any) have the past 26 years made to the
discourse around environmental action?

well our technology has improved over the past 26 years, so that would affect environmental
action. Also we have evolved as a species over the years. Evolution doesn’t necessarily mean
we are better though, we are more advanced as before, but climate change is getting worse and
the affects are becoming more crucial to our Earth.

Robert Krulwich’s essay, What Happened On Easter Island - A New (Even Scarier) Scenario
https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/12/09/249728994/what-happened-on-easter-island-a
-new-even-scarier-scenario

5. Briefly describe why this author thinks this alternative history of Rapa Nui’s “success is just as
scary” as the one in the original article you read.

He says that the human species is very adaptable, meaning even if there’s a problem we will
learn to live with it. We might just adapt to the world we are destroying and not “wake up” to the
problem. If we don’t wake up, nothing will change and it might be too late to make things better.