Oh my, oh my, oh Mayan!

### Nicole Davis

**As we suspected it wouldn’t, the world didn’t end on December 21, despite the ancient Mayan prediction of a global apocalyptic demise. Perhaps instead of focusing on the state of the world in a millennium’s time, the Mayans should have been more astute about their own environmentally declining landscape. **

Whilst many theories rattle about concerning what caused the Mayans to suffer their own apocalypse and retreat from their impressive Empire, it is often cited that climate change was the basis of the issue. The failure of the great Mayan leaders to recognise or respond to a shrinking natural resource base, population increase, exhaustion of soils and a rapidly damaged environment saw the degeneration of their civilisation.

Sound familiar? Well it should. The dilemmas faced by these mythic peoples bear striking resemblance to our current environmental situation. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from them regarding the world’s end after all.

Indeed the comparisons go further, Mayan civilisation (what’s now known as Guatemala, Belize and Mexico) flourished for thousands of years. Agriculturally, artistically and architecturally, the Mayans constructed an Empire to rival our own imperial dominance. But with the onset of dramatic political and social change, the Mayans were presented with a plethora of problems which they were ill-equipped to resolve.

We may still be basking in the glory of a golden summer (let’s not kid ourselves about the weather, that was still pretty gloomy) and high off the back of some festive revelry and dampening our spirits is not what I intend. But whilst we may have been lucky to welcome in this calendar year, the future of our world still hangs in the balance.

As our resources dissipate and our population numbers soar, along with the emissions we generate, we too might face civilisation-threatening implications for our ecosystems, economies and existence.

Whilst this may sound like the plot of The Lost City of Atlantis, you’d be right to get a sinking feeling when considering how past civilisation fared in the face of an uncertain climate. We may have been gifted a chance to learn from the mistakes of others. Instead of stripping our resources bare and succumbing to tempestuous weather as the Mayans did we still have the opportunity to sustain and thus survive.

So as we pop that champagne and have a hootenanny to remember, I hope our New Year’s resolutions reflect the ever-pressing need to take care of the world around us.