Jared Diamond's article is about how we need to analyze past societies that have collapsed and learn from them, why they collapsed and what measures we can do to prevent the same from happening to us.
In most cases we can find that past societies collapsed due to ecological problems formed by societies destroying their environment and resources. Damage to the environment can be broken down into twelve categories; deforestation and habitat destruction, soil problems, water management problems, over-hunting, over-fishing, introduction of new non-native species, human population growth, increased per-capita impact of people, human caused climate change, buildup of toxic chemicals in the environment, energy shortages, and full human utilization of the Earth's photosynthetic capacity.
However a societies collapse is usually due to more complex reasons than just environmental damage. Contributing factors can be climate change, hostile neighbours, trade partners, and the societies response
to its environmental problem.
The issues of human environmental impact are controversial and peoples opinions regarding them can usually be sorted into two main groups. Either "environmentalists," who believe are current problems are serious and need addressing, and are current rates of economic and population growth cannot be sustained. Or "non-environmentalists," who believe that environmentalists opinions are exaggerated and that continued population and economic growth is both possible and desirable.
Diamond then concludes with his standing on the subject stating that if environmentalists don't learn to work with big businesses then we will not be able to solve the world's environmental issues.
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