text:
Shrek 2
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For Dos/Windows
Version 1.2 (Last Updated 01/26/2005)
By Devon Kerkhove (skydragonlord7707 (at) hotmail.com)
This file is Copyright (c)2005 Devon Kerkhove. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. What's New
3. Frequently Asked Questions
4. Story
5. Controls
6. Characters
7. Walkthrough
7.1 Shrek's Swamp
7.2 Going to Far Far Away
7.3 Hunt Adventures
7.4 In search for a potion
7.5 The return
7.6 The Prison
7.7 Storm the castle!
8. Enemies
9. Bosses
10. Potions
11. Wanted Posters
12. Clovers
13. Credits
14. Copyright Notice
15. Contact Information
<> 1. Introduction <>
The first appearance of Shrek is now ages ago and with the next movie
"Shrek 2" Activision believes they can make a worthy game of Shrek.
They made a pretty OK game but it's a little short. Anyway if you like
platform games and Shrek you'll probably enjoy this game. The game follows
the movie but not 100% the same way, you have to use Shrek, Donkey,
Puss In Boots and the giant cookie to beat the game.
<> 2. What's New <>
Version 1.2 (01/26/05): First of all a happy new year! And I added another 2
posters, only 2 to go and I'll finally can state this
guide as Final. Added some more help to defeat the
final boss because many people ask me for more help.
Version 1.1 (12/1/04) : Added a new poster (Georgie Porgie)
Version 1.04 (8/23/04) : Found another error, other things (from the manual)
will come soon ;).
Version 1.03 (8/18/04) : Fixed some typos.
Version 1.02 (8/15/04) : Added info for the fire flowers, added line breaks.
Version 1.0 (8/13/04) : Full walkthrough still missing some posters though.
Version 0.8 (8/12/04) : Walkthrough up to the end of the prison.
Version 0.6 (8/11/04) : Walkthrough up to "The Prison"
Version 0.4 (8/10/04) : Walkthrough up to "The Return"
Version 0.2 (8/9/04) : Added the controls & characters.
First piece of the walkthrough
Version 0.1 (8/8/04) : The first version
<> 3. Frequently Asked Questions <>
Q: How long does it take to beat the game?
A: For an experienced player 2 to 4 hours else 4 to 7.
Q: Are the other versions of this game different?
A: Yes, the console versions are a lot longer.
Q: What are clovers for?
A: They increase your health capacity
<> 4. Story <>
Once upon a time, in a kingdom far, far away, there lived a lovable ogre, and
a beautiful princess. One day, the ogre and the lady met, and they fell in
love. Evil forces tried to come between them, but as the script here says,
love conquers all. They got married. They returned home from a long
honeymoon to find their faithful friend, their ever-present, constant
companion, and irritatingly loyal donkey pal awaiting their arrival...
<> 5. Controls <>
You can change the controls in the options menu.
The best controls are:
Forward Up
Backward Down
Strafe Left Left
Strafe Right Right
Jump Right Mouse or Ctrl
Attack Left Mouse or Enter
I recommend you use the mouse to attack and jump because you can only move
your camera.
For Shrek
Shrek can punch, do a combo or hit the ground so all enemies surrounding him
are hit. Also if you jump and attack he'll use his body to squeesh the enemies
below him.
For Donkey
Same as Shrek, he can kick enemies, he cannot use levers, only the ones where
you see his footprint on.
For Puss in Boots
This cat uses his sabre to attack the enemies. All controls are the same but
this cat can also jump pipes. You'll see which pipes can be used because
there will be arrows on them.
For Gingerbread Man
He can kick and punch and if you stand in front of a tree he can throw it away
<> 6. Characters <>
Allister - The story teller of the Shrek 2 book. He'll tell
you things about the chapters and such.
Shrek - The big green ugly ogre that wants to be scary but
has a knid heart. He married with princess Fiona.
He has a lack of fighting skills but he can work it
out when he and his friends are togheter.
Princess Fiona - The princess who has married to Shrek. This is the
person that Shrek would go to the end of the world
for, change him into a human.
Donkey - The annoying companion of Shrek. The grey donkey
that can't stop talking. Later in the game he
changes to a horse for a minute. He's quite a
comedian but is jokes get borig after a while.
Puss in Boots - The newest member of the Shrek family. This little
cat can be very cute but be careful when you
discover his true identity.
Gingerbread Man - The large cookie that crusshes all soldiers when
only moving, he can also throw trees but be careful
when there is milk around him!
Fairy Godmother - The evil fairy leader that want Fiona mary her son.
She also creates the magical potions. This is the
person that made Shrek's like look like hell but
now you're here to clear up the mess she made!
<> 7. Walkthrough <>
7.1 Shrek's Swamp
Location : Shrek's Swamp
Enemies : None
FGM Drive Through : Yes
Coins : Around 27
When you start the game you'll see the book from Shrek 2 and a guy named
Allister tells you the story (not the whole one but a piece of it). Of Course
you could think Donkey is around and always has comment on it. When Allister
is finished telling it you'll see a cutscene where Donkey is relaxing with a
drink and a newspaper when Shrek and Fiona are arriving. When Shrek sees what
happend to his swamp he asks Donkey, he explains there has a lot of crazy
stuff happend while they were gone. The soldiers want to arrest the fairytale
creatures again, that's the "wanted posters side quest" you can do if you want
You'll also find coins floating in the air. Those are used to buy potions with
And also energy bars, if your hp is low you can pick them up and regain health
Also Donkey tells Shrek & Fiona they are invited to go to Far Far Away for
their wedding ball. The invitation came while they were gone.
But you can't leave until all this, like Donkey says "Hoodoo-voodoo" is gone.
So you and Donkey explore the swamp while Fiona packs for the journey.
After the cutscene (which you can skip by pressing the spacebar) you'll find
yourself playing as Shrek. Now we have to collect all coins.
Jump from lillypad to lillypad to reach the other side of the water. You can
walk in this water but sometimes you won't be able to climb back up to the
ilillypads and you'll have to go and swim all the way back to the side.
Most of the time the game will help you a hand and if you don't jump 100%
correctly it won't matter. So that are 3 coins already. Follow the pad to
get another 4 coins. See the punching bag? You'll need to hit it! When it's
gone you'll get another coin. Go to the treestumps and get on them. The
tutorial tells you Shrek will automatically climb onto the high platforms you
can't reach by jumping. When you're up to the highest one you need to grab
the vines.Just press the jump button and you'll be hanging on them.
Use your rigth arrow to continue, collect 3 coins and you'll now have 11 in
You'll now have to double jump on the bridge to get to the other side.
Just double click the right mouse button and you'll make it. Get another
4 coins for that. Now you see the crates, destroy them by attacking.
Each box has one coin in it. When you continue Donkey will tell you about the
four leaf clovers. You'll need to get it later. Now you have to jump on the
lillypads and jump on the sparkling oragne one to get across those briars.
You have to punch the boards to continue, just run towards them while clicking
the attack button and you'll slide them to pieces. You can go to the next
part if you broke all three of them. In front of you, yu'll find a hero bar,
pick it up if you think you're hit (you can check it out by watching the
health bar in the left corner of the screen.)
When you're on the bridge, jump on the green lillypads to get 2 coins, now
jump on the sparkling one to jump to the other side while getting one coin.
This brings you on a total of 25 coins. Now hop on the logs and you'll see
a guy in a tutu called Roy. He's your "Save-fairy". When you go close to him
he'll save your progress. When your game is saved you'll hear him say:
"You're saved" or any other stupid quotes. Now climb up and stand in front of
the lever, now use your left mouse button to pull it. The briidge will now be
ready to cross. Oh, yes, if you want to practice your punching a little,
you'll find another punching bag beneath th bridge but it has no coins so I
don't see the point of it. When you're crossing the bridge Donkey will tell
you how to get the four leaf clover. Now jump onto the platform and destroy
the board to get it, very four leaf clover you find will increase your
health capacatiy. Jump down.
You'll find another new thing on your way, the FGM Drive Through.
(FGM = Fairy GodMother). These drive-in shops will sell magical potions.
You can buy them with the coins you've collected on your way. If you rather
save up your coins you can chooce not to buy potions because else the game
would be too easy. After the little cutscene you can buy potions.
Now continue because you don't have enough coins to buy one. Now continue and
collect another 2 coins. Now rip off the poster. After you did that, you'll
be back at Shrek's house and the onion carriage is ready to leave.
7.2 Going to Far Far Away
Location : A forest
Enemies : Bandits
FGM Drive Through : No
Coins : Around 60
You'll see another cutscene in the onion carriga where Donkey keeps asking
"Are we there yet" -_- While Donkey is talking and talking the carriage stops,
some bandits blocked the road with trees, they also stole a wheel.
Shrek decides to teach those bandits a lesson. There wil lbe bandits running
towards you but they are so easy to defeat, they wait until you hit them or
you have to wait like 10 seconds before they strike. When you defeated 2
bandits they'll make a circle around you and throw the wheel to each other so
you can't catch it. You have to run up to the bandit that has the wheel and
when he throws the wheel to a friend you can punch him, keep repeating this
until there is no bandit left. Now if you didn't pick all the coins (also the
ones in the tree log) you can do it now. After you took them you should have
63 coins. Now run to the wheel and pick it up. If you're hit by a bandit
you'll lose some coins but also health so after you put the wheel back on,
Donkey gives you a box of hero bars to regain full health. Now you need to
take care of the road blocks, just use a combo punch to destroy them.
Now you'll get back into the carriage and Allister will tell another piece
of the story.
7.3 Hunt Adventues
Location : Far Far Away's Forest
Enemies : Bandits, Fire-Flowers, Trees
FGM Drive Through : Yes
Coins : 297
When you arrive in the forest you'll see a cut scene where Shrek tries to
rember where he should meet the king. When they decide to go deeper in the
forest you'll hear a banjo and see the hat of Puss in Boots. Shrek is going to
check it out and the scared donkey is on is own, you now have to play with
Donkey. Follow the road and don't forget to collect the coins. Now is the good
time to buy I potion, I suggest if you want to buy some you buy the
Flash Freeze Frosty Flakes Potion, it freezes your enemies for 5 seconds.
If you continue you'll find mushrooms, click the left mouse button to pick
them up and throw them t the purple ones with another click. Go through the
wooden log and you'll find Roy the save-fairy. You can't go on now because the
bandits have control over the bridge, you'll need to kick the bandit and cut
the rope. Now head to the sparkling mushroom and bounce it. Now defeat the
bandit and cut the rope and you can continue. Now do not jump because you'll
lose health, go to the back of the platform and jump on the mushroom, you'll
be jumping to the wheat that will break your fall.
When you crossed the bridge you're be in an outpost of the bandits so you'll
need to kick them all. After that go behind the house for 2 coins.
See the little cabin next to the house? At the side of it you'll find another
poster. Go in the little road and you'll find some coins and a hero bar box.
Go back and take the left road now, jump on the sparkling spiderweb. Walk on
the stick if you want the two coins, now jump on that mushroom. Walk forward
collecting the coins and defeat the torch holding bandits. GO down and your
game will be saved. See that other spiderweb and the door? The door is locked
so you need to jump your way across. Walk the logs and kick the switch to open
the door. If you want you can jump on the wheat but it makes no difference.
When you took the bowl of coins you go to the seond part of the woods. When
you're here defeat the cherry bomb throwing tree. Go up the hill and press
the switch. When you're back down you need to jump across the vines but
you have to be careful about the swinging ball. Just jump on either the most
left or right side and you won't be hit. Break the box for a coin. Go on and
take the hero bar box. Watch out for the mushrooms, when you touch them they
explode. Now hit the trees. Cut the rope to lower the bridge, as soon it is
down a ball will sttart swining across the bridge, walk over it when the ball
at the highest point. Save and now to break the boards, jump and kick.
Beat the bandits and go on. Take all coins in the area and go up the hill,
break the barrels with mushrooms first because the bandits will run to them
and trhow them to you. Now jump on the mushroom and collect the two coins.
Go down and cross the bridge. Hit the switch to open the door.
Beat the bandit and continue. Go down and jump over the flames. If you go to
the right you'll find some bandits and a tree, defeat them and take that road.
You'll see a FGM Drive Through. You can buy potions if you want. See the other
cabin? Behind it there is a four leaf clover. Take it and your health will
be extended. Go back and jump on the sparkling spiderweb. You have to hop on
the logs to continue, if you fall down you'll be dead. Don't worry the only
thing you have to do is a double jump and you'll land safely. When you're
at the other side Roy will save your game.
Continue and defeat the bandits. Now, you'll see a blocked road and two
switches. The point is to hit the switches so the holes are all on the bottom
so you can walk through them. Defeat the trees and bandits. When the third
tree is gone you'll get a hero bar. Continue to the left, jump the vines and
defeat the bandit. You have to cross another road with a Fire-Flower, now you
see logs bumping against each other. DO NOT TOUCH THEM or you'll be dead.
After the second one, collect the coin and hit the switch to open the door.
When you're in the next part Donkey will see a sign with "Free Food" on it.
Don't go yet *cough*trap*cough*. Instead of going to the right go to the left
and collect the coins. Jump the lillypads but if you fall into the water you
have to go back to the side and try again because Donkey can't crawl back on.
When you've collected them all go to the "Free Food". Jump over the mushrooms
and you'll find an area with a bowl, watch the cutscene. The bandits have
trapped Donkey. Shrek is back and you need to defeat the bandits before you
can rescue Donkey. If you have a freeze potion it woul be wise to you it now.
Now punch the stone. Donkey is free again! Collect the hero bar boxes and
return to the area with the lillypads. Notice the sparkling leaf? Jump on it.
Slide to the left, now watch the cutscene and jump over the log, go up with
the leaf. Kick the rope and a ball will hit the wood so Donkey can jump across
the water. The gate will also open.
Watch out for the bear traps, don't walk on them. Another Fire-Flower plant
along with bear traps, just double jump across them. Defeat the bandits and
the tree and collect the hero bar. Next you see bear traps and coins between
them, collect them. Watch out for the Fire-Flower and go on. Save your game
when you reach Roy and collect the Hero Bar Box. Before you go any further
you can jump to the right where there is a FGM and some coins. Beat the
bandits. There is a huge pumpkin blocking the way, throw the little ones next
to the house at it and it will explode. Only two pumpkins are enough.
Go on and you'll see a cutscene where Donkey's uncle Clearance says :
"Red is bad, green is good". Like this, jump on the green mushrooms and try
to avoid the red ones. Defeat the bandits and the tree. You'll now find some
mushrooms, wait until there is a pad you can walk. Now save your game.
Your first boss battle awaits, it's Puss in Boots. Check out the boss section
on strategies to defeat him. When he is, you'll see him lying on the ground.
When he's coughing Shrek picks him up and the Puss surrenders. He will
be at your service because you spared his life. He was sent to kill Shrek
by the king. Shrek wants hapiness for him and Fiony so Puss in Boots tells
them about the FGM agency that makes potions. So they decide to go there.
If you did all things I told you you'll get 2 photos.
7.4 In search for a potion
Location : FGM Agency
Enemies : Workers
FGM Drive Through : Yes
Coins : Too many
You'll see a cutscene where Shrek asks a Happily Ever After potion.
But the fairy says ogres can't have them. They decide to search for it
themselves, Shrek steals a suit from someone working there. Puss in Boots
decides he will get the potion for Shrek because he's the only one who can
go through the small vents. Shrek and Donkey will hide.
When you can move there wil be a worker attacking you. Defeat him and pull
the lever to open a door. Beatthe workers and climb up, pull the lever to get
the hero bars. Explore the room, beat all the workers. On the right you'll
find 2 pipes thar are climbable. Climb on the rigth one first for a bowl of
coins. Now climb the left one. Jump to the other platform and climb another
pipe. Now pull the lever so the way is free. You now have to jump to the pipe.
Do a double jump and you'll have it. Remember to click jump again when you're
at the highest point of your normal jump, if you just click the jump button
twice you won't reach it. When you hang on the pipe go to your left. Jump to
the platform, jump over the flames and save. Pull the lever. And jump to the
platforms. Crawl through the vent. Jump from platform to platform and make
your way to the closed vent. Use your attacks to break it. Take the hero bar
and get saved. Beat the workers and open the wardrobes to get some coins.
At the end double jump when you're in front of the pipe and Puss will grab it.
Climb up and pull the lever. The lifts will now work and you have to jump on
them to get to the broken Fairy Godmother painting. The lever automatically
will switch back so if you missed it you'll need to pull it again. Take the
coins and go back up. Now instead of jumping on the other moving thing go
into the vent. Break the vents and go on. Now go right and then jump on the
ground. If you don't want to lose a lot of health you'll need to avoid the
lasers, it's pretty easy. On the other side you'll get a hero bar and go
through the other lasers. Climb up the boxes and jump on the pipes. Drop
down on the platform and jump to the lever. Pull it and the platform you're
on will begin moving. Jump ...again... to the other platform and break the
Take the coins and let Roy save your game. Beat the workers and get the wanted
poster from the fridge. You now have activated the coin mini game. The only
thing you need to do here is get as many coins as you can. When your time runs
out or you fall to death you return to the actual game. Next to the fridge are
boxes, climb up the platform and pull the lever. Go to the soda machines and
climb up to it, now jump to the platform. Jump and get on the pipe. Pull the
lever to lower a platform so you can reach the vent. When you walked through
it you'll be in another room with lasers. After them there wil lbe a worker
throwing something at you, kill him and continue right. Jump onto the platform
to get some gold. I think this is a good time to stock up your potions. I
bought all nine too see if you get the plastic thing, but no, you don't get
anything. So don't waste 300 coins like me -_- Go back and take the left
pull the lever to open the gate. Roy will save your game.
You're in the potion room, one of the hardest things if you're not good at
jumping. First, go to the boxes in front of you, jump on the platform and
follow the others too. When you made it pull the lever to go to another one
pull it too, because this platform is now here you won't have to jump the
whole thing anymore, if you fall down you can use the other boxes. Now
it's easy, jump from platform to platform and you'll reach the potion
eventually. Take it and when Shrek and Puss in Boots are save Donkey will be
trapped because they found out there are thieves. Shrek and Puss in Boots
can run away but Donkey needs to find another way out.
You'll now be playing with Donkey again, all the alarms have gone off so there
are a lot of workers that want to catch you. Leave the potion room and jump
over the flames. You'll be back in the room with the soda machines and fridges
When you defeated all the workers the door will open for you. Go back through
the lasers, at the end you'll see Roy. You'll now be in the room again where
the workers are sliding. Notice that the door i now open so you don't need to
go all way the way around. Jump over the lasers and the game will zoom to Roy
telling you, you have to go there. When your game is saved the door will close
and the Fairy Godmother will release the Pink Potion of Pain so get as high as
you can....fast! You can jump over the flames and evade the workers, you'll
have more than enough time.
7.5 The return
Location : Far Far Away Forest
Enemies : Bandits
FGM Drive Through : Yes
Coins : Around 290
When you're up Shrek will tell you to go to the window. The next screen you'll
be outside. After a time of walking Shrek decides to drink the potion. But
it seems nothing has happend so Donkey will try now. Nothing happend so
they decide to take a rest in a barn. Donkey & Puss in Boots are racing to it
so Shrek needs to get it there by himself. Cross the bridge, when you're a
bit further there will be some bandits that want to kill you. When they're
gone you'll see that the gate is now open. Before you go through it you can
get some coins by going to the back of the house. Follow the path up to the
boards and break them. If you fall off the cliff make sure you hit the wheat
else you'll be dead. Beat the bandits and go on. In this area bandits will
hide in the bushes and will appear when you are close to them. Slay them
and pull all three levers to open the gate.
Save your game with Roy, then go right and take the wanted poster that's on
the wall of the house. Beat the bandit and collect the coins. Nowgo back and
continue to the other path. You'll see some people on the roof of a house
but you can't reach them. Now break the boards to advance. Bandits will
appear out of the bushes on your right so beat them all, a bit further on your
pad you'll find another pair of Fire-Flowers. Also watch out for the bear
traps. At the end of the road you need to kill 3 bandits to open a gate.
You'll find yourself in a bandit village, look around and collect some coins.
The other gate will be closed so go further and notice the large tree in the
middle of that place, at the other side of it there is a lever, pull it to
open the gate you found earlier. When you defeated the guys jump on the
sparkling leaf, follow the road and Roy will save your game. Go on and collect
the coins and the hero bar box. At the other side of the tree there is another
lever, pull it to open the new gate. Go up the hill and jump in the well.
When you're down you are in some kind of cole mine, go on and let Roy save
your game. Go to the right and get the coins, watch out for two new enemies,
the bats and spiders. Go left and watch out for the giant spinning things.
You're now on a road for mine cars go left and collect coins, now go right.
Notice that the bridge is closed so you'll need to jump over it. A double
jump will do the trick. Save game when you meet Roy and go on. Pull the lever
and jump from platform to platform but evade the spinning things.
You'll find a board, break it and go on. Hop onto the lift and pull the lever
in the next room. In this room you can buy potions at the FGM drive.
Pull the lever to open the gate. There is now a shortcut because the other
gate has opened too. If you missed the leaf clover you can now get it back,
if you go on the lift go the other way and you'll be in a room with bats and
at the end the clover. now break the boards at the right of the clover's
location, make your way over the things and hop on the elevator.
You'll be outside again with another FGM Drive Through. Kill the bandits and
go on to the path. Jump on the lillypads and collect the coins. When you
reach the sparking one you'll jump in some kind of mini maze. When you
squashed the rats the door will open. Beat another 4 rats to exit the maze.
Go up the hill and beat the guys. In this area you'll find a huge windblower
jump onto it and it'll break the boards. Jump onto the wheat and jump on the
other one for two times. Jump on the leaf to get the hero bar, now fall down
on the windblower. You expect the house to break but the only thing that will
move it the tree that blocked your way. Jump on the stomp and hop onto the
roof, you'll need to jump into the hole, Roy will save your game. Continue
to the camp of some bandits there will be some pairs of them appearing out
the tents. Continue through the gate and Roy will save your game once again.
Jump on the wheat, notice there is a small sign telling you you can't swim
in this water, and it's right, you shouldn't because you'll die. Go to the
stone bridge and lower the other side by pulling the lever, another load of
bandits will appear so kill them. If you want a hero bar, to the right off
the bridge is a little island with a bar on. Now cross the bridge and you'll
be in a small boss batte, refer to the boss section if you want more
information. Cross the bridge and continue right. This is getting a little
boring but you need to beat another pack of bandits on your way.
You'll see Donkey and Puss in Boots waiting for you, walk to them and watch
the little cutscene. They go into the barn to shelter for the rain.
Allister will reveal another piece of the story. He tells that the next
morning the potion worked after all, Shrek is now human and Donkey is a noble
steed. The Fairy Godmother tellls the king to arrest the guys.
7.6 The Prison
Location : Far Far Away Prison
Enemies : Rats, Bats, Guards, Spiders
FGM Drive Through : Yes
Coins : N/A
Play again with the Puss, break the vent and climb the pipe. Pull the lever to
your left and Shrek and Donkey will be free too. The guards noticed you
escaped. Te game will now split up, you'll need to escape with all three of
the guys, the first one is Donkey. Next to the FGM Drive there is a switch,
hit it and you'll activate the elevator. When you're up, Roy will save your
game. Go left for a crate with some coins, now head to the giant spider,
when she's defeated jump on the web to go up a floor. Now go left and
jump to the next platforms. Break the into the jail and hit the switch.
The bridge will spread out and you can cross it to go up another floor.
Go round and break the bars to get a hero bar. Now jump on the jail boxes
that are hanging in the air. Before you break the bars and save at Roy's
go further and beat the spider so you can jump up. Go on and break the bars
and collect the 5th wanted poster. Now go back down via the diagonal stone.
Go back and save your game when you meet Roy.
In this room you'll find boxes with coins and a crazy guard. Now jump on the
wooden platform but don't stand on them too long because they will fall down.
Beat the guard and hit the switch. Go up on the stone platforms. Go on and
jump on the new wooden platforms. Hit the switch so the platforms wil appear.
Jump on the stone platforms and hit the switch so the others will appear.
Go back and go up. Now go on the wooden platforms angain and jump to the
stone one on the other side of the room. Now jump towards the spiderweb.
Roy wil save your game, in this large romm are guards so beat them. Collect
the coins if you want, on ther right side of the room is a jail room with a
switch, hit it. A door will open, jump into it and you'll hop on some webs.
Go counterclockwise and jump on the platforms. Jump down on the jail boxes.
When you're down jump on the spiderweb. You'll go all the way up and you can
get some coins. To go down again jump on the spiderweb below. When you're at
the bottom again, break the boxes and go into that jail. look to your right
and hop on the platforms, watch out for the swinging boulder.
When you're in the middle platform Shrek will appear for a second. Continue.
Jump diagonally to reach the other side. Watch out because the last two
platforms are made of wood. Go down and save at Roy's. Defeat the guards
and break the pannels. Go down the stairs and beat the guards, now run
down when the logs are at their highest point. Now the hardest part.
You have to get across this platform without any boulder hitting you.
First, jump onto the pltform, look at the first boulder and go on when he
passed you. Quickly run to the right so it won't hit you. Now when it has
passed again run forward and evade the other two boulders. Don't get
discouraged if you die a couple of times, it happend to be too. Go down and
Roy will save your game.
You'll encounter Mr. Fancypants-a-lot -_-, a boss battle. When you beat him
the large gate will open. Now you'll se the older scene again but now you have
to play with Puss in Boots.
Go on and jump on the platform. Jump to the pipe and go down. Beneath the
platform is a wanted poster. When you got that one you'll have to play another
race for coins. Go in the sewer and go into the green shiny pipe, at the end
will be a four leaf clover. Go back and take the other pipe. Jump on the
little boat thingy and it will sail across the poisonous water. Jump towards
the pipe. Climb up and follow the road, Roy will save your game. Jump on the
little islands. When you're on the other side, climb up and do another island
jumping. climb up and go into the hole. Roy will save your game. Jump down
on the coin boxes and go to the other side, pull the lever so the sewer water
will rise, make sure you hop onto the platform else you'll drown. When the
water stops the platform will sail to the pipes, climb up.You'll be in a room
with rats. Defeat them and go to Roy to save your game. Follow the road and
you'll see a little cutscene with Shrek. Go on, jump to the pipes and climb
When you're down a platform will bring you to a switch. The sewage will go
down so quickly jump onto the platform before it's too deep and you die.
Wait until you're on the bottom and go through the hole. Hop onto the
platforms to reach Roy. You'll be on another hopping thing but now the pipes
will go into the sewage so hop onto them when they appear and quickly continue
now follow the road. You have to hop ... again. This one is even harder
because you only have pipes no little islands anymore. This is one of the
most frustrating parts of the game if you don't have a little luck.
Now go into the hole and follow the road until you meet Roy. Beat the giant
spider and jump on its web. You'll now have to fight Mr. Fancypants-a-lot
again. It's the same one so it's too easy.
You'll now have to work your way through the prison with Shrek, first defeat
the guards. Go up the stairs and notice that the switch is broken, stick
your sword in it to activate it. Before going to the other side, jump down on
the platforms but watch out for the blue beams. Now activate the switch,
hit the spider and jump up. You'll jump back on the bridge again, continue.
Break the boards for two hero bars. Beat the guards. Go up the stairs and
Roy will save. Kill the other two guards and smash the crates and boards.
There will be a hidden switch, activte it and the gate will open.
Jump on the platforms, stock up some potions if you want and continue left.
Hop onto the jail cages to get to the other side. kill the guards so the cage
will go up and the way to the lever is free. Pull it to open the door. You'll
see the cut scene with Puss again but now from Shrek's point of view. Go right
and break the boards to get a hero bar box. See the searchlights? Don't stand
in them, it's like the lasers. Walk on and get saved by Roy. Smash the boxes
for some coins and hero bars. Destroy the boards and activate the lever to
open a door. Go into it and work your way through the bumping logs. Go up the
stairs and there will be some more but the ground has gone into the deep so
you can't walk freely. Go downstairs and you'll see another bunch of
searchlights, also the cutscene with Donkey will appear. Stick to the walls
to evade the lights, save your game. Pull the levers to open the gates.
Behind the boxes is a hidden path, follow it to collect a lot of coins.
Now the gate is open you can go on. Follow the road and you'll see another
path with logs and boulders. Use the same strategy like last time. When you're
on the other side, take the box and jump down. For the last thing you need to
do in the prison Roy will save your game and you'll need to kill
Mr. Fancypants-a-lot again. When he's defeated watch the cutscene with the
all three of them. Gingerbread Man comes and saves the day!
7.7 Storm the castle!
Location : Far Far Away Castle
Enemies : Guards
FGM Drive Through : Yes
Coins : N/A
You'll start with a cutscene showing Gingerbread Man is running towards the
gates. He breaks down the gates. Walk on and smash the gates where the knights
are coming from. Walk on the knights to kill them, you can also kick them.
Now pick up some trees and throw them to the bridge so it will lower down
and you can cross it (do not walk in the milk!) Four trees will do the trick.
Smash the wall and cross the bridge. When you're in the castle Roy will save.
Go on and break the boards when they are gone Ginger will be dead and Shrek
will go into the palace. You either left or right it doesn't matter and get
saved. Go to the left and pull the lever. One piece of the door will be open
but the little one on the left will be open too and guards will come to attack
you. Go into the small room and on your left will be a wanted poster.
Now go right and break the boxes, behind them will be a secret switch
activate it and you'll turn to a secret room. Pull the lever to go back.
Pull the other lever in the corner and the giant door will be open but you
need to kill some knights first. The giant door will now open with again some
guards. Go into the door and go left or right to check out the things, collect
coins and hero bars, when you approach the giant door you'll see a cutscene
with the Fairy GodMother. Prepare for the final battle!When the fairy is
defeated all magic will return to normal so Shrek is an ogre and Donkey is a
donkey again. After the cutscene Donkey will tell the end of the book.
The credits will roll.....THE END
Congratulations you've beaten the game! I know I missed out some posters but
I didn't find them, if you found them please email me. And one more thing,
sorry for my English =p.
<> 8. Enemies <>
First encounter : In the forest on your way to Far Far Away.
How to beat : Keep punching them until they disappear
Hits x4
First encounter : Far Far Away's Forest second part.
How to beat : Keep hitting them but avoid their cherry bombs.
Hits x4
First encounter : Far Far Away's Forest second part
How to beat : Keep hitting them but avoid their squirlls.
Hits x4
First encounter : Far Far Away's Forest third part.
How to beat : Attack them from the side, do a combo and you'll get coins.
(thanks to tavias)
Hits x 1
First encounter : FGM Agency
How to beat : hit them
Hits x2
First encounter : When you return to Far Far Away in the mines.
How to beat : hit them
Hits x1
First encounter : When you return to Far Far Away in the mines.
How to beat : hit them
Hits x1
First encounter : mini maze in "the return"
How to beat : hit them
Hits x1
First encounter : Prison
How to beat : hit him
Hits x4
<> 9. Bosses <>
Puss in Boots
Location : Far Far Away Forest
Strategy : Stand still, when he jumps move a little so he won't hit you, when
he walks to another log hit the ground and he will lose health. Keep doing
this and you'll defeat him.
Hits x8
Big Boss Bandit
Location : Far Far Away Forest
Strategy : Keep hitting him and he'll die.
Hits x 8 - 12
Mr. Fancypants-a-lot
Location : The prison of Far Far Away
Strategy : This is one easy battle, keep hitting him and he'll die
Hits x10 - 20
Fairy GodMother
Location : Far Far Away Castle
Strategy : Reflect her magic balls and when she's knocked out run to the
table with food and throw it to her. When she's at 60% of her health some
guards will come every time you hit her, beat them and you'll get a hero bar.
When she's at 50% she'll begin to fly around and do some thunder attacks.
Evade them and continue to reflect her magic balls and throw food at her.
When you think you need a break you can hide behind the pillars.
Need more help?
How to reflect the magic balls:
When the fairy godmother throws the magicball hit your sword button. You'll
reflect the ball. If you don't suceed the first time just wait until she
fires another one and retry.
How to throw food at the fairy godmother:
Stand in front of the table, with the fairy godmother (unconsious) in the
middle of your sight. Now use your sword button to throw food, if you don't
throw food at her, you're not standing correct at the table, in that case
Move a little around the table until you can.
<> 10. Potions <>
Ka-pow Extra Strength Potion - 30 coins
This strength potion makes you a mighty man!
Frog Nog Supreme - 45 coins
Turn anyone - not just a prince - into a frog!
See Me Not Invisibility Cream - 40 coins
This potion makes you invisible!
40 Winks Sleeping Gas - 45 coins
Sleep potion will make it easy to slip away.
BO Noxious Stink Potion - 45 coins
This stink potion will curl their toes!
Wee Me Shrink Potion - 35 coins
This is a shrink potion. It'll make you small.
Itsy Bitsy Dust - 45 coins
Shrink all of your enemies with this one!
Flash Freeze Frosty Flakes - 45 coins
This freeze potion will stop your enemies cold!
Sweetest Delights Love Potion - 45 coins
This love potion will make all of your enemies fall for you.
The FGM Drive Through Help Text:
- Hit your space bar to bring up your potion menu.
- You can also use the one to nine numbers on your keyboard to use a potion,
but you have to be smart enough to know which number corresponds to which
- Just click on the potion you want to buy.
- Click cancel if you decide you don't wanna buy anything.
- You can buy as many different potions as you can afford. You can even stock
pile several of the same potions if you want.
- Don't waste this stuff on your own, save it for your enemies.
- Click checkout to confirm your purchase.
- Collect all nine potions and save the labels for a magnificant free plastic
<> 11. Wanted Posters <>
|Wanted - Pied Piper|For kidnapping unlicensed vermin control and racketeering|
|You'll find it in Shrek's swamp you want miss it becasue Donkey tells about |
|it. |
|Wanted - The Giant| For construction without permit. Beanstalk does not |
| | comply with city building codes. |
|When you're on "Hunt Adventures" you'll come to an outpost of the bandits, |
|the poster is located at the side of the cabin next to the house. |
|Wanted - Knave Of Hearts| For pastry theft |
|In a quite large room in the FGM Agency, it is on a fridge. The room is |
|the one you reach by going through a vent, see the walkthrough for more |
|information on the location. |
|Wanted - Goldilocks| For breaking, entering, petty larceny, graft. |
|This one is very easy to find, when you are in the area you need to pull |
|3 levers to open a gate you have to go through the gate and you'll find the |
|poster hanging on the wall of the house to the right. |
|Wanted - Chicken Little|For inciting civil unrest and for being a little fowl|
|It's in the room where you need to go up all the time, in the prison chapter.|
|Wanted - Pinocchio| For perjury |
|In the prison when you play with Puss in Boots, beneath the platform you |
|land on when you climb down on the pipe. |
|Wanted - Humpty Dumpty| For loitering, reckless behaviour, |
| | and egging public property |
|In the Far Far Away Castle when you pull the lever on the left and the guard |
|will come out of a small room, go into that room and it will be on wall to |
|the left. |
|Wanted - Georgie Porgie| Wanted for kissing girls and making them cry |
|In Hunt Adventures, just before you reach the second and larger set of |
|toadstools to cross to the duel with Puss in Boots, turn left and jump over |
|a small fence. A boarded cave is behind. Obtain coins and this poster. |
|Wanted - Big Bad Wolf| Wanted for For Destruction of Private Property, |
| | Puffing, Causing a Public Disturbance, Huffing, and |
| | Eating Grandmother |
|After you have entered FGM Agency, you have finished it all up with the cat |
|and you are now with donkey returning to the main room where everything |
|started, where you have the rollers, enter one of those empty doors |
|(not the one with Rodney the saving fairy) and you will see some Hero Bars |
|and behind one of the walls there is the poster. |
|Wanted - The Hare| Wanted for For Multiple Speeding Offenses |
|The Hare you can find at the prison when you are with Shrek.. |
|Right in the beginning after you cross the bridge you will see a pile of |
|boxes, hit them and the poster is right behind them. |
<> 12. Clovers <>
1. The first clover is in Shrek's swamp. You can't miss it because Donkey
tells about it twice.
2. In the Far Far Away Woods, the third part, behind the cabin after the
fire breathing flowers.
3. After you've taken the lift in the mines in a room with a lot of bats.
4. In the prison, when you play with Puss in Boots, at the end of the green
<> 13. Credits <>
CJayC : For adding this & copyright text
www.network-science.de/ascii/ : For the nice ASCII art
tavias : For the info on the fire flower.
Brandye Perea-Pilant : For the poster Georgie Porgie
Lu Carneiro : For the "Big Bad Wolf & "The Hare" posters
<> 14. Copyright Notice <>
This may be not be reproduced under any circumstances except for personal,
private use. It may not be placed on any web site or otherwise distributed
publicly without advance written permission. Use of this guide on any other
web site or as a part of any public display is strictly prohibited, and a
violation of copyright.
Copyright (c) 2005 Devon Kerkhove
All rights reserved.
This guide may only be hosted on these websites :
- GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com)
- NeoSeeker (www.neoseeker.com)
- IGN (http://faqs.ign.com)
<> 15. Contact Information <>
If you want to contribute to this guide, please email me at
skydragonlord7707 (at) hotmail.com. I'll give you full credit when I posted it
Thanks for reading and if you have some time why don't you take a look at my
other guides.
Note that only I only will update my guides on www.gamefaqs.com if you read
this file on neoseeker or ign please check the date and if it is outdated
go to gamefaqs.com
<>-------- End -------<>


text:
Rotation Locator
- This rotation locator is good for keeping track of your players.....during the game. After the game, that is all you. Comes with an easy to erase grease pencil as we all make mistakes.
- Official USAV licensed item
- Keep track of rotations, substitutions, positions, and time outs with the rotation locator
- Outer dial rotates to indicate the changing positions of the players on the court
- Eliminates the confusion of determining front and back row players in any given rotation
- On reverse side is a reduced sized volleyball court for defensive or offensive plays
- A grease pencil is included
This item is stocked at our St. Louis, MO facility.
Stocked items/orders placed before 1pm CST are shipped that day (business days only, Mon-Fri.).
Stocked items/orders placed after 1pm CST ship the next business day (Mon-Fri., no holidays).
Standard delivery time is between 1-4 days (see map below for delivery estimates).
We will notify you via email within 1 business day if there is any expected delay.
If there are non-stocked items on your order those will be shipped separate from your stocked items at no additional cost.
Team orders and orders paid with PO's may take additional processing days (between 3-5 business days).
Printing requires additional processing days. Please visit our Uniform Printing page.
For more information please visit our Shipping page and our Shipping Practices page.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
TORONTO - Only time will tell whether Rob Ford's stint in rehab has changed him, some of the Toronto mayor's colleagues said Tuesday, just weeks before his scheduled return to city hall.
Ford plans to come back to work on June 30, according to a letter he sent to the city clerk's office.
The letter says he will return to resume his duties as mayor "in the later portion of the afternoon" and asks that his office locks be changed back by 1 p.m.
"I'm hoping that he really seriously applied himself at rehab and he will come back a very changed person," Coun. Paula Fletcher said.
She said city hall has been "pretty calm and scandal-free" in the mayor's absence, a sentiment echoed by other councillors.
"Ever since his departure from city hall, things have been very calm, there's a lot of business being conducted, there's a level of civility I believe has re-entered city hall," Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam said.
"It clearly demonstrates to me that when he's here, he's a distraction."
Coun. Janet Davis said it's impossible to know what to expect from Ford.
"I don't want to predict how Rob Ford will behave, I don't think anybody's ever been able to do that," she said.
The embattled mayor has been in rehab since announcing on April 30 he was seeking help for an alcohol problem, just as new allegations of substance abuse surfaced in several published reports.
Ford has been faced with allegations of drug use since May 2013, when the Toronto Star and the U.S. website Gawker reported seeing a video that appeared to show him smoking crack cocaine.
Months later, Ford admitted to trying the drug while in one of his "drunken stupors'' and to using drugs while in office.
That led council to strip him of most of his mayoral duties.
Though the mayor then publicly swore off alcohol, he was later forced to admit to drinking after another videotaped incident in which he used Jamaican swear words and slagged the city's chief of police.
The letter announcing Ford's return is dated June 2, but the clerk did not receive the letter until Monday, City of Toronto spokesperson Jackie DeSouza said in an email.
(The Canadian Press, 680News)
Also on HuffPost


text:
A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the International Mathematical Union
Editor: Mireille Chaleyat-Maurel, University Paris Descartes, Paris, France
The aim of the International Mathematical Union is to promote international cooperation in mathematics, in particular (quoting from the IMU website) "to encourage and support international mathematical activities considered likely to contribute to the development of mathematical science in any of its aspects, pure, applied, or educational". The last of these aspects is addressed in depth through IMU's commission ICMI: the International Commission for Mathematical Instruction, a body with a history longer than that of the IMU itself. I have been the IMU executive committee's liaison person with the ICMI executive for the past few years and have witnessed the realisation of a major new development focus by ICMI: the Capacity and Networking Project CANP.
The CANP vision is to run an on-going series of programmes in a different developing region each year, seeking to enhance mathematics education at all levels, and to create and sustain effective regional networks of teachers, mathematics educators and mathematicians, linked to international support. CANP aims to build capability in the mathematical community to meet the challenges faced by countries in these regions.
The first CANP programme was held in Mali in 2011 bringing together 40 mathematicians from Burkina-Fasso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, and Senegal, and supported in particular by UNESCO. Recently the second CANP programme was held in Costa Rica with support from the International Council of Science (ICSU). It saw the founding of the "Mathematics Education Network of Central America and the Caribbean". The third CANP programme is planned to take place in Cambodia and involve several developing countries in South East Asia.
Cheryl E. Praeger
Member of the IMU EC
Vice-president elect of ICMI
News from IMU
Guidelines for IMU General Assembly
Since the foundation of IMU such guidelines have not been existing, the GA meetings were always organized in a somewhat ad hoc manner. At the recent two General Assemblies it was suggested to consider drafting guidelines so that the organizers of future General Assembly meetings would have a clear picture of what has to be done. Now the IMU EC made such a draft that will be tested in the planning of the 2014 GA meeting. The new guidelines will also be on the agenda of the 2014 GA meeting so that the GA delegates can discuss the guidelines and suggest changes, amendments and the like. The local GA organizers and the IMU EC will report about their experiences with using the guidelines so that a final version may be ready for approval by the GA in 2014.
IMU on the Web
a) Supporting Scholarly Annotation of Online Mathematics Resources
The W3C Open Annotation Community Group [1] is developing an open, general-purpose model for describing scholarly annotations of Web resources, including scholarly journal articles, class Web pages, mathematics eprints, etc. Leveraging emerging Semantic Web standards and Linked Open Data best practices, the goal of Open Annotation is interoperability that simultaneously supports advanced scholarly discourse and a wide-range of content repositories and annotation tools. More and more annotation tools now available or in development can be used with mathematics content; the goal of Open Annotation is to encourage development of semantic-rich tools and services by providing a shared model of annotation description on which to build.
Annotation is core to many domains, including mathematics -- consider the work in number theory inspired in part because the margins of Arithmetica were wide enough to contain Fermat's Last Theorem, but not wide enough to contain its proof. Math annotation use cases can be among the most challenging because mathematicians frequently need to embed graphics and/or equations in notes and often want to annotate the fine details of equations and expressions. When it comes to mathematics, the view that all annotations are plain text does not suffice.
Open Annotation takes a resource-centric approach. An annotation has one or more targets (Web resources, resource components, or resource representations). Arbitrary granularity is supported; you can annotate an entire book or only a single element in a single equation. Target granularity can be expressed using domain-specific semantics like TeX and MathML. The body (content) of an annotation is another resource with its own unique identifier. The annotation body can be of any format; thus a Web video can annotate the use of an equation. The annotation itself, expressing the relationship between body and target(s), is given its own unique identifier. Thus body, target(s), and annotation can all be individually referenced. This supports advanced annotation chaining and data mining.
Contributors to this work include the Mellon Foundation-supported Open Annotation Collaboration [2] and the bioscience-focused Annotation Ontology initiative [3]. Open Annotation specifications are being vetted against real-world use cases, and we would welcome use cases from mathematicians and scholarly mathematics content providers. For further information visit the Community Group homepage.
[1] http://www.w3.org/community/openannotation/
[2] http://www.openannotation.org
[3] http://code.google.com/p/annotation-ontology/
Tim Cole, Mathematics & Digital Content Access Librarian
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, PI, Open Annotation Collaboration
email: t-cole3(at)illinois.edu
b) The Future World Heritage Digital Mathematics Library Symposium
The Future World Heritage Digital Mathematics Library Symposium was held at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, on June 1-3, 2012. The meeting was organized by the CEIC and supported by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The participants consulted on the ongoing goal of a World Digital Mathematics Library (WDML), and discussed progress made to date and future challenges. The final report of the meeting is at
Nominations for IMU Awards 2014
The President of the IMU, Ingrid Daubechies, has written to the Adhering Organizations, asking them to submit nominations for the IMU awards listed below.
* Fields Medals - firstname.lastname@example.com
The Fields Medals are awarded every 4 years on the occasion of the International Congress of Mathematicians to recognize outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement.
* Rolf Nevanlinna Prize - email@example.com
The Nevanlinna Prize is awarded once every 4 years at the International Congress of Mathematicians, for outstanding contributions in mathematical aspects of information sciences.
* Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize - firstname.lastname@example.com
The Gauss Prize is awarded once every 4 years to honor a scientist whose mathematical research has had an impact outside mathematics - either in technology, in business, or simply in people's everyday lives.
* Chern Medal Award - email@example.com
The Chern Medal is awarded every 4 years on the occasion of the International Congress of Mathematicians to an individual whose accomplishments warrant the highest level of recognition for outstanding achievements in the field of mathematics.
* Leelavati Prize, sponsored by Infosys - firstname.lastname@example.com
The Leelavati Prize, is intended to accord high recognition and great appreciation of the IMU and Infosys of outstanding contributions for increasing public awareness of mathematics as an intellectual discipline and the crucial role it plays in diverse human endeavors.
* ICM 2014 Emmy Noether Lecture - firstname.lastname@example.com
The ICM Emmy Noether lecture is a special lecture at an ICM which honors women who have made fundamental and sustained contributions to the mathematical sciences.
More details about each of these awards and the Noether lecture, as well as lists of past laureates, can be found on the IMU Website.
Deadline for nominations: December 31, 2012
The names of the chairs of the various prize committees and their contact information can be found here.
The names of the other prize committee members remain confidential and will be announced at the Opening Ceremony of ICM 2014 only.
Fields Medal Symposium
The Fields Institute (Link to http://www.fields.utoronto.ca/) in Toronto, Canada will soon launch an annual event called the FIELDS MEDAL SYMPOSIUM, that will focus on the work of mathematicians honored by a Fields Medal. The Inaugural Fields Medal Symposium (Link to
entitled Fundamentals of the Langlands Program, will be held on October 15-18, 2012. It will be centered on the work of Ngô Bà o Châu, and its current and potential impact.
Bill Thurston Passing Away
Bill Thurston passed away on August 21, 2012. He was for many years the dominant figure in the study of 3 dimensional topology and geometry, winning a Fields medal for this work in 1982. His "Geometrization Conjecture" classifying the topology of 3 manifolds was finally proved by Perelman as part of his work on the Poincaré Conjecture.
Mathematics of Planet Earth 2013 (MPE2013)
MPE2013 is a year of scientific and outreach activities around the world in 2013: www.mpe2013.org.
It is not too late to participate to the "Mathematics of Planet Earth Competition for an open source exhibition of virtual modules" (museum-quality exhibits): www.mpe2013.org/competition. You can participate yourself. Your help is also welcome to spread the news and encourage other people to participate: students, colleagues, teachers, etc. The modules submitted will form the basis of the permanent Mathematics of Planet Earth Open Source Exhibition. Examples of modules or themes to be covered are available on the website. The competition is open until December 20, 2012.
The launch of the MPE exhibition will be organized by the IMU jointly with MPE2013. It will take place at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris on March 5-8 2013. The winners will receive their prizes during a ceremony on March 5. MPE2013 will work in partnership with UNESCO, IMU and ICMI for the promotion of the MPE exhibition, and for other MPE activities like the distribution of special MPE issues of magazines in Africa.
MPE2013 hopes to hold a daily blog in 2013. If you are interested to contribute, please send a message to firstname.lastname@example.com, with an indication of preferred dates and topics.
Many countries are already preparing their MPE2013 launch and will hold activities all around 2013. It is not too late for other countries to join and organize MPE related activities. MPE2013 can help for partnerships.


text:
I have this css to change the GUI font for ages:
- Code: Select all
@namespace url(http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul);
* {
font-family:"DejaVu Sans" !important;
While I was experimenting now with changing the content font setting in firefox I noticed that it results these fonts will be used on the GUI if I have this script enabled when I don't allow webpages to use their own fonts. It makes no sense at all...
If I disable the script the FF default font is used.
Does anyone have an idea how to fix the CSS?


text:
It's time for another installment of Pot Psychology, the advice column in which everyone's problems are solved with an "herbal" remedy. (Remember, kids: Don't do drugs. Really.) In this episode, my friend till the end, Rich, helps me dole out advice on stuff like abortion scams, diabetic drinkers, and rim jobs. Got a burning question? Send it to firstname.lastname@example.com with "Pot Psychology" in the subject line. (Please keep them short; they're verrrry hard to read when stoned.)
P.S. No animals were drugged in the making of this video.


text:
Few historical tales of ecological collapse have achieved the cultural resonance of that of Easter Island. In the conventional account, best popularised by Jared Diamond in his 2005 book 'Collapse', the islanders brought doom upon themselves by over-exploiting their limited environment, thereby providing a compelling analogy for modern times. Yet recent archaeological work suggests that the eco-collapse hypothesis is almost certainly wrong – and that the truth is far more shocking.
Diamond's thesis is that the island's original lush tree-cover was destroyed by the Polynesian colonists, whose cult of making massive statues (for which the island is now famous) required prodigious amounts of wood to transport these huge rock idols. He suggests that as the ecological crisis brought on by deforestation worsened, the islanders tried to appease their apparently angry gods by making and transporting yet more statues, creating a vicious circle of human stupidity.
Lest we fail to spot the parallel, he writes:
"I have often asked myself, "What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?" Like modern loggers, did he shout "Jobs, not trees!"? Or: "Technology will solve our problems, never fear, we'll find a substitute for wood"?
Diamond was not the first to draw this specific analogy: over a decade earlier, in a 1992 book entitled 'Easter Island, Earth Island', Paul Bahn and John Flenley (both palaeoecologists) wrote:
"…the person who felled the last tree could see that it was the last tree. But he (or she) still felled it. This is what is so worrying. Humankind's covetousness is boundless. Its selfishness appears to be genetically inborn. Selfishness leads to survival. Altruism leads to death. The selfish gene wins. But in a limited ecosystem, selfishness leads to increasing population imbalance, population crash, and ultimately extinction."
And just to show how nasty things can get in a collapsing society, Diamond makes sure to include tantalisingly unpleasant allegations that the islanders actually ate each other on a large scale:
"In place of their former sources of wild meat, islanders turned to the largest hitherto unused source available to them: humans, whose bones became common not only in proper burials but also (cracked to extract the marrow) in late Easter Island garbage heaps."
Diamond rounds off the chapter with the kind of call to arms that will be familiar to any environmentalist:
"The parallels between Easter Island and the whole modern world are chillingly obvious. Thanks to globalisation, international trade, jet planes, and the internet, all countries on Earth today share resources and affect each other, just as did Easter's dozen clans… Those are the reasons why people see the collapse of Easter Island society as a metaphor, a worst-case scenario, for what may lie ahead of us in our own future."
But what if almost none of this is actually true, in straightforward historical terms? More recent archaeological work has now challenged almost every aspect of this conventional 'ecocide' narrative, most completely and damningly in a new book by the archaeologists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo entitled 'The Statues That Walked'. Hunt and Lipo did not set out to challenge the conventional story: their initial studies were intended merely to confirm it by providing some greater archaeological detail. However, as they dug and analysed, things turned out very differently.
Take the deforestation issue. Hunt and Lipo discovered that initial estimates of the date of first colonisation by migrating Polynesians were out by several hundred years. So whilst human arrival on the island did indeed lead to near-total deforestation, it was nothing to do with statue-building, which came later. Certainly people would have cut and used some of the trees, but the more likely explanation for the extinction of the island's native palms was the proliferation of rats – brought by the human immigrants – which ate the seeds of the trees and prevented them regenerating. (The same thing happened on many other Pacific islands, including those in Hawaii.)
And instead of the statue-building cult being evidence of stupidity and ecocide, Hunt and Lipo suggest that it was actually an important contributor to the success of Easter Island society – which (again in contradiction to the assertions of Diamond) maintained a relatively peaceful nature over many centuries. Moreover, the statues were never transported by being dragged using wood rails – they were instead 'walked' along specially-constructed roads in a similar way to how you or I would walk a heavy refrigerator across the kitchen.
So deforestation happened at the beginning of Polynesian colonisation, and Easter Island's new inhabitants then developed ingenious methods for eking out a sustainable existence in their infertile and climatically hostile new home. These included lithic mulching (using stones as mulch), erecting multiple wind-breaks (again out of stone) and making very effective string and rope out of plant fibres.
As the authors write:
"The truth of cultivation on the island was that only the ingenuity of the islanders made it possible to produce a reliable food crop."
They continue,
"In light of this knowledge, we can readily see the unwarranted nature of claims for a prehistoric environmental catastrophe that turned a once-productive island into a barren landscape. If anything, the islanders contributed to an increase in the human carrying capacity of the island over time."
This is a very different picture from the conventional one of ecocide and cannibalism. Regarding the latter charge, according to Hunt and Lipo, the first mention of this is a sensationalised hoax published in a French tabloid newspaper in 1845, which alleged that native cannibals had tried to eat a French ship captain. The suggestion of cannibalism was also an old ploy by Christian missionaries – and used in many other islands – both to convince the Polynesians that their own culture was abhorrent, and to convince outsiders that that the natives desperately needed conversion to Christianity.
Hunt and Lipo are not the first to point out the inadequacies of Diamond's scholarship – and that of his intellectual antecedents. As Benny Peiser points out in this 2005 paper, fish supplies were abundant, and reports from early European explorers that the islanders were thin and miserable-looking are highly contradictory (others report that they lived in comparative luxury). Certainly Diamond's reading of this seems highly partisan. As Peiser puts it:
"Together with abundant and virtually unlimited sources of seafood, the cultivation of the island's fertile soil could easily sustain many thousands of inhabitants interminably. In view of the profusion of broadly unlimited food supplies (which also included abundant chickens, their eggs and the islands innumerable rats, a culinary 'delicacy' that were always available in abundance), Diamond's notion that the natives resorted to cannibalism as a result of catastrophic mass starvation is palpably absurd. In fact, there is no archaeological evidence whatsoever for either starvation or cannibalism."
Where Diamond's 'garbage heaps' full of cracked human bones are located I have so far not been able to discover, for there does indeed seem to be no evidence for them reported in any of the academic literature I have found.
As Hunt and Lipo report:
"When we first arrived on Rapa Nui (the original name for 'Easter Island'), we expected that the archaeological record would divulge plenty of evidence of conflict, but it didn't. Instead our archaeological investigations have shown that Rapa Nui's history is notable for its lack of violence."
Falsely accusing the islanders of killing and eating each other is bad enough. But it gets worse. Whilst the conventional narrative blames the islanders for committing a kind of collective ecological and social suicide (hence the term 'ecocide') this reading of history is almost certainly perpetuating a monumental injustice. For the Easter Islanders were indeed subject to a genocide – but it did not come from within. Instead, visiting ships brought epidemics of new diseases which wiped out the majority of the population – with most of the remnants later carted off in slave raids.
It is grimly ironic that Jared Diamond, of all people, missed – or misread – this more realistic version of history, given that it forms the central thesis for his earlier and much more convincing book 'Guns, Germs and Steel'. In this work, Diamond provides compelling evidence for how diseases unknown in the New World decimated whole populations, facilitating European invasion and setting the scene for appalling crimes committed against native populations from the silver mines of Potosi to Tenochtitlan.
So why could he not understand that the same thing happened at Easter Island? Hunt and Lipo again:
"For Rapa Nui, Fischer reports that of the approximately 1,500 Rapanui who were blackbirded to Peru, the vast majority died there. In the repatriation from South America to Polynesia, eighty-five of the survivors died at sea, leaving a mere dozen or so Rapanui who actually made it back home. Then in 1871, a majority of islanders left for Tahiti and Mangareva; and even in their neighboring islands of Polynesia, the Rapanui met with death in large numbers. By 1877, the native population on the island had reached its all-time recorded low of just 110. Through a series of disastrous encounters with foreign visitors, the Rapanui population had collapsed, rebounded, collapsed again, and then recovered to a degree, only to be ravished in slave raids."
Nor was this the final insult. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the island was converted into a massive sheep ranch, with its surviving human population held in virtual captivity. The sheep converted it into a true ecological wasteland, eliminating the remaining smaller trees and causing large-scale soil erosion – for which the early Easter Islanders would once again later be blamed by latter-day environmentalists.
So the history is wrong. But what of the analogy? Hunt and Lipo end their book by drawing a much more positive parallel between Easter Island and the rest of the world.
"Thus, despite the long history of disease, population collapse, external rule, and enslavement, the Rapanui have held on and thrived. A swelling population spurred by a booming Chilean economy has brought prosperity to the island in the form of growing tourism."
Like all of us, modern Easter Islanders are inter-dependent with the rest of the world. Perhaps the more recent studies of their history will help challenge the Hobbesian and pessimistic view that human nature necessarily tends towards destruction and violence. Resilience and sustainability are just as likely outcomes, even over the longer term. This, I think, is the true lesson of Easter Island.
I'll give the last word to Benny Peiser, whose paper on the subject should be required reading for anyone convinced by the collapse story in Jared Diamond's book.
"The real mystery of Easter Island, however, is not its collapse. It is why distinguished scientists feel compelled to concoct a story of ecological suicide when the actual perpetrators of the civilisation's deliberate destruction are well known and were identified long ago…
As a final point, I would argue that Easter Island is a poor example for a morality tale about environmental degradation. Easter Island's tragic experience is not a metaphor for the entire Earth. The extreme isolation of Rapa Nui is an exception even among islands, and does not constitute the ordinary problems of the human environment interface. Yet in spite of exceptionally challenging conditions, the indigenous population chose to survive – and they did…
What they could not endure, however, and what most of them did not survive, was something altogether different: the systematic destruction of their society, their people and their culture."
Update, 22 September 2011: Jared Diamond has sent a robust response to the above piece (and the sources I based it on), which I have published in full. Please do read it, and join in the debate in the comments underneath.
30 Comments
Jared Diamond debunking is nothing new. Check out "Questioning Collapse – Human Resilience, Ecological Vulnerability and the Aftermath of Empire" edited by Patricia A. McAnany & Norman Yoffee (Cambridge University Press 2010 ISNB 978-0-521-73366-3) This is an entire book devoted to the expert's analysis of Diamond's work. I read both books and found a lot of validity in both. However "Questioning Collapse" often presented Diamond's work as a Straw Man and attributed concepts to the author that don't appear in his work. In fact "Collapse" has become a legend in its own lunch hour – it is now instilled with the myths of what people think it says. I am not sure many have actually read it. Least not some of his critics. On balance Jared Diamond's work is still quite credible and well researched. However he has chosen his conclusion and made the facts fit. Finding evidence for ecological overshoot in archeology is fraught with dangers. But the point remains valid. Certainly your own work (Mark Lynas) in "The God Species" points out humanity's ability to engineer the environment such that we tinker our civilisation out of existence. It remains intuitively true. We are nothing but yeast in the petri dish. Even if it remains hard to find good examples in the history books there are plenty of other chapters in "Collapse" to consider. It is a VERY long book. But we should always question the manner of the collapse to see how we can avert it.↓
There is big difference between telling a (politizised) story and the history? The elephant in the room is Marxism and its agenda driven environmentalism? A scientific debate is going to be very difficult?
Critique with attack on person and without scientific arguments? Critical theory by Hurbert Marcuse?
I do not consider stupid the idea that humans can go on driving like drunk in this planet. I do not say this because I believe in AGW, that I do not. But I believe that oil, our holy grail, would eventually get exhausted,
and even the putative alternative coal.
The worse thing that can happen is not so much the global warming, I do not see this in my crystal ball.
The worse thing is what to do next, when fossil fuels get exhausted, and we would start suddenly very pressed building atomic generators of electricity.
This is not the worse thing either. Just think about the next glacial age, that must be waiting us in the next corner. Just google for "graphic temperatures of Viostok-Petit". Then, let us forget this silly idea that any criticism posted in books are some Marxist conspiracy. Thing are going very well, so far they
are going very well. But if you ask for the graphic of temperatures of GISP2 taken from the ice cores in Greenland, this is not a piece of Marxism you get there. You can see the ups and downs of temperature, in the last 10,000 years. You can see in the downs, of temperature as seen in GISP2 graphic that many past civilizations "collapsed" when temperatures plunged, and besides the cold, a damn drought make life miserable and on the verge of extinction. This case of extinction cannot be a Marxist sermon. I never heard Marxists talking about the collapse by a sudden plunge in temperature.
Then, this poor people in the island of Rapa Nui not only were situated in the rather bad latitude, they had against as well, the Little Ice Age, if you have any idea of what is this, LIA. Eastern Island is in a south Latitude of 28 degrees. The island is in a place called the horse latitude because often, the horses transported in ships die of suffocation for lack of air. I mean, this place is mostly on the center of very frequent low pressure. And the winds that arrive to this island are rather fresh than hot. And the rains are scarce and cold. Then, try to add on top of this latitude, the case of low temperature called Little Ice Age. That was a sort of dead sentence. They arrive there to the island in period of relative good weather. But around the year 153 or 155 a series of volcanoes caused a serious drop in temperature, that caused famine in Europe for a few years. By the time known as Dark Ages in Europe, the temperatures plunged as well, like 2 C degrees or a little less. This affected the whole planet. Later around the year 1,000 the temperature was good again. This would had been a good moment for Rapa Nui. 1450 was a bad period, and 1585, this were the worse periods of the LIA (Little Ice Age) Those trees together with the rats and the humans and the cold periods, would be enough miseries to cause civil wars and cannibalism.
And this is not any Marxist theorem. During the worse of some civil wars and famines, cannibalism was not so rare. During the Russian civil wars, among the 5 million people that died of starvation in Ukraine and other regions of Russia, there were rumors of cannibalism. During the droughts in the South West of the US and the Indians Pueblo has been documented clearly and abundant cases of cannibalism.
Summing up, what is awaiting us is not a case of global warming, but the next glacial age. The maximum of solar energy according to the graphs of Milankosevic occurred 10,000 years ago. Now we are in the lower point of this radiation. All the heat so much talked about was perhaps caused by the weakening of ozone layer by the CFC . As soon as the CFCs were prohibited by the Montreal Protocol, for the year 1998, the weakening of the ozone layer stopped, and there was not more serious warming. Now it would take a time for the molecules of chlorine to get connected to some heavy molecule and to fall down. It would take several decades for the total evacuation of chlorine of the troposphere.
Benny Peiser? That'll be the same Benny Peiser who runs the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the sceptical think tank frequented by the likes of Nigel Lawson and Ian Plimer.
You don't think he might have an axe to grind at least as large as Diamond's?↓
And you quoted his paper from Energy & Environment …
ssh don't tell the Carbon Brief
I'm being a little unfair (but only a little), because I haven't read the thing. But Benny is a sports scientist and Energy and Environment is not an obvious journal for archeology – even (loosely) environmental archeology.
So while the paper might be brilliant, I certainly don't have the expertise to assess and critique it myself and otherwise I've no way of telling. But if you want to pedal its authority as an academic work then the sceptic in me has to wonder why it wasn't published in a journal that might be able to do a proper job of peer review or attract follow up discussion by other experts.
I'm just not sure that 2 books you don't like vs a paper oddly published in a journal that has no expertise in the subject matter is a great basis for getting to the bottom of what happened to Easter Islanders.
I'm sorry Mark, not convinced. If you're going to draw on a paper by a known climate denier AND a director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation at that, then as far as I'm concerned you lose credibility. Certainly the research by Hunt and Lipo is worth examining closely and is convincing, but they don't have an environmental axe to grind as far as I am aware of. Peiser by virtue of his climate denial is one of the enemy as far as I'm concerned.
Peiser summarises thus: Collapse is perhaps the prime upshot of the amalgamation of environmental determinism and cultural pessimism in the social sciences. It epitomises a new and burgeoning doctrine expounded largely by disillusioned left-wingers and former Marxist intellectuals. In place of the old creed of class warfare and socio-economic driving forces that used to explain every single development under the sun, environmental determinism essentially applies the same one-sided rigidity to historical events and societal evolution (Peiser, 2003).
Hmm. This is hardly what you would call a balanced conclusion. Diamond may be largely wrong on Easter Island, but what about Norse Greenland and/or Haiti (there's far more to Collapse than Easter Island)? And even if he is wrong, it hardly warrants this childish name calling. If Diamond is guilty of doing a Heyerdahl (i.e. deciding on the conclusion before starting the research), then Peiser is just as bad. A diamond geezer he ain't.↓
Absolutely. Diamond may be wrong on Easter Island, but even if he is the wider analogy between the collapse of ancient societies due to various environmental factors and certain aspects of our own societies situation still holds merit. To demolish this analogy entirely because of just one particular society is not logical at all.
How DO you drag a fridge across the kitchen?↓
Try Douglas Adams' – The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul –
and the creation of the guilt god (fridge related)
Seriously though 😉
how shocking of you to quote climate chnage denier (wrong about everything) Benny Peiser… 😉
serioulsy, serioulsy, with the recent Atlas Green land story, hyping thing up for an ecological cause has many, many examples.
Press Release:
For the first time, the new edition of
The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World,
publishedon 15 September, has had to erase 15% of Greenland'sonce permanent ice cover
– turning an area the sizeof the United Kingdom and Ireland 'green' and ice-free.
This is concrete evidence of how climate changeis altering the face of the planet forever
–and doing so at an alarming and accelerating rate.Cartographers of the atlas have sourced the latestevidence and referred to detailed maps and recordsto confirm that in the last 12 years, 15% of thepermanent ice cover (around 300,000 sq km) ofGreenland, the world's largest island, has melted away
And how shocking of you to link Richard Black of the BBC. Pot kettle.
Also it looks like you were a bit quick in congradulating the Times Atlas in it's coverage (or lack thereof) of Greenland
A very good piece. A pity so many of the comments on it show a mindset determined to hold onto a misconception that flies in the face of both reason and history.
E&E published Oliver "Iron Sun" Manuel, and the fact that you think Peiser might be right does not alter the fact that E&E is a repository for crap that is at best wrong or at worst crazy. So the logical conclusion is you are wrong about him being right. Congrats, Lynas, you've boarded the crazy train.
PS. If you want to experience just what crap E&E is, try this:
Wow, an ad hominem and a self-promoting blog advertisement. Way to contribute to the discussion, big guy!
I call it a demonstration of just how lousy a journal E&E is.If the paper is published there its because nowhere else would take it.
Lynas: "Resilience and sustainability are just as likely outcomes, even over the longer term."
Actually, resilience and sustainability over the long and short terms have been the hallmark of homo sapien expansion, ecocide is the very rare exception. The remarkable adaptibility of human beings allowed humans to devise new strategies for long term survival that often change the survival (sustainability) of some plant and animal species but rarely were these new strategies so drastic that a new ecological balance could not be established.
Pockets of human civilization that may have reached overshoot in the 20th century are far more likely to be a product of the artificial nature of globalism and the excesses of centrally directed fiat monetary systems driving overreliance on fossil fuel based products and food production than owing to any kind of propensity for humans to develop a die-off level imbalance between population growth and natural resources. Without the reigning top-down paradigm, any imbalances would have already largely resolved themselves.
I often found Diamond's books frustrating given that he clearly had trouble distinguishing causation and correlation and his personal biases led him to jump to conclusions. Thanks to Lynas for this article which nicely broadens the view on collapse.↓
There's a long of back and forth conjecture here. I imagine that Diamond had some cultural baggage that lead him to perpetuate myths about the savage Polynesians, but from my perspective I found it hard to imagine 20,000 people sustaining a healthy population on Easter Island. I sailed there recently and spent a week surveying the coastline for debris washed ashore. Fresh water isn't plentiful, the soil sucks, and fish are not a stable source of food.
Rats may have played a role in deforestation, but rats are plentiful there now. I saw them everywhere, especially in the open-pit landfill. There are still groves of palms doing just fine across the island. Hunt and Lipo also counter Diamond's suggestion that humans cut down trees to move statues. They suggest, "The statues were never transported by being dragged using wood rails – they were instead 'walked' along specially-constructed roads in a similar way to how you or I would walk a heavy refrigerator across the kitchen." How the hell do you do that? I can't imagine how you would walk a 20-meter long statue a mile to the coast. Rolling it is so much more efficient. If I were there standing among a grove of tall, straight trees, and someone said "Hey let's wobble this statue back and forth to get it to the shore", I would call them a blundering idiot.
Regarding fish, "Benny Peiser points out in this 2005 paper, fish supplies were abundant." I'm sorry, but I dove there and saw almost nothing. The diving sucks, except for the fake Moai the islanders dumped at 20-meters for tourists to swim around and photograph. Perhaps the lack of fish is an effect of modern stress on fisheries. I don't know, but it was surprising that there was nothing swimming around. Maybe they ate the bountiful jellyfish, like the PSA on ShiftingBaselines.com?
Since the Polynesians arrived, there have always been people on the island. Population size may wax and wane as resources and economies grow and shrivel, much like modern Detroit. I wouldn't say the people of Detroit will eventually eat each other, or that a city reduced to a small town has collapsed. I would reserve the term "collapse" for a punctuated event, like one of the towns recently washed away along the Japanese coast after the 3-11-11 tsunami. And I certainly wouldn't blame any preconceived notions of cultural bias for their demise.↓
Easter Island is not the only place that got devastated by the ancient mariners. The ecocide is certainly not a "myth" — that the lush island was turned into the barren landscape we see on the photo some centuries after the arrival of the humans is not in doubt. I don't appreciate sensationalist "debunking."
Exactly how it all happened is, of course, a hypothesis that will be fine tuned over time. I am sticking for now with the scholarship that precedes Hunt, of whom Jared Diamond is only one.
For fun, though, I will mention a couple of very weird things from Hunt's (et al) work.
"…we can readily see the unwarranted nature of claims for a prehistoric environmental catastrophe that turned a once-productive island into a barren landscape."
Huh? Unwarranted? Are you sure, Dr Hunt, what the word actually means?
"If anything, the islanders contributed to an increase in the human carrying capacity of the island over time." And "The truth of cultivation on the island was that only the ingenuity of the islanders made it possible to produce a reliable food crop."
Well, there we have it. The islanders actually improved the island! Mindboggling. (Regarding the statues being"walked" (like a refrigerator) to their destination rather than slid. I'll believe it when he shows us how it's done, using the biggest standing statue on the island.)↓
Perhaps I should add that the remaining native Rapa Nui folk are behaving as moronically as the old story makes them seem. It turns out they put their town dump on top of the only aquifer remaining on the island. (Some foreigners were issuing a call for help a few years back.) WTF were they thinking?!↓
The disappearance of humans on Easter Island as a result of disease is one thing, but this doesn't explain the disappearance of other life forms. Trees don't get chicken pox. There are plenty of uninhabited islands around the world that were once inhabited by humans, but nature has taken over rather than disappearing along with the human population.
I think the answer is far simpler, and it's all around us for us to observe today. When agriculture was invented some 10,000 years ago, humans made a clearing in the forest to grow food. When the soil was exhausted they moved on to a new place and started again. This still happens today. We extract trees, water, oil and copper and when we have exhausted everything we move on. Due to climate change slowing the Gulf Stream southern Spain has dried up to such an extent that vineyards are being grubbed up and moved further north. Deserts are growing around the Earth because there are simply too many of us taking too much. We don't change our behaviour, we just move on. This is something that could have been ingrained in our psyches ever since we started to settle the land and abandon the nomadic hunter-gatherer life.
I don't think we need to invent interesting fictions and then argue about who has told the most likely story because I think the way we behave towards the land and its bounty today is probably the way we have been behaving for thousands of years, and this could be the most accurate explanation. You cannot go very far on Earth without running into environmental catastrophes. Oil and fresh water are in decline, there are giant floating masses of plastic in the oceans, there are nearly 500 dead zones in the oceans, our rivers are grossly polluted, we are set to lose half of all species on Earth by the end of this century, two out of three people in industrialized countries will get cancer, our carbon emissions are increasing, we are killing hundreds of thousands of people annually from urban air pollution, etc., etc., etc., – and what do we do? We do more of whatever it is that is causing the problems. This is the problem now, and it was probably the problem then. Humans may have the gift of foresight, but it is next to useless because we don't use it.↓
"Moreover, the statues were never transported by being dragged using wood rails – they were instead 'walked' along specially-constructed roads in a similar way to how you or I would walk a heavy refrigerator across the kitchen."
Really? You actually believe a bunch of people would be stupid enough to try to move a building-sized statue "like a fridge" instead of just rolling it downhill? My god, the lengths some deniers are willing go is unbelievable…↓
This documentary (1st of 6 parts) gives a fairly balanced perspective, and not the simplistic "..either … or…" in the post. Easter Island suffered more than one catastrophe, but Diamond is not wrong. In my view he is probably right on the essentials, but he necessarily discusses only the lesser of the two catastrophes.
Diamond also parallels Easter Island with Henderson Island and Pitcairn Island, small islands which suffered total depopulation.
Actually, there are a lot of pieces of evidence for the decline of Easter Island that are not addressed here. Even assuming that the main culprit for deforestation of Easter island was the introduced Polynesian rat, the fact remains that the human population's arrival (now assumed to be circa 1200 AD based on carbon dating) coincides with the beginning of a dramatic ecological transformation that not only affected the major tree species but of course, dramatically impacted the land and seabird populations. While it could possibly be supposed that the building of Easter Islands statues was not the primary cause of ecological crisis, it really cannot be argued that there *was no* ecological crisis as a result of a combination of human/rat colonisation.
The evidence is widespread throughout the archeological record that the ecology of the island collapsed in the several hundred years of Easter Islands occupation—the fact that chickens and rats remained abundant is by no means an indicator of an ecosystem being managed sustainably. Add to this the disappearance of porpoise bones from the archeological record, and the clear evidence of the decline of Rapa Nui seafaring technology by the 18th century, not to mention the creation of A mo'ai kavakava (rib men) by locals, and the evidence for a degree of starvation and societal decay (if not collapse), which paralleled the islands ecological crises, is still arguable, in my view.
So whilst there are aspects of Diamond's work that can certainly be refuted by new evidence, the idea that Easter Island does not represent catastrophic mismanagement of an isolated ecological system is also counter to the evidence at hand.↓


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SAMJ: South African Medical Journal
On-line version ISSN 2078-5135
Print version ISSN 0256-9574
SAMJ, S. Afr. med. j. vol.98 n.8 Pretoria Aug. 2008
Editor's Choice
The story of Vic McKinney coming to terms with his tetraplegia following an extraordinary road accident involving a falling tree that killed his Irish national footballer father, recorded by Chris Bateman,1 challenges many of our prejudices and stereotypes of 'disability'.
McKinney is highly critical of 'the medical model' - and of some doctors, whom he acknowledges for their contribution to his recovery, but says often fail to hear the voices of disabled people, especially when they question a doctor's opinion. This view is reinforced by a study by Steyn et al. on the management of hypertension and diabetes at community health centres:2 'No matter what we as health professionals do or say, patients are in control ...'. But it is societal attitudes that get in McKinney's way more than anything.
His achievements and contributions to society are remarkable.
Historic marathon collapse
The dramatic collapse of Jim Peters, the world record holder for the marathon and leading runner in the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada, has been the subject of much speculation. Tim Noakes, Jackie Meckler (who competed in and came second in the race) and Dan Pedoe examine the evidence of why Peters collapsed, whether he developed heatstroke (and if not, what other explanation for his collapse there could have been), and what relevance this has for present marathon runners.3
Jim Peters collapsed repeatedly during the last 385 metres of the race that he had led from the start. He was taken off the track, lost consciousness and was taken to hospital.
Peters' rectal temperature was 39.4oC, whereas heatstroke is usually associated with rectal temperatures in excess of 42oC. The fact that Peters chose not to drink during the race has been used as evidence that he had heatstroke, but the extent to which athletes drink during exercise does not predict their post-exercise temperatures.
The authors propose that Peters' collapse was probably due to a combination of hyperthermia-induced fatigue which caused him to stop running; exercise-induced postural hypotension as a result of low peripheral vascular resistance; and combined cerebral effects of hyperthermia, hypertonic hypernatraemia associated with dehydration, and perhaps undiagnosed hypoglycaemia. His unconsciousness might have been due to a transient encephalopathy.
Gram-negative bacilli XDR
South Africa has extensively drug resistant (XDR) tuberculosis, and the Gram-negative bacilli are rapidly heading the same way, according to Brink and colleagues.4 In a study conducted in 2007 they tested 1 241 blood culture isolates: Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Enterobacter spp.
Their findings included high levels of resistance to key 'workhorse' antibiotics in the hospitals studied, a significant prevalence of broad-spectrum antibiotic-inactivating enzymes (in particular extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs)) in some centres, and considerable differences in the prevalence of resistance and ESBL production between centres.
Apart from the considerable impact on financial resources, clinical outcome in bacteraemic infections caused by ESBL-producing K. pneumoniae appears to be worse than that of patients with non-ESBL-producing isolates.
As private institutions in South Africa do not employ the doctors who provide services in their hospitals, they are unable to influence their prescribing habits. The fact that the antibiotic-prescibing fraternity has not yet accepted stewardship of the merging problem of XDR Gram-negative bacilli gives rise to an ethical dilemma. It may now be appropriate to challenge the right of doctors to prescribe any antibiotic they wish. The authors conclude that a formal strategic programme of sustained reduction in consumption of antibiotics of all classes over the long term in hospitals nationwide, as in Sweden, is urgently warranted.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteraemia
Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteraemia (PAB) is still primarily a nosocomial infection, but the numbers of community-acquired cases are increasing, especially in patients with AIDS. Perovic and colleagues found that PAB is a major problem at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.5
In their study the most common underlying conditions were burns, HIV infection, trauma and haematological malignancies. More than a third of episodes were catheter related. In 91 bacteraemic episodes the mortality rate was 46.8% for the 79 patients whose outcome was known.
For organism-directed therapy, appropriate treatment was significantly associated with reduced mortality. Combination therapy is not necessarily more advantageous than monotherapy.
The presence of multidrug-resistant (MDR) strains and evidence of transmissions in specialised ICU facilities at the hospital suggest that the extensive use of antimicrobial agents may have played a selective role, while prolonged stay created opportunities for selection of MDR strains.
JP de V van Niekerk
1. Bateman C. Lack of humanity our biggest disability. S Afr Med J 2008; 98:. [ Links ]....
2. Steyn K, Levitt NS, Patel M, Fourie J, Gwebushe N, Lombard C, Everett K. Hypertension and diabetes: Poor care for patients at community health centres. S Afr Med J 2008; 98:. [ Links ]....
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text: Sport & Health features state of the art fitness equipment with cardiovascular conditioning, strength training and free weight equipment. There's the latest, energizing group exercise classes for all levels from Pilates and yoga to step, high and low impact, kick-boxing and more. There's even a Kidz Klub for your children to enjoy while you are working out.