HUMAN NATURE,
CLIMATE CHANGE
AND MODERN TECHNOLOGY
We Have Conquered Nature -- Now What?
In my last blog I outlined how the modern world refuses to deal with the reality of climate change by using more Earth friendly technologies and practices. In this blog I want to expand on Dr. David Burney's finding that all Paleolithic humans radically changed their environment by applying that insight to today's modern world.
Time-lapse photo of a busy US highway at night.
To solve our problems as a species, we must come to terms with our human nature.
We, homo sapiens sapiens, who have been around about 200,000 years have always made drastic changes to the environment -- at least according to Dr. David Burney who studies such matters. In addition he invited others in his field to challenge this finding -- and so far no one has.
Speaking about the movement of early humans from Africa across the globe, Dr. David Burney made this observation in his TED talk.
A global pattern of human arrival to previously uninhabited land masses, followed by faunal collapse and other ecological changes, appears WITHOUT KNOWN EXCEPTION. No one has contradicted or found exception to this idea.
Rewilding, Ecological Surrogacy, and Now... De-extinction?
David Burney at TEDxDeExtinction
David Burney at TEDxDeExtinction
The effect of humans on their surroundings was always significant -- but it was held in check by the earlier technologies that were not sophisticated enough to make major alterations to the Earth's environment.
A Watt type steam engine, built in 1859 and operated for about 40 years.
However because of the industrial revolution about 200 years ago, we now have much more power to do what we have always been doing -- which is to alter the natural environment and to create a man-made environment where we spend most of our time and effort. The invention of the steam engine and then the internal combustion engine, for example, meant that humans simply had more raw power.
This process, which started around 1800, has only accelerated. Today this power has become widespread with a billion motor vehicles worldwide, tens of thousands of large aircraft that transport about four billion passengers a year (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-truths/how-many-planes-are-there-in-the-world/) plus countless factories and electric generating plants.
Volkswagen assembly lines.
The US publisher Ward's, estimates that as of 2010 there were 1.015 billion motor vehicles in use in the world. This figure represents the number of cars; light, medium and heavy duty trucks; and buses, but does not include off-road vehicles or heavy construction equipment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle
As we now know our technology is starting to alter the Earth's total environment in a variety of ways, from greenhouse gases to plastic in the oceans to the extinction of a wide variety of species.
I am suggesting that we are doing this simply because this is what we have always done. But the difference now is that we have amassed so much power that we can alter the Earth itself. Unless we understand our own nature -- what drives us and what messages we respond to -- we will continue on our 200,000 year-old path. Only this time we have tools that can overpower the immensity of the Earth itself, creating perhaps a toxic situation or at best a fundamentally altered one.
Humans Probably Move More Earth Now Than Is Moved By Natural Forces
As an example of how human technology has become so powerful it can alter the Earth itself, here is one report:
In 2004 it was reported that humans probably moved more sand, dirt etc. than the Earth's natural forces of wind, tides, earthquakes, floods, rain etc. Now more than ten years later it seems almost certain that we do. See the following article in Science Daily: Humans May Surpass Other Natural Forces As Earth Movers https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/07/040709083319.htm
Sigmund Freud and Conquering Nature
During the last few generations mankind has made an extraordinary advance in the natural sciences and in their technical application and has established his control over nature in a way never before imagined. ... Men are proud of those achievements, and have a right to be... This newly-won power over space and time, this subjugation of the forces of nature, ... is the fulfillment of a longing that goes back thousands of years...Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
(Left) A German model of the human brain that operated like a machine,
(Right) Sigmund Freud who tried to understand the forces that drove human nature.
UNDERSTANDING HUMAN NATURE
Understanding our human nature is not simple. We are complicated animals who operate like no other on the planet. As I have written many times, I believe we are the only animal that has a complex understanding of time, for example.
Part of the problem is that we tend to think of ourselves as civilized rational beings who respond reasonably. I think it makes more sense to think of ourselves as animals who are doing our best to become rational -- when the situation requires it.
And to make matters even more complicated, I believe that many of our animal traits overlap with the rational conscious reasoning of our civilized cultures such as our intelligence, our ability to make symbols and our curiosity. Even the word 'wise' is part of our animal nature as sapiens means wise.
And there is one more point. I believe that 200,000 years ago humans were just as smart and sophisticated as we are today. Anthropologists agree. Humans have always used whatever technology they had to the Nth degree whether it was the Paleolithic era, the Neolithic era, the bronze age or iron age or today. My point is we are the same species that we were 200,000 years ago; our animal nature is the same and has not changed in any basic way. So the discovery Dr. Burney made applies to both Paleolithic people and people of the modern world.
(Left) Traffic in California USA. (Right) Traffic in Beijing, China
If we are to solve our problem with the environment, then we must find a way to appeal to our basic human nature. We need to realize that dealing with climate change is a matter of survival for our species -- but the full effects will not be felt for some time in the future, perhaps the distant future.
However, our human sense of time is pretty much limited to our own lifetime. Yet what we do today may affect the Earth in a couple of hundred years. However, if we don't do something now the consequences of our current technology may be irreversible.
So here's the problem:
We are constantly engineering our environment. This is what we do as humans and what we have always done, according to Dr. Burney.
To make significant changes in our technology so that it does not affect the Earth's environment, we need to learn to think long term. However, standing in our way is the immediacy of human existence, our own brief lifespan, and our animal nature that deals with the here and now and not the distant future.
And on the other hand there is the very long time it takes for human technology to affect the Earth.
To put it simply, we in the present must give up things and do things that will not benefit us, but will benefit future generations. Long after we are dead, future generations will reap the rewards of what we did. This is a hard nut to crack.
However, recognizing that the urge to change our environment is a basic human trait could give us new insight into the problem.
SUMMARY
1. Dr. David Burney asserts that where ever early humans migrated to previously uninhabited areas, they caused major changes in the environment without exception.
2. Anthropologists state that we today are basically the same as early humans.
3. It therefore seems likely that changing the environment is a basic human trait -- as true today as it was 200,000 years ago.
4. Until the industrial revolution, the changes humans made in the environment had little effect on the overall environment of our planet Earth.
5. However, for the last two hundred years the massive power now available because of technology has the potential to affect the overall environment of the entire planet.
6. Before we can prevent humans from impacting the larger environment of the Earth, we need to recognize that changing the environment is a basic human trait which must be understood and addressed.
If the above summary is valid, then I feel this is an important idea that needs to be explored in more detail. As I have written, we need to understand our own human nature if we are to deal with this situation, because it is our human nature that has created this problem.
"The old bond between humans and nature has been permanently altered by technology. The task of the 21st century artist is to forge a new relationship between humans and the world, since our fate is inseparable from that of the Earth." Rick Doble (2003)
An assembly hall at a factory in Germany in 1875.
AFTERWORD
We humans do not have a good track record when it comes to understanding the consequences of our changes to the environment. See the following list at Wikipedia.
And the related article:
It is now clear that any new technology or major change in a technology needs an 'environmental impact' assessment both near term and long term. While many view this as bureaucratic 'red tape', it should be considered just part of doing business. Our technology today is simply too powerful to assume that it will not harm or have an effect on the environment now or in the future.
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