Human Origins and Humanity's Future: Past, Present and Future of the Anthropocene

The human capacity to change the planet is not something new, but is rooted in our deep evolutionary past.  One of the hallmarks of humans is our large brain size, which began to expand about 2 million years ago.  This expansion did not come without consequences, and two are particularly important. The first is the additional energy requirements needed to fuel this larger brain size together with the concomitant life history factors such as shorter interbirth intervals, more dependent offspring and longer periods of growth and development, and longer lifespans.  The second is the solution to these energy requirements that involve cooperative breeding and the development of the high risk/high return hunting and gathering foraging strategies.  From this foundation we trace the increasing capacity of humans to extract more energy from the environment through the development of a reliance on fire, the agricultural revolution leading to the industrial revolution and modern times.   

Domesticated species are an interesting group of organisms that have co-evolved with Homo sapiens, and have begun important in human survival and fitness. We trace the origin and spread of these domesticated crop species over the last 12,000 years, discussing both their impacts on human society as well as to the climate and human evolution. We will also present the challenges in modern agriculture and food security.

Connections between past and present human exploitation of the environment, the coming crisis of the Anthropocene and what we humans can do to alleviate the crisis.

The ocean is enormous, indeed so large that for centuries we assumed that there was nothing we could do to substantially harm it. Unfortunately, we now know that this is not true. Every year brings new scientific studies and media reports documenting the scale of the damages that the ocean has suffered and grim assessments as to what lies in the future. Less well known, however, are some of the successes we have had in ocean conservation. This is a problem, because bad news without solutions can lead to apathy rather than action. We are having success on some fronts, such as saving species from extinction, protecting ocean waters, fishing more sustainably, and restoring damaged ecosystem by replanting critical species and reducing pollution. Even actions on land, such as removing dams from rivers and rats from islands, can make an important difference to marine life. Of course, we still need to do much more, and do it faster. In future, we can turn to new tools drawn from the natural and social sciences. Big data and genetic interventions have a role to play, as do ocean-based renewable energy sources and new financing schemes. Perhaps most important is the growing recognition that success depends on empowering local communities in efforts to create a healthier ocean. Thus, it is highly fitting that putting people at the center of ocean conservation is the linchpin of the just launched United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

This century is the first in Earth's history when the catastrophic threats to the entire planet can be induced by one species, humans. We have an ever-heavier collective footprint on the planet. We’re empowered by ever more powerful technologies that can be hugely beneficial, but which if misapplied could trigger calamitous setbacks to civilization. Such events could be global: we’re so interconnected that no continent would be unscathed. It’s an ethical indictment of humanity that the gap between the actual state of the world, and the way it could be, is widening rather than narrowing, COVID-19 has been a wake-up call; it has shown that our increasingly interconnected civilization is vulnerable; but also that well-directed science can be our salvation.