larry m. frolich, ph.d. biology department, yavapai college human ecology and economics...

Larry M. Frolich, Ph.D.Biology Department, Yavapai College

Human Ecology and Economics

• Domestication and Human Evolution Today

• Demographics and Population Growth• What most affects life fulfillment—

population growth or resource use• Ecological Economics


From Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond


Humans today

• Dominate planet

• Ecologists have often focused on “wild” ecosystems

• But most landscapes now have some human elements, usually very strong effects

• Is this good or bad? And for whom?


Ecology is common sense

• Species live in communities, or considering the larger landscape, “ecosystems”

• This is also true for humans


Relationships among species• In a community, relationships among species can be

beneficial, damaging or neutral:– Symbiotic: mutually beneficial, both species benefit– Parasitic: one species benefits (“parasite”) and the other is harmed

(“host”)– Commensal: One species benefits, the other is unharmed– Mutualism: both species benefit, like symbiosis, but it may appear one

species has the advantage, but evolutionarily, over the long-term, both benefit

– Predation: Usually considered parasitic, where the predator is the parasite, but can also be seen as mutualistic

• We think of species in a community as “co-evolving” to establish these types of relationships

• For some reason, we don’t tend to analyze human relationships with other species this way. But domestication of other species, originally for agriculture, is most often mutualistic.


Development of agricultural systems were evolutionary events


What is domestication? What is food? How did it all come about?

• We tend to assume that we are “consuming” resources—physical or biotic. This is the view most texts provide

• But another way of thinking is that those species who co-evolved with us into domestication have also been “winning” the evolutionary game, or multiplying their numbers with us (more dogs or wolves?; more horses or zebras?; more corn or teosinthe?). Who “domesticates” whom? Who started the relationship? Was it the plant who made its seed obvious and easy to cultivate, or the humans who “discovered” that seed? Was it the animal breed that was naturally social and docile, or the humans who tamed the animal?

• We can even understand laboratory domestications (salamanders for developmental studies; E. coli for recombinant DNA studies and production; white mice as human analogs) as the most recent way in which other species have convinced us to take care of them.


Our relationship with domesticated species• We do still have ecological relationships with “wild” species.

Examples:– Hunt mushrooms– Create game reserves– Create national parks – household and urban/rural “pests” (e.g. molds, sewer rats)– Symbiotic micro-organisms (skin and mouth bacteria)– Disease-causing micro-organisms

• But mostly we have tight relationships with domesticated species. Basis for ecological relationship:– Food and agriculture (by far most common—food crops and animals)– Transportation (“beasts of burden”)– Care and protection (pets)– Laboratory study and production– Other?

"It makes just as much sense to think of agriculture as something the grasses did to people as a way to conquer the trees."--Michael Pollan, 2001, The Botany of Desire


Resource use, or evolution of the domesticate relationship?

• Our quality of life depends on how these domesticate relationships continue to evolve.

• For the Earth, or the eco-systems, this evolution will just be something “natural.”

• For us, it will determine how much suffering versus how much plenitude people will experience

• Over deep time history, large animals, and especially large mammals like ourselves, have been prone to rapid extinction

• Will our sentient nature overcome this trend?


Domestication (or Human co-Evolution) Today

• Early agricultural domestication was with species that– Behave well with humans– Make their reproductive processes obvious to humans

• But what are domestications of last 100 years– Laboratory domestications– Species that can survive indoors– Species that make some aspect of their biology—

usually at cellular/developmental/molecular level—easily accessible to humans

FLT


Example 1: E. coli

WHY HUMANS “LIKE” E. coli• Adaptable and reproduces

under wide variety of lab conditions

• Easy visualization• Genes and proteins easily

accessible• Endonucleases and other

DNA manipulation genes/proteins known and isolated

WHY E. coli “LIKES” HUMANS• Provide new and safe

environments for reproduction• Make new genetic material

accessible• Virulent strains with easy human

access“Unintended” consequence of E. coli domestication—virulent,

anti-biotic resistant strains


Example 2: Guinea Pig—a triple domestication

Livestock

Lab animal

Pet


Human Ecosystem• Biologically, the

human ecosystem has the same components (“biophysical resources)

• But it gets complicated considerably by cultural, social and political elements

• Maybe this is why ecologists love “wild” ecosystems


A slightly simpler view


Population Growth• Must be one of the principal

determinants of human ecology and relation with environment

• With industrialization and urbanization, population growth escalates in extreme fashion or exponentially


• In 1968, Paul Ehrlich, in The Population Bomb, predicted world population would explode and that we need mass control

• Many projects to reduce “3rd world” population increase

• Education of women, along with increased wealth, only way to get results

• Is it just biology? And what determines fertility rate and population increase?


Will the population bomb every explode?• Or is it exploding now?• What determines the limits to

growth?• Is it population or resource use?• Is it right to blame people having

children with the problem of declining quality of life?

• Are high-fertility, “3rd world,” regions the problem?

• Or is this a convenient way out for high-consumption, “1st world” peoples who don’t want to look in the mirror?

• Because, look at energy use…


Which James Brown?

Godfather of Soul, Dancer

University of New Mexico, Macarthur Fellow


James Brown, the MacArthur Fellow, tells us that fertility in humans is directly correlated with energy use, just like any other species of mammal

James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, tells us that as our (extra-metabolic) energy use goes up, our life fulfillment may go down.

Increased metabolic energy use (remember the dancing) might be the solution.


How traditional economists see the world

But..what..about..


• In traditional economics, growth can go on forever. New ideas and technologies will always allow the economy to grow.

• An ecological economics model accepts a limit to growth, not necessarily population growth, but growth in use of resources or energy, or both

• Which view do you accept?


Where do we find fulfillment?• If we accept that growth has limits• And if we accept that increased consumption that

accompanies our “modern” life-style may be pushing us towards that limit

• Should we ask other peoples to limit their fertility?...• Or should we limit our consumption?• Will people limit their consumption for the societal

good?...maybe• But what about the tradeoff with spiritual energy and where

we derive our fulfillment• Maybe the great 21st century transition will be away from

looking to “material goods” for fulfillment and towards (re) recognizing the value of spiritual goods—family, children, fresh food—a home as opposed to a house.

• Will we also (re) recognize the value of our relationships—with each other, with our co-evolved species?


Man alone ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and thereby began to acquire and transmit learning, or “culture.” With each new skill he found in his surroundings more opportunity or “resources” to fashion products of use to himself, to improve his well-being, and to increase his numbers. An environment can only be described in terms of the knowledge and preferences of the occupying persons: “natural resources” are in fact cultural appraisals. Occasionally, a new idea arose in some group and became a skill and institution. Such innovation might bring out new possibilities of the homeland: it might also give competitive advantage over neighboring folk, and set in motion pressures eased by migration…

There is no general law of progress that all mankind follows: there are no general successions of learning, no states of culture, through which all people tend to pass. There have been progressive cultures and others that show almost no signs of change. The latter are to be found in areas of high isolation: the former have been favored by the nature and location of heir homelands. The parallel to biologic evolution is significant. Invention begins by small increments of insight, variant ideas that gain acceptance under a favorable cultural climate. Variation follows on variation and may build up into a significantly new way and view of life. Now and then, in a few and, I may repeat, physically favored areas some such center has burst forth into a great period of significant invention, from which ideas spread, and in part changed as they spread afield. These centers of major and sustained innovation were always few. In the history of man, unless I misread it greatly, diffusion of ideas from a few hearths has been the rule: independent and parallel invention the exception.

-Carl Sauer, 1952, Seeds, Spades, Hearths and Herds, pp. 2-3

larry m. frolich, ph.d. biology department, yavapai college human ecology and economics...

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