All living creatures in the natural world evolve biologically and live sustainably. In that natural system there is no waste, everything has its ecological place.
Cultural Evolution
The emergence of culture, possibly humanity’s greatest creation, stepped us outside biological evolution and the rules of ecology, including sustainability, that govern other living creatures. Our evolution is now almost entirely cultural. This came at a price.
Culture isn’t something we have. It is who and what we are. Culture is the way we see the world, it’s the colored glass we look through that gives meaning to an otherwise meaningless world and purpose to an otherwise purposeless life. We build and evolve culture through ever-changing imaginary stories made real through common agreement, that bring social cohesion, personal identity, and enable progress.
We are the only animal that creates purpose and meaning through culture. Sometimes, when I watch the birds playing in my yard, I envy their only-in-the-here-and-now life. But then I stop and cherish this amazing experience called living, that consciousness brought.
Our Responsive Planet
All organisms evolve, and so does our planet. Its geography, physics, and chemistry constantly respond to its changing environment. In Earth’s earliest years, volcanoes built our planet’s atmosphere, carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia. The first primitive life forms, Cyanobacteria, adapted to this, using up the readily available carbon dioxide and emitting “poisonous” oxygen — just as plants do today. The early planet absorbed this oxygen into the then-iron-rich sea. The result was the vast deposits of iron oxide we mine today.
We can’t return to a sustainable existence. We evolved away from the “natural” world starting a million years ago. Our planet’s physical and chemical reactions continue, following Barry Commoner’s laws of ecology, “Everything Must Go Somewhere”, and “There’s No Free Lunch”. As the oceans absorb our industrial society’s heat and carbon dioxide, its warming generates more intense hurricanes and cyclones, and may soon flip the Gulfstream, bringing an icy Europe.
As our planet reacts physically and chemically to its new largely human-generated environment, our industrial food system accelerates biological planetwide changes. In response to overpopulation, we overharvest larger sea creatures, while our heat and carbon dioxide waste products shrink the food base these larger sea creatures rely on. Ironically, we have also started harvesting these tiny organisms, Krill, for farmed fish food. Our great-grandchildren will only know farmed salmon salad, or perhaps the lower-priced substitute, synthetic protein.
The Handshake
Cultural adaptation is a two-way street. As our planet evolves physically and chemically, adapting to we humans and our dumping, our human culture adapts to the planet-wide changes we bring. This is not a coordinated adaptation, it’s piecemeal, local, and partly market driven.
As a tribal species, locked in local and national conflicts, we have no way of coordinating a planetwide response to planetwide change except through slow persuasion. We are genetically programmed to react to immediate threats or attention-grabbing squabbles. Our short attention span means anything long-range or far away has trouble generating individual or national action.
Additionally, powerful vested interests maintain the status quo. Politicians, corporations, the wealthy, and you and I, are mostly comfortable the way we are.
I hope this is a dispassionate assessment of where our culture happens to be right now. It’s certainly not a complaint or a judgment, and there’s no one or thing to blame. Though I wish I could personally do more about the devastating inequity, inequality, and unsustainability, I generally like our culture and the amazing benefits and comfort it brings us all.
Adapting
I’m healthier and already lived longer than my parents could have imagined. I like my computer, my new knees, good dental care, my cell phone, and the convenience of driving or flying to be with those I love wherever and whenever I want. I’m a happy camper, watching my grandchildren adapt to their world just as I adapted to mine, and my parents did to theirs. Adaptability, whether biological or cultural, global or local, is the powerful survival trait that will help us now, as always.
My current pleasure is the free time of retirement, which itself is a cultural creation made real by other imaginary creations made real, such as government, pensions, banks, and retirement plans. I have time to ponder our culture, this beautiful creation that sustains us with meaning and brings deep satisfaction.
Though we may have hoped otherwise, in this world there is no free lunch. Is it time for us to pay our bill?
Thank you for reading.
Barry
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