Winter Solstice\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Moon of the Winter Solstice<\/p>\n
Still listening to the series of lectures, Big History.\u00a0 There was a really striking concept in the most recent lecture, one in which Professor David Christian, considered the perennial question:\u00a0 What makes humans unique?\u00a0 There have been many answers from imago dei to tool-maker to bi-pedalism to our brain to bulk ratio.\u00a0 Each of these has run into challenges over time.\u00a0 Professor Christian offers an idea that was new to me.<\/p>\n
His idea is that humans, unique among organisms on earth, perhaps even unique among organisms in our galaxy, have the capacity to adapt quickly and often to their environment.\u00a0 He offers as evidence the escalating energy controlled by humans ever since the Paleolithic.\u00a0 This was the time when the humans went of out of Africa and began the vast migrations that put our species in literally all parts of the known world.\u00a0 Each time an organism enters a new environment it has to adapt to that environment in such a way that it can meet its energy needs.\u00a0 The familiar finches from Darwin’s Galapagos journey developed beaks suited for the kind of nut or other form of food found in the particular new niche they inhabited.<\/p>\n
As Christian points out, organisms usually develop one such trick and apply over and over until their run as a species ends in an extinction event of some kind.\u00a0 We are unique in that we adapt within one generation to a new or changed environment.\u00a0 We then pass on those tricks through symbolic language so each generation can build on the learnings of the past.\u00a0 Christian calls this collective learning.\u00a0 It is, he says, the truly unique facet of homo sapiens.<\/p>\n
How it manifests itself is in our increasing control over energy sources.\u00a0 We now consume up to 40% of all energy utilized by all organisms on earth.\u00a0 This means that some species no longer have enough energy and die out.\u00a0 We are an extinction event ourselves on the order of magnitude of other notables like the Chixilub meteor.<\/p>\n
Here’s what really caught me with this idea.\u00a0 Our unique ability to adapt early and often manifests itself in increasing energy and resource consumption, consumption that has grown remarkably since the migrations of the Paleolithic.\u00a0 To me this means that those of us in the environmental community have placed ourselves over against the defining outcome of what it means to be human.\u00a0 I’m not sure what this means quite yet, but I don’t think its good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Winter Solstice\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Moon of the Winter Solstice Still listening to the series of lectures, Big History.\u00a0 There was a really striking concept in the most recent lecture, one in which Professor David Christian, considered the perennial question:\u00a0 What makes humans unique?\u00a0 There have been many answers from imago dei to tool-maker to bi-pedalism to … Continue reading Homo sapiens the Energy Sink<\/span>