I, for one, found your answers to the Humanity 3000 questions to be
astonishing. Ditto to the reactions that you posted from colleagues for
their general agreement with the tone and direction of your answers,
despite some nitpicking.
One way to characterize your answers would be as =93idealist=94, which is
contrasted with =93materialist=94 social theory, as in the writings of
anthropologist Marvin Harris. In essence, you appear to believe that ide=
as
direct sociocultural trajectories--material resources and political-econo=
my
be dammed.
I=92ll offer some alternative answers to the Humanity 3000 questions. I=92=
d
encourage others to also try it.
I. CRITICAL FACTORS
A. What are the factors that are most critical to the long term survival =
of
humanity?
Environmental resources. Human societies have grown in size and
complexity, riding the wave of slow-renewable and non-renewable resources=
,
especially forest timber, coal, oil, and gas, and the technologies to use
them. The nature of this social evolution was not deterministic or
predictable. It is, however, explicable or retrodictive after the fact.
Social evolution has been a halting process, pulsing across the landscape=
s
of the world in the consumption of natural storages. Social evolution is
not linear, a smooth march toward higher IQ=92s and a global brain. Puls=
e
and collapse have been the rule (see Tainter 1988, or Perlin 1991).
=93Information=94 is =93human information=94 or it is nothing, at least a=
s far as
we should care. In other words, =93information=94 is a product of biolog=
ical
beings, who first and foremost need something in their stomach if they ar=
e
to continue to produce it. Finite material energetic sources will limit
the =93long term survival=94 of human populations (certainly not of =93hu=
manity=94)
in the future, just as they have in the past and are beginning to do so n=
ow
in this latest pulse of technology, demographics, and resource use.=20
B. What are the current map and trajectory of these factors?
The current trajectory is slowed growth, heading toward contraction. Oh,
not as quickly in the west, which has self-organized an
economic-military-legal-financial system which extracts energetically
productive resources from the rest of the world. But just look at the re=
st
of the world. The Asian contagion, the latest collapse in Brazil, the
collapse of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, civil and ethnic wars abound.
The last big pockets of oil are thousands of feet below the sea at a grea=
t
technological and energetic cost to retrieve. When oil and gas effective=
ly
=93run out=94 in the next 50(?) years, we will be left with coal and
hydroelectric and nuclear, each with its own limited uses and environment=
al
threats. The boom years of fossil fuel ended in the 70s, population has
swollen to consume it, and it will be squeezed as these next years of
slowed growth and contraction approach. Or so it might be. Until a viab=
le
energetic alternative appears (if ever) we should be preparing for a low
energy world. Now=92s the time, while we still can.
C. What are the problems and opportunities with the factors identified?
The problem is how to get to a lower energy world while maintaining socia=
l
justice. Without civil war, without vast disparities between rich and po=
or
countries or segments within a country, without starvation, without
biological or nuclear war. In a book due out this year, H.T. Odum attemp=
ts
to help us toward =93A Prosperous Way Down=94. Energy conservation of
remaining fuels, low-energy recycling of materials (metals, water,
nutrients), smaller populations, smaller regional political-economic
entities. These are some suggestions that we can work toward now, at a
time when there is still available energy to make changes at large scales.
II. POTENTIAL IN YOUR FIELD
What do you envision as the greatest potential/future in your field in th=
e
1000 year future?
For anthropologists, I=92d suggest that we work to refine models of
sociocultural self-organization which recognize the constructive role of
biogeophysical limits in historic, prehistoric and the present worlds.
Many anthropologists work in =93materialist=94 or =93ecological=94 anthro=
pology,
which has long endeavored to explain political-structural and symbolic
cultural forms in relationship to environmental systems. That
understanding can be invaluable as we attempt to predict the social forms
that will emerge in a contracting world. While surprise is inevitable, w=
e
can make many predictions for the near future based on our understanding =
of
these processes.
III. DISCUSSION TOPICS/QUESTIONS
What are two or three topics/questions, critical to the long term future
that you wish to explore in small group settings at H3000?
1) What is the role of =93neo-liberal=94 free-market economics in capturi=
ng the
last remaining stores of world timber, metals, and fossil fuels for the
maintenance of the current life-styles of core economies, and to the
detriment of world peripheries?
2) Is there any chance that world-wide communications/computer networks
that depend upon a high-technology, high-energy infrastructure and region=
al
political stability will survive for long in a contracting world economy?
If not, does it make sense to think of =93information=94 existing apart f=
rom
the human cultures that sustain it?
3) What form and scale of sociopolitical organization should be expected =
in
a world running on contracting fossil fuels and dispersed, low-energy
agriculture?
IV. 1000 YEAR VISION
Please articulate your vision of the 1000 year future in a 3-5 line state=
ment.
Stores of coal are predicted to be depleted in about 500 years. The worl=
d
in 1000 years may have half a billion people, practicing lower-energy
agriculture and living in socio-political systems that resemble past
chiefdoms in some parts, foragers in others. Many of our current
technologies will continue to be maintained, but understanding of the
high-energy stuff will be useless and will have been lost. Hopefully we
made it down with our eyes open and some idea of where we were headed.
If you are interested further, I have a couple papers on these topics:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/abeltd/aaapap98.htm
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/abeltd/dynampap.htm
TA
**********************************************************************
Tom Abel Wk: 352-392-4684
University of Florida Fax: 352-392-6600
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/abeltd/ Hm: 352-381-9717
**********************************************************************