Sustainability and Human Evolution

Are human beings, H. sapiens, genetically disposed to being unsustainable in the current ecological situation of our planet? This is a question raised by William Rees in a 2010 article, "What's blocking sustainability? Human nature, cognition and denial."

Evolutionary factors

The argument goes, H. sapiens as vertebrates classified as K-strategists have an evolutionary competency which has enabled the species to survive and prosper beyond all other species. This competency predisposes the species to expand into all accessible habitats and use all available resources. K-strategists tend to press up against the fluctuating carrying capacities of their ecosystems unless and until some negative feedback like disease or starvation restrains them. Natural selection has favored those individuals who are most adept at satisfying their short-term selfish needs.

The result is captured in a quote set out in Rees' article.

Let's face it. Homo economicus is one hell of an over-achiever. He has invaded more than three-quarters of the globe's surface and monopolized nearly half of all plant life to help make dinner. He has netted most of the ocean's fish and will soon eat his way through the world's last great apes. For good measure, he has fouled most of the world's rivers. And his gluttonous appetites have started a wave of extinctions that could trigger the demise of 25 percent of the world's creatures within 50 years. The more godlike he becomes the less godly Homo economicus behaves.

Quoting another author, Rees adds, H. sapiens' capacity for growth and domination "vastly outstrip those of all other species."

Socio-cultural Factors

Rees points out an important socio-cultural factor which compounds the problematic situation. He cites the meme complex whose effect is to reinforce humanity's K-selected expansionist tendencies.

A meme is a unit of cultural information that like a gene can be passed between generations and unlike a gene can be passed horizontally across individuals in the same generation. A meme can include persistent beliefs, entrenched assumptions, prevailing values, scientific concepts and working technologies.

The specific meme that Rees speaks of here is the "allegiance to perpetual growth" that arose in the 1950's to become the supreme overriding objective of economic and development policy in many countries. This meme appears to be embodied in the core of our consumerist societies.

Rees points out that this perpetual growth myth "knows no ecological bounds." There is no functional reference to the ecosystems that contain it. Collateral damage to the environment is considered to be a mere negative externality.

Rees comments that these once-adaptive genetic predispositions have become hazardous on a crowded planet.

Luckily an inherent tendency or genetic predisposition is by definition not an inevitability according to Rees. Rather it is a propensity that is likely to play out in the absence of countervailing circumstances such as moral codes, cultural taboos, legal prohibitions or other social inhibitors.

In the balance of the article, Rees discusses what might be work-arounds to this genetic and socio-cultural predisposition.

Factoring in the Human Brain

Arriving at a solution involves being aware of the functions of the three components of the human brain: the reptilian complex, the limbic system and the neocortex. The most evolutionary recent part of the human brain is the neocortex which is the rational brain and provides for higher cognitive functions. The reptilian, which is the most primitive, deals with basic survival instincts including executing the fight-flight response. The limbic system is the primary seat of emotions and value judgments.

In situations of conflict or resource scarcity, basic survival-oriented predispositions may override rational thought processes. Significantly, we may not be consciously aware which part of our brain is in control. We also tend to vastly overestimate our free will. Rees says, "the problem for sustainability is that biological drives can be pernicious to rational decision-making in certain circumstances by creating an overriding bias against objective facts."

With all of this as a backdrop, how can we help ourselves as a species to take the next evolutionary step or at least ensure that we survive as a species to take that step?

Next steps for Humanity

According to Rees,

For humanity to survive the sustainability crisis, we must rely on highly-evolved genetically-based biological mechanisms as well as on supra-instinctual survival strategies that have developed in society, are transmitted by culture, and require for their application, consciousness, reasoned deliberation and willpower.

Specifically, Rees comments that "long-term selective advantage may well have shifted to genes and memes that reinforce cooperative behavior, even mutual altruism."

In further explication of this, Rees offers a number of ideas.

1. Change the narrative. Rees suggests that the world community can script a new, ecologically adaptive, economically viable and socially equitable cultural narrative. He says that we should create a new meme and embed it into the thinking of current and future members of our species. This is a meme that would reinforce cooperative behavior, mutual altruism, feelings and empathy for people and other species. The meme would recognize that development rather than growth is more conducive to human happiness and welfare. In this narrative, the emphasis in free-market capitalist societies on individualism, competition, greed and accumulation would be replaced by a renewed sense of community, cooperative relationships, generosity and a sense of sufficiency. This new meme would counter the flawed assumption that human well-being derives from perpetual income growth.
2. Change memes in current and future generations. Since memes can be almost hard-wired into our mental synapses during our maturation process, we will need to consciously engage in the willful restructuring of our neural pathways and associated belief systems for our current as well as future generations. As Rees points out, "This new narrative is essential to override humanity's maladaptive expansionist tendencies and to enhance other behaviors and predispositions." Cultural norms, beliefs and values can effectively be imprinted on the human brain.
3. We need to pull back from pushing against the limits of our ecosystem. Feedback is a dynamic that can counteract the inclination to push into countless new habitats. Norms and values can support this new orientation. This requires actions including: the reduction of material and energy consumption; global population reduction; and the creation of a dynamic, more equitable steady-state economy serving the entire human family within the means of nature. Rees says we can encourage the expression of desirable social behaviors and suppress those that have become situationally maladaptive.
4. We need to engage our conscious minds to explicitly acknowledge "the myopic futility of a global economic model based on perpetual growth on a finite planet." However, Rees points out that utilizing our conscious mind and cognitive powers is always a challenge given the current biological nature of our brain and, thus, we must utilize our will to ensure that our cognitive functioning does not get preempted by the less recently evolved parts of our brain.

Contemporary evidence of "denial."

Rees' thinking can be applied to current political figures and advocates for special interests who appear to act out of the reptilian part of their own brain in an appeal to the reptilian part of the brains of others. There are appeals that aim to create conflict, to focus on perceived threats by others to one's own lifestyle and ability to accumulate and to focus on perceived threats to one's own habitat. "When the neocortex is not in command," according to Rees, "it is folly to assume that either individuals or society especially global society will necessarily deal rationally with evidence of accelerating ecological change." Our challenge is to find ways to support the cognitive and feeling-empathy functions of our human brain. We need to will ourselves into our evolutionary future.