There are many historical narratives of how humans arrived at this point. One that I have found robust – after 2 decades of starts and stops – is that a social species with hierarchies and coordination experienced a phase shift during the agricultural revolution and continues to maximize (digital representations of) surplus today. It’s easy to cast stones at eg capitalism as the root of our current problems, but an anthropological view shows that capitalism is a social structure in service of a broader energy hungry superorganism.
Today’s guest is the originator and synthesizer of many of these ideas – Professor Emeritus John Gowdy of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (the one school where one might get a PhD in Ecological Economics). John and I discuss human nature, microeconomics, surplus, and the behavior of crazy ants as a possible premonition of the dynamics of post growth human societies. We unpack a story of how anthropology, energy, human behavior, the environment and systems dynamics fit together.
Modern (non-indigenous) human culture functioning as a metabolic superorganism is an evolving story that I find both credible, profound and relevant. It doesn’t tell us what to do, but it does tell us what the problem is and therefore informs what paths ahead are likely dead ends. I’ve learned a great deal from John Gowdy over the years – and even on this interview – I hope you find our conversation informative.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/14-john-gowdy
I found much of this talk compelling. However, there were a couple of points around climate change with which I'd take issue.
The first is the idea that we've found ourselves in this situation because of the growth imperative, industrialisation etc. and that it's no one's fault. If you read Naomi Oreskes' 'Merchants of Doubt' https://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/ , there has been a deliberate and ongoing campaign to 'Manufacture doubt' about climate science since the 1990's, with the fossil fuel industry playing out the same copy book that was used by Tobacco and DDT before that. I'm sure you know this, but I think it's worth re-iterating.
The other point is about the climate achieving some sort of equilibrium and humans reorganising around non-agricultural societies. Looking at the temperature records, it's only been 2 degrees C above pre-industrial once since homo-sapiens have been around, and never 4 degrees C above over the past 2 million years, in the timeframe when our human ancestors have been detected. Is there any good reason to believe that humans could survive say 6 degrees above. The rate of change we, and the rest of the natural world are going through seems unprecedented, in the blinking of an eye from a geological perspective.
I completely agree with what John Gowdy says about music. It seems to me to be one of our highest achievements.
I want to listen to John Gowdy podcast. How do I do that?