History of Human Impact on Natural Environments

Abstract

Anthropology, in the sense of the Natural History of Humanity, not only satisfies our curiosity about the past but is also essential in understanding our place in the natural world, confronting the environment and facing future adversities. Sociality and intelligence are the two basic interacting features that marked human evolution, which mutually enhanced control over the environment. Interactions between humans and the environment also gave rise to technological developments leading to agriculture and animal domestication, innovations that made possible the accumulation of energy-food surpluses and removed the most important restraint on demographic increase in hunter–gatherer communities. In the last two centuries, increase in life expectancy at birth, exploitation of resources and control of humans over the environment have contributed to a dramatic demographic increase. It is necessary to ask what is the number of people that can be supported by the planet and hypothesize some possible scenarios for the future. Three different scenarios are presented and discussed. A balance between the human population and the natural environment must be preserved for the very survival of our species. A new political and ethical approach is needed. Bioethics is an anthropological and naturalistic science, which attempts to form a pact between humans and nature in order to ensure the possibility of our continued life on this Planet.