Ecocide

A Short History of the Mass Extinction of Species

Franz Broswimmer

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781783713486
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

We live in an age of ecocide. Changes of enormous ecological significance are occurring on our planet - the ozone layer is beginning to disintegrate. Since 1970 the world's forests have almost halved. A quarter of the world's fish have been depleted. 70% of biologists believe the world is now in the midst of the fastest mass extinction of species in the planet's 4.5 billion-year history. Biodiversity loss is rated as a more serious environmental problem than the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, or pollution and contamination. How have we come to this, and what can be done to conserve our environment for the future? Ecocide examines the facts behind the figures to offer a disturbing account of the ecological impact that the human species has on the planet. It shows how we are wilfully destroying our world. Highlighting important countermovements who are working for ecological democracy, this unique book is essential for anyone who cares about conserving our environment for the future.

1	THE HUMAN ODYSSEY: FROM BIOLOGICAL TO CULTURAL EVOLUTION

Humanity is nature achieving self-consciousness. (Elisée Reclus, L’Homme et la terre)¹

Without some knowledge of evolution one cannot hope to arrive at a true picture of human destiny. (Julian Huxley, Evolution in Action)²

BEGINNINGS

Life is planetary exuberance, a solar phenomenon. It is the transmutation of Earth’s air, water, and sun into cells. In order to appreciate the severe consequences of ecocide, it is necessary to examine the tenuous nature of biological evolution. Briefly, how did planetary life, including human life, evolve? Astrophysicists tell us that our universe came into being some 20 billion years ago with a “Big Bang.” Five billion years ago, our planet formed. Life on earth evolved around 1 billion years later. Single-celled organisms found by paleontologists in ancient rocks suggest that simple life was flourishing as early as 3.8 billion years ago. These first biological organisms were able to use the water vapor, nitrogen, methane, and ammonia that made up the Earth’s atmosphere for food and energy, probably through a process facilitated or catalyzed by metals such as iron and magnesium. Between 3.3 and 3.5 billion years ago, blue-green algae appeared. These single-celled organisms had the ability to convert energy from the sun into chemical energy through photosynthesis using hydrogen sulfide. Between 1 and 2 billion years ago, some bacteria adapted the use of water in photosynthesis. Oxygen, which is released as a byproduct of H₂O photosynthesis, gradually appeared in Earth’s atmosphere, and in turn facilitated the evolution and diversification of subsequent life forms. For billions of years, simple creatures like plankton, bacteria, and algae ruled the Earth. Then, suddenly, around 550 million years ago, the evolution of life accelerated, gaining in diversity and complexity.³

Born into the most biodiversity-rich evolutionary epoch in Earth’s history, and genetically nearly indistinguishable from the bonobo chimpanzee, the earliest human predecessors make their appearance on the evolutionary scene in southern and central Africa around 4.5 million to 6 million years ago, belonging to the genus Aridipecus and Australopithecus.⁴ These first human ancestors Homo habilis and Homo erectus, emerging in Africa merely some 2.5 million and 1.6 million years ago, succeed these ape-like early hominid creatures. Equipped with a unique combination of biological and social attributes, hominids developed an upright stance with bipedal locomotion, prehensile hands with opposable thumbs, stereoscopic binocular vision, audio and vocal tract anatomy, and the largest and most complex brain of any hitherto existing primate. The biological creation of the ancestors of modern humans is a remarkable achievement of evolution by natural selection, which brought with it a new dimension to the evolutionary process – cultural evolution.

Any attempt to explain modern ecocide is necessarily based upon some historical understanding of how and when Homo reached the so-called sapiens stage of evolution. The purpose of this chapter is to show that the unique combination of biological attributes possessed by our species does not necessarily determine human social behavior except that it lays the foundation genetically for virtually unlimited variations of human behavior. In other words, “human nature” – the sum of biological attributes of our species – is analytically distinct from human behavior – the sum of social and cultural attributes of our species. My central argument is that, with regard to Homo sapiens, natural selection alone is not a sufficient explanation for the evolution of our species into Homo esophagus colossus. As some evolutionary biologists emphasize, biological evolution in the case of humans works to preserve and augment the human ability to create, absorb, and transmit culture. This surely does not mean, however, that we employ our cultural capacity only for the benefit of life on Earth. We obviously don’t, and my underlying question is precisely how to explain this ultimately self-destructive tendency. As we will see in later chapters of this study, it is only when human biology combined with particular social organizational and institutional behavior that the danger arose of creating a global ecocide.⁵

The narrative connecting the subsections of this chapter is very much constituted by a number of historical questions, important for our understanding of the causal social mechanisms of ecocide. For example, when and how did primates begin to acquire complex language and culture? When did humans develop the social and technological capacities for both habitat creation and destruction? Why did agriculture and fixed settlements replace nomadic hunting, scavenging, and gathering? Of course, a discerning response to these questions must be predicated upon a clear understanding of what we mean by “human beings.”

It seems obvious that humans are unlike other animals. Molecular genetic studies have shown that we continue to share 98.3 per cent of our DNA with the bonobo chimpanzee, our closest ape relative in the animal kingdom.⁶ The total genetic distance between chimpanzees and us is even smaller than the distance between such closely related bird species as North American red-eyed and white-eyed vireos.⁷ Bonobo chimpanzees have rudimentary elements of culture⁸ and a sense of self that entails basic linguistic elements. They are far more vocal than any other of the great apes and much more peaceful than other chimps. They have never been seen to kill their own relatives and they possess the ability to read basic emotive stages on the faces of their kind, a feature shared by all higher primates. They pat each other on the hand to show affection or kiss or embrace each other; they have menopause, develop lifelong friendships, and grieve for their dead babies by carrying them for days or weeks; they have the ability to perform simple calculations and they communicate using signs. Bonobos are also the most sexual of all primates, a distinctive behavioral feature that Dutch ape researcher Frans de Waal sees as an important social function, not as a mere means of species reproduction.⁹

However, even between humans and the great apes lies a seemingly unbridgeable gulf when we separate ourselves from such “animals.” This difference is reflected in our socio-cultural capacities that have been responsible both for our present biological success and failures. Humans are learning creatures with a massively expanded capacity for culture. Flexibility and learning are the hallmarks of human biological and cultural evolution.¹⁰ We talk, write, and build complex machines. We fundamentally depend on complex social organization and institutions for survival. For example, we cook, steam, fry, roast, smoke, pickle, or freeze our foods, and we brew alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in myriad variations. Most of us wear clothes, enjoy art, and many believe in some form of religion. We are scattered across the entire planet, and we have even begun to explore outer space.

FROM TREE SHREWS TO PRIMATES

Primates have their earliest evolutionary ancestry in tree-shrew-sized protomammals that evolved in the shadow of dinosaurs about 200 million years ago. Only after their disappearance 65 million years ago did our (then barely larger than rat sized) mammalian ancestors slowly begin to evolve into primates. In the early part of their evolutionary history, most primates looked much like the modern-day tarsiers or lemurs. About 40 million years ago, however, new primate families arose: the monkeys. As the world cooled and forests increasingly gave way to grasslands, monkeys had to either adapt or disappear. They did disappear from North America, and they became largely restricted to tropical forest environments in equatorial regions. Africa was largely forested as late as about 15 million years ago, but soon afterward, its great tropical forests shrank. Between 5 million and 7 million years ago, the global climate gradually became warmer and drier. Forested areas began receding, making way for grassland savanna environments. Northern Africa gradually grew drier, while regions to the east and south became dominated by a savanna landscape. Indeed, the Mediterranean completely dried out 6 million years ago, and a great drop in the sea level occurred during that period, lasting for about 1 million years.

Eventually, the African primates that would evolve into Homo sapiens were forced down from the trees and made the open savanna their home. From paleontological work carried out over the last two or three decades we know that primates occasionally began to walk upright in the African savanna 5 million to 6 million years ago.¹¹ It is important to emphasize the human “family tree” does not proceed in a straight line. Paleoanthropologists Ian Tattersall and Jeffrey Schwarz have presented convincing evidence that over 15 different species of humans or hominids have existed over the 6-million-year sojourn of the hominid family – and many of these species have existed simultaneously. Even at the beginning of the human sojourn there were at least three separate species of these early now-extinct ancestors.¹² Thus, the diversity of extinct humans – and the consecutive number of hominid species – is much broader than many scholars have thought it to be.¹³

The earliest hominids were chimp-sized creatures that lived in the Ethiopian forests between 5 million to 6 million years ago. These earliest hominids were essentially tree-dwelling creatures, but they had developed an upright posture; its arms and shoulders, as well as its relatively small brain, show that it was still living a semi-arboreal life. In all likelihood, our early ancestors spent much of the daylight foraging on the ground in open semi-woodlands, seldom straying far from the safety of the trees. And, like modern chimpanzees, they still retreated to the trees at night. Slow and occasionally walking upright in an awkward gait, they would have been at the mercy of a variety of predators had they remained on the ground in the darkness.

At first blush, bipedalism just does not make sense. For our early ancestors, it would have been slower than walking on all fours, while requiring the same amount of energy. Several theories have been suggested to explain bipedalism and upright gait. Anthropologists Henry McHenry and Peter Rodman, for example, champion the idea that climate variation was part of the picture after all. When Africa dried out, they argue, the change left patches of forest widely spaced between open savannah. The first hominids lived mostly in these forest refuges but could not find enough food in any one place. Learning to walk on two legs helped them travel long distances overground to the next woodsy patch.¹⁴ Paleontologist Maeve Leakey, a member of the world’s most famous fossil-hunting family, suspects the change in climate rewarded bipedalism, since a drier climate made for more grassland. Our ancestors, she argues, spent much of their time not in dense forests or on the savannah but in an environment with some trees, dense shrubbery, and a bit of grass. If a creature has to move into open country with grasslands and bushes, foraging on fruits and berries on low bushes, there must have been a strong advantage to being able to reach higher.¹⁵ A third explanation is offered by anthropologist Owen Lovejoy. He speculates that males who were best at walking upright would get more sex, leading to more offspring with those genetic advantages. Over time, female apes would choose to mate only with those males who brought them food — presumably the ones who were best adapted for upright walking.¹⁶ In short, there exist a variety of explanations for bipedalism.

Physical evidence for these distant relatives of our biological family was found in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and consisted of the fossil relics of about 20 individuals. Subsequently, further physical evidence discovered at a site near Lake Rudolf in northern Kenya and later discoveries at Olduvai added to our sparse understanding of the activities of our ancestors. For example, we know that they used elementary tools, a notable step in the control of the environment. Tools found in Kenya are the oldest such evidence and consist of stones crudely fashioned by striking flakes off pebbles to give them a sharp edge. Frequently, the pebbles seem to have been transported purposefully and selectively from one site to another where they were further refined. In short, the conscious creation of tool implements had begun. About 1 million years ago, simple pebble choppers of the same type spread all over the Africa and Eurasia.¹⁷

In discussing the evolution of archaic humans, we must bear in mind that the period of 2.5 million years before the present marks the onset of the great climatic perturbations that culminated in the ice ages. For anthropologists, this period is characterized by a great diversification of hominids. Geological evidence indicates that massive layers of ice began to cover Antarctica. Eventually, great ice regions formed at the North Pole as well. Ice sheets began to move across North America, Europe, and Asia, until as much as a third of the area of those continents was buried under ice 1 mile thick. Huge glaciers descended from the great north–south mountain chains as well, and the Earth’s climate changed rapidly. Rain forests dried, deserts became wet, and species began to die. Apart from the obvious effects on animals and plants, the severe cold locked up large quantities of sea water in ice sheets: sea levels fell, establishing a land connection between Britain and Europe, as well as between Indonesia and the Asiatic mainland. Periods of intense cold were interrupted by interglacial, usually warm, periods that produced heavy tropical rainfalls.

Climate change, in short, also figured in important ways in the evolution of other hominids. According to paleoecologist Stephen Stanley, the Isthmus of Panama was lifted up by movement of the planet’s tectonic plates 2.5 million years ago. A new land bridge connected North and South America for the first time, causing major disruptions in the flow of the ocean currents and leading to a major ice age. In Africa, the climate grew cooler and drier, and the formerly large areas of open woodland began to disappear, forcing our ancestors to become ground dwellers. The results were predictable. Australopithecus died out, along with a large number of other species that were adapted to the woodlands. While the crisis eliminated many of the early hominids, it also freed them from an evolutionary dead end. As a result, at least one hominid group rapidly evolved into something new – an upright, large-brained hominid that could survive on the ground. From that group derived the genus Homo and, eventually, modern humans.¹⁸

In Africa, several new species of land-dwelling hominids appeared. Growing in stature, these creatures developed a distinct taste for meat.¹⁹ One of the most important stages of human evolution was reached: the appearance of Homo erectus (“man that walks upright”). So far, the earliest remains of a Homo erectus specimen a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of tables
• Introduction
• 1 The Human Odyssey: From Biological to Cultural Evolution
• 2 Problematic Society–Nature Relations Before the Modern Era
• 3 The Modern Assault on Nature: The Making of Ecocide
• 4 The Planet as Sacrifice Zone
• 5 Ecocide and Globalization
• Epilogue
• Glossary
• Tables
• Notes
• Selected bibliography
• Index