Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Population, Procreation and Modes of Production
- 2 Historical Social Science
- 3 The Principle of Population Versus the Law of Capitalist Accumulation
- 4 Demography and Its Myths
- 5 Dynamics of Pre-Industrial Populations
- 6 Labor Demand and the Industrial Revolution
- 7 Population Growth in Incorporated Areas
- 8 Development, Population and Energy
- References and Datasets
- Index
8 - Development, Population and Energy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 November 2021
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Population, Procreation and Modes of Production
- 2 Historical Social Science
- 3 The Principle of Population Versus the Law of Capitalist Accumulation
- 4 Demography and Its Myths
- 5 Dynamics of Pre-Industrial Populations
- 6 Labor Demand and the Industrial Revolution
- 7 Population Growth in Incorporated Areas
- 8 Development, Population and Energy
- References and Datasets
- Index
Summary
Adapting to the Environment or Changing It
Natural selection is a much slower mechanism of adaptation than the cultural shifts with which our species quickly faces changes in the environment (as well as causing them), or becomes more efficient and effective in a given environment. This efficiency is not Nature's imperative, rather the contrary:
Nature “seeks” a high P/B [daytime net production/ biomass] ratio, not a high P/B efficiency, so the tendency in the human use OF nature is opposite from that IN nature—or in other words, man reverses the law of natural ecosystems: the strategy of “maximum protection” (that is, trying to achieve maximum support of complex biomass structure) often conflicts with man's goal of “maximum production” trying to obtain the highest possible yield […]. For example, the goal of agriculture or intensive forestry, as now generally practiced, is to achieve high rates of production of readily harvestable products with little standing crop left to accumulate on the landscape—in other words, a high P/B efficiency. Nature's strategy, on the other hand, as seen in the outcome of the successional process, is directed toward the reverse efficiency—a high B/P ratio. (Odum 1971, 262 and 266)
Cultural evolution is our way of adapting to different ecological niches. Better: it is the way of changing our niche quickly, without waiting for the biological mutations that make other species bodily adapt to the (slowly but ever changing) environment through natural selection through the generations: “Once man's behavior and mode of existence are determined primarily by his culture, then he is able to make adaptive changes to meet his environmental conditions by modifying his culture” (Wilkinson 1973, 9).
In natural selection, as in human culture, there is a preeminent force that relates to the fulfillment of the fundamental life needs. In basic agreement with Marx and Harris, Wilkinson (1973, 11) wrote: “Both individuals and societies will give priority to the maintenance of subsistence activities at a level at least adequate for survival. […] The demands of production have a preeminent position which allows them to ride roughshod over other elements of a culture.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Procreation and Population in Historical Social Science , pp. 177 - 194Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2021