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The principal determinant underlying
the ascent of our species is our ability to affect the
environment. The use of simple stone tools (Paleolithic Revolution)
initially enabled our ancestors to enter new ecological niches, joining
lions and hyenas as carnivores and scavengers on the African savanna some
2.5 million years ago. Culturally-based tool manufacture and use
allowed our ancestors to move from a predominantly genetically regulated
to culturally informed praxis, as cultural transmission of
extra-genetic information between generations became the key to their
survival. Ancestral populations managed to procure food more
efficiently, to hunt collectively, and eventually to utilize fire,
migrate, and devise increasingly more effective tools with which to hunt,
fish, and construct shelters.
Hunting and gathering well-suited our ancestors as long as population density was low and game and other food remained plentiful. But they were unwitting victims of prior success: the combined human population began to exceed what the planet could support as hunter-gatherers. The agricultural and industrial revolutions were the response to pressures of population growth in the environment. Shortage of wild food resources led to the second (Neolithic) revolution, shortages of wood to the third (Industrial) revolution.
We're now at the cusp of the post-hydrocarbon fuel era. Cheap, readily procured supplies of hydrocarbons (viz., oil and natural gas) that fueled industrialization are becoming scarce. This trend portends a new revolution - a singular, unprecedented event in the history of our species: a 4th transition. What will it entail?
