This opinion piece is reprinted with the permission of
www.sciencealert.com.au and the author.
An abbreviated version appeared as "correspondence" in Nature 476, 282 (18 August 2011) doi:10.1038/476282b
The case for re-naming the human race
By Julian
Cribb FTSE
It
is time the human race had a new name.
The old one, Homo sapiens
– wise or thinking man – has been around since 1758 and is no longer a
fitting description for the creature we have become.
When
the Swedish father of taxonomy Carl Linnaeus first bestowed it[i],
humanity no doubt seemed wise when compared with what scientists of the day
knew about both humans and other animals. We have since learned our
behaviour is not as wise as we like to imagine – while some animals are
quite intelligent. In short it is a name which is both inaccurate and which
promotes a dangerous self-delusion.
In a
letter to the scientific journal
Nature (476, Aug 18, 2011) I
have proposed there should be a worldwide discussion about the formal
reclassification of humanity, involving both scientists and the public. The
new name should reflect more truthfully the attributes and characteristics
of the modern 21st century human – which are markedly different
from those of 18th century ‘man’. Consider, for example, the
following.
Humans are presently engaged in the greatest act of extermination of other
species by a single species, probably since life on Earth began. We are
destroying an estimated 30,000 species a year - a scale comparable to the
great geological catastrophes of the past.
[ii]
We
currently contaminate the atmosphere with 30 billion tonnes of carbon
equivalent a year.[iii]
This risks an episode of accelerated planetary warming reaching 4-5 degrees
by the end of this century and 8 degree by the middle of next century – a
level at which food production would be severely disrupted, posing a serious
risk to all members of an enlarged human population.[iv]
We
have manufactured around 83,000 synthetic chemicals[v],
many of them toxic, and some of which we inhale, ingest in food or water or
absorb through the skin every day of our lives. A 2005 US study found
newborn babies in that country are typically contaminated by around 200
industrial
chemicals, including pesticides, dioxins and flame retardants
[vi].
An EU study (2010) found compelling evidence that even
harmless chemicals can recombine with one another to form poisons.
[vii] These chemicals are now found all over the
planet, even at the poles and in the deep oceans and new ones, of unknown
hazard, are being produced all the time. Yet we wonder at the rise in
cancers and ‘mystery’ illnesses.
Every year we release around 121 million tonnes of nitrogen, 10 million
tonnes of phosphorus and 10 billion tonnes of CO2 (which causes
acidification) into our rivers, lakes and oceans – many times more that the
Earth recirculates naturally.
This is causing the collapse of marine and aquatic ecosystems, disrupting
ocean food chains and replacing them with ‘dead zones’ that no longer
support life. The number of these found has risen to over 400 in recent
years.[viii]
We
are presently losing about one per cent of the world’s farming and grazing
land every year to a combination of erosion, degradation, urban sprawl,
mining, pollution and sea level rise.[ix]
The situation has deteriorated in the last 30 years, confronting us with the
challenge of doubling food production by 2060 off a fraction of remaining
land. At the same time we waste a third of the world’s food.[x]
Current freshwater demand from agriculture, cities and energy use is on
track to double by mid century, while resources in most countries –
especially of groundwater – are drying up or becoming so polluted they are
unusable.[xi]
Humanity passed peak fish in 2004[xii],
peak oil in 2006
[xiii] and is likely to encounter growing
scarcities of other primary resources, including mineral nutrients, in
coming decades. Yet our demand for all resources – including minerals,
energy and water – will more than double, especially in Asia. If all the
world were to live like contemporary Australians or Americans, it would
require four planet Earths to satisfy their wants, says the Global Footprint
Network.[xiv]
Humans invest $1.6 trillion a year in new weapons
[xv] – but only $50 billion a year in better ways
to produce food. Despite progress in arms reduction, the world still has
around 20,000 nuclear warheads and at least 19 countries now have access to
them or to the technology to make them.[xvi]
Finally, we are in the process of destroying a great many things which are
real – soil, water, energy, resources, other species, our health – for the
sake of something that exists chiefly in
our imagination: money. To
trade something real for something imaginary
hardly appears wise.
Finally, as growing number of eminent scientists are now saying, these
things carry the risk of catastrophic changes to the Earth’s systems,
deleterious not only to our own future but that of all life.
When
these issues are considered, it is difficult to justify a single epithet of
‘wise’, let alone two of them. Our official sub-species name is
Homo sapiens
sapiens (‘wise wise man’), which now looks not only like conceit
– but insecurity. Such a name sends a misleading signal about the capacity –
let alone the will – of humanity, as a whole, to manage the consequences of
its own actions. It invites us to overestimate our abilities and
underestimate the difficulties we are creating.
This
is not to deny or belittle any of the great, creative, artistic or
scientific achievements of humans today or over the centuries, which are
indeed wonderful.[xvii]
Rather it is to recognise that our present behaviours combined with our
numbers now have the capacity to nullify or even eliminate all other human
accomplishments.
The
human population is currently on track to reach 10 billion or more by the
end of the century
[xviii] and this is a primary concern. An even
greater one is our ungovernable appetite – for food, for material resources,
for energy, for water, for land – and our lack of wisdom when it comes to
managing and reusing these resources.[xix]
A
creature unable to master its own demands cannot be said to merit the
descriptor ‘wise’. A creature which takes little account of the growing
risks it runs through its behaviour can hardly be rated thoughtful. The
provisions of the International Code on Zoological Nomenclature provide for
the re-naming of species in cases where scientific understanding of the
species changes, or where it is necessary to correct an earlier error. I
argue that both those situations now apply.
However this is not merely an issue for science: it concerns every one of
us. There needs to be worldwide public discussion about an appropriate name
for our species, in the light of our present behaviour and attributes.
Further down the track I would not rule out an eventual return to the name
Homo sapiens, provided we can
demonstrate that we have earned it – and it is not mere flatulence, conceit
or self-delusion.
Two
years ago another Swedish scientist, Johan Rockstrom
and his international colleagues (including Australians Will Steffen and
Terry Hughes) identified 10 planetary ‘boundaries’ which we ought not to
transgress because of the damage it will cause to our world and our chances
of surviving in it.[xx]
They found we had already crossed three. These boundaries can be used as a
report card on the human race: our success in remaining within them will be
a direct measure of our wisdom - and of our determination to survive both as
a species and a civilisation.
The
wisdom to understand our real impact on the Earth and all life is the one we
most need at this point in our history, in order to limit it.
Now
is the time humans get to earn – or lose – the title
sapiens.
·
[i] Homo sapiens Linnaeus 1758. http://www.eol.org/pages/327955
[ii] See, for example, Eldredge N., The Sixth Extinction, http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/eldredge2.html
[iii] Harvey F. Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink. The Guardian, 29 May 2011.
[iv] See Schnellnhuber HJ, Climate Change – the Critical Decade. (video) http://www.aclimateforchange.org/profiles/blogs/climate-change-the-critical
[v] US EPA Chemical Substances Inventory (2011)
[vi] Environmental Working Group, 2005. http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/execsumm.php
[vii] EU State of the Art Report on Chemical Mixtures, Universities of London and Goteborg. 2009
[viii] Diaz RJ and Rosenberg R, Spreading Dead Zones. Science, June 2008.
[ix] See for example Bai ZG, Dent DL, Olsson L, Shaepman ME, Global Assessment of Land Degradation and Improvement, FAO LADA & ISRIC 2008
[x] Global food losses and food waste, FAO, 2011
[xi] Chartres C and Varma S, Out of Water, FT Press 2010
[xii] FAO State of World Fisheries 2010
[xiii] Birol F, IEA 2010.
[xiv] GFN 2010. http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint/
[xv] SIPRI 2011, http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/resultoutput/trends
[xvi] Nuclear weapons: who has what? Arms Control Association 2011. http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat
[xvii] See for example Civilisation by Kenneth Clarke and The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski
[xviii] UN Population Division: World Population Prospects – the 2010 Revision.
[xix] Cribb JHJ, The Coming Famine: the global food crisis and what we can do to avoid it. University of California Press 2010.
[xx] Rockstrom R et al. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461, 472–475; 2009