Human evolution was always going to lead to planetary crisis

How did we get here, to this point, where we are facing crises in every aspect of our existence as a species? Was it meant to happen? Is this, too, natural? Was there any way to stop any of this? How do we deal with our imminent collapse and possible extinction?

YIN YANG, McCann World Group India for Greenpeace, 2015

These are questions I found partial answers to and a deep knowing within Joe Brewer’s second Earth Regenerators webinar held on 13th February 2020 entitled “Cultural Evolution of Our Planetary Crisis”.

Here are my extended notes from this two-hour presentation and discussion session held on Crowdcast.io.

Four out of nine planetary boundaries have been crossed, and there are more specific ways to measure how human cultural evolution, or the human presence on earth, is having cascading consequences that destabilise the planet.

Planetary boundaries (Steffen et al, 2015)

How did humans gain the ability to do this? How can this understanding enable us to regenerate the Earth?

The founder of behaviourism, Burrhus Frederic Skinner (1904 — 1990), wrote that humans cannot become sustainable as a planetary species. While there are blindspots in Skinner’s thinking, the…