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TECHNOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

Modelling humanity’s predicament

Nature Sustainability volume 1, pages 15–16 (2018)Cite this article

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Technological innovations have allowed exponential growth in the human population and economy, but can it continue? A new model combining population, culture, and innovation projects possible futures for humanity.

Humans are a peculiar species. On the one hand, we’re vulnerable to the same environmental constraints, such as food shortages and disease, that keep all species in check. On the other hand, there is no question that Homo sapiens is extraordinarily successful. In just 10,000 years, we have gone from small networks of hunters and gatherers using simple tools to hyper-dense agglomerations in technologically rich cities1. From the axe to the modern power grid, innovations have allowed the human system (population and economy) to grow, produce new technologies, and grow more. Whether these trends will continue is a hotly contested question that historically divides disciplines such as ecology and economics. In a special issue on innovations in Philosophical Transactions B, Weinberger and colleagues propose a new model to bridge this academic divide by linking the dynamic feedbacks between human population growth and the ecosystem services that support it through the process of cumulative cultural evolution (CCE)2.

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Fig. 1: A new model reveals how growth in the human system (population and economy) is characterized by the positive feedbacks between cumulative cultural evolution, technological innovations, and the increased flow of ecosystem services.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA

    Joseph Robert Burger

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  1. Joseph Robert Burger
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Correspondence to Joseph Robert Burger.

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Burger, J.R. Modelling humanity’s predicament. Nat Sustain 1, 15–16 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-017-0010-z

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