There’s a lot of debate about what the Earth’s future might look like, and along with that, what humanity’s future might look like. Issues like climate change have some people concerned about our ability to continue to live on this planet — at least the way we currently do.
Our next guest argues a Darwinian approach could be helpful — but only if we are willing to change the way we behave.
Sal Agosta is an assistant professor in Life Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University and co-author of the book "A Darwinian Survival Guide: Hope for the 21st Century." He spoke with my co-host Mark Brodie, and they started with an interesting twist the book takes on what people know about Darwin and how they apply it to modern times.
Full conversation
SAL AGOSTA: Well, what got us thinking about it is we wrote a first book that was published in 2020 called The Major Metaphors of Evolution. And that book was, you know about evolutionary theory, but in writing that we got towards the end and started to delve into these more kind of applied issues and you know, what it would look like to take an evolutionary perspective on the issue of climate change and basically how humans can survive the Anthropocene.
And one of the things that we stumbled upon in that book was the common misconception that evolution is about survival of the fittest, which implies that only the absolute fittest survive. And when you start thinking about that, that justifies things like, you know, bigger is better growth is good. But actually, evolution is about survival of the fit and whoever reproduces is actually fit enough. So it's really about survival of the adequate.
And so in applying that to what's the best way to be prepared to survive for the future, while it's not being the absolute best at any given time, it's not having the most. It's not about making the most profit or cutting down the most trees to build the biggest forest. It's actually about living within your means and having potential for the future to deal with potential future change. And that's what evolution does.
MARK BRODIE: Well, it sounds like what you're saying is those who will be able to survive into the future are those who are sort of doing their thing. And as you say, living within their means and, you know, not, maybe not doing too much but not doing too little.
AGOSTA: Yeah, yeah. It's the recognition that you know, we can, we can grow now, we can make profits, we can, we can take ecosystem services from nature and so on and so forth. But we need to be doing that with a mind towards saving potential for the future.
BRODIE: Yeah. One of the things that you write about that I think is so interesting is how in your opinion, at least technology will not be able to save us right from some of the pending problems. It's got to be a behavioral change. And I'm wondering like, what do we have to do? Like, what kind of behavioral changes are you advocating for?
AGOSTA: Well, and this goes back to at least the 1960s with a guy named Garrett Hardin, who wrote some famous essays about the tragedy of the commons. And he basically made the point that you know, ultimately the answer to sustainability is what he called a no technical solution problem. In other words, technology can't save us, technology can push things off to the future.
But ultimately, the problem actually persists and he talked about something called the ratchet effect where actually every time we save ourselves with technology, we might make the problem worse because we're increasing human carrying capacity, increasing pressure on resources and, you know, ultimately not solving the problem.
And so basically, what he said is that what's required is a change in behavior. Now, his feeling was that the fundamental behavior within the human population was selfishness. So he was pretty, very pessimistic about the ability to change behavior. But other people have come along to point out that even though humans are selfish, they also cooperate a lot. And in order to actually, you know, change our behavior in a way that's sustainable, we basically need to cooperate more.
BRODIE: Well, so I guess what is the intersection between technology and behavior changes? Like would you consider, for example, somebody getting rid of an SUV and buying an electric car that is obviously using technology? But it's also a behavior change is that, is that something that, that could be helpful here?
AGOSTA: Well, and, and this is where we come in and say that, you know, switching from gas cars to electric cars is not ultimately what's going to quote unquote, “save us” or make human existence sustainable.
So, the behavioral change, you know, and we, we, I go back to what we were just talking about, the behavioral change is a kind of change in the way we think about the world from a materialistic commons to and what we call an evolutionary commons. And so basically, that change in behavior is instead of growth is good, bigger is better make as much profit as fast, you know, as fast as possible. Now, the change in behavior would be this kind of global redirection of living within our means. And understanding that actually the way to be best prepared for the future is again to build potential to be able to actually cope with change when it comes, instead of trying to engineer everything so it doesn't change.
BRODIE: Well, it almost sounds like you're talking more about behavioral change, sort of on the macro level as opposed to changes we might make on a day to day level. Like for example, driving an electric vehicle or putting solar panels on our roof or things like that, that, you know, a lot of people think if I do these things that is helping us, that will help make the future more sustainable.
AGOSTA: And, and, and I think I, I think our main point is that, that only helps if along with those changes, we're changing our fundamental behavior, getting away from what drives the global economics, which is this, you know, model of linear growth, you know, grow as much as fast as possible as much as possible.
And that is somehow a measure of, you know, a country's or a nation's success versus grow enough for, you know, for people to live, you know, what is considered to be a high quality of life, but also have, you know, potential built in to deal with the future.
The other major behavioral change that we talk about ultimately is reducing population densities in climate insecure places. Ultimately, you know, there will be a rural revitalization and that is going to constitute a change in behavior in the way people think about, you know, urban versus rural environments.
BRODIE: So you're saying that in the future, the trend of more and more urbanization, people coming from smaller communities into the cities is going to reverse and some number of people will be going back to those smaller communities?
AGOSTA: Well, I don't know if it's, if it's going to reverse, but you know, if we want to make the kind of changes that we need to make to be better able to cope with climate change and all the change that's coming.
Then one of the major behavioral changes that we need to make is to essentially decentralize and not cram ourselves into climate insecure urban centers, but actually start to spread out.
BRODIE: How likely do you think it is that enough people will be willing to make these behavioral changes to make a difference?
AGOSTA: I mean, you know, I think when we're talking about the economics of well being, that's, that's a difficult one to see happening on a global scale just because the economics of growth are so are so powerful so that that one's difficult to see.
But in terms of, you know, reducing population densities in climate insecure places and in urban centers, it becomes more likely from the perspective of, you know, essentially people being forced to do these things, you know, as cities heat up and as sea levels rise, then I think, you know, moving inland and moving into more climate secure places will become natural and more likely.
Although one could imagine lots of conflict, you know, resulting from that also.
BRODIE: Sure, that is interesting. All right, Sal, thank you so much for the conversation, I appreciate it.
AGOSTA: I appreciate it.
BRODIE: Sal Agosta is an assistant professor in Life Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University and co-author of the book, a Darwinian Survival Guide Hope For the 21st century.
