I think human beings have kind of gotten away from the evolution that has been explained by Darwin. We now evolve exosomatic organs, that is organs outside of our body. If we want to fly, we don't wait until our arms grow feathers and turn into wings, you know? We develop an airplane. So that airplane is our exosomatic wings and we develop these and we develop them rapidly, compared to endosomatic. And whereas our internal organs and our natural evolution depends upon solar energy, which is abundant, our exosomatic evolution depends upon natural resources which are not abundant - terrestrial, low-entropy sources of materials and energy. So we've shifted our dependence in evolution away from what is abundant and towards what is scarce. Furthermore, in natural evolution everybody owns their own internal organs; that wealth is evenly distributed. But when you get to exosomatic evolution, not everyone owns the airplane and so we have an inequality that emerges from this dependence upon resources, the terrestrial resources, those other than sunlight, in this shift in evolution.
08.05.2007,
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Herman E. Daly is an ecological economist and professor at the Maryland School of Public Affairs. Prior to his work at the Maryland School of Public Affairs, he worked at the World Bank, where he was Senior Economist in the Environment Department, helping to develop policy guidelines related to sustainable development. While there, he was engaged in environmental operations work in Latin America. He is co-founder and associate editor of the journal, Ecological Economics. His interest in economic development, population, resources, and environment has resulted in over a hundred articles as well as numerous books. His awards include the Grawemeyer Award for ideas for improving World Order, of the Honorary Right Livelihood Award, the Heineken Prize for Environmental Science from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Sophie Prize awarded by Norway.
