Ninety-nine percent of all animal species that ever lived are extinct, doomed because they had evolved into niches that were destroyed when environmental changes occurred too fast for them to adapt. We humans have survived so far because we evolved as non-specialists: our large brains permit adaptation to change without waiting for evolution to alter our genes.
Over the last several centuries, humans have evolved socially, culturally and economically to fill a niche created by our use of fossil fuels and their myriad byproducts. Our exploitation of that niche has led to severe environmental pressures, while our access to petroleum is narrowing and will eventually shrink to insignificance. Can we use our large brains to evolve out of this niche successfully—mitigating the causes that are our responsibility and adapting to change that is already evident?
Of the books under review, in Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster, Peter...
Richard G. Lipsey is emeritus professor of economics at Simon Fraser University. His book Economic Transformations: General Purpose Technologies and Long-Term Economic Growth (Oxford University Press, 2005) won the Joseph Schumpeter prize for the best writing on evolutionary economics over the two years prior to its publication.
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