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Big History Project
Course: Big History Project > Unit 10
Lesson 4: Other MaterialsWATCH: Sanjayan — Visions of the Future
What can we learn from volcanic ash in Laetoli? Sanjayan discusses human interaction with the biosphere and how we are reconnecting with nature. Created by Big History Project.
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Video transcript
In Northern Tanzania
there's a place called Laetoli. Most tourist who go
to that region go to the Serengeti
and other big national parks, go right by Laetoli
because at first glance it's an unremarkable bit
of savannah. But what makes Laetoli special
is that laid out in volcanic ash are footprints. Footprints made
by early hominids, early ancestors of humans
that were laid down over 3.5 million years ago. Now, to me what makes this place
really special is not just the hominid prints
but also all the other prints that surround these footprints. They're prints of lots
of other kinds of animals that lived there. So you see hyena prints,
an extinct form of elephant, wild boar
and many other species, actually 20 other species
of animals crisscrossing these early proto-human prints,
if you will. It makes you realize
that as long as humans have been on this planet,
we have been part of and interacting with nature. And sure enough we've modified
nature in all sorts of ways. We clear grasslands
by burning them, we cut down forests
and have been doing so for a long time,
we've domesticated animals like horses and dogs. And all those things have had
a big impact on the planet, we've caused extinctions
of species in the Pleistocene, big mammals like
the mastodon and the mammoth. And with that kind
of extinction, the extinction
of these big mammals, we might have even tampered
with the atmosphere. Those animals produced methane. When we wiped them out
we reduced the concentration of methane
in the atmosphere. So humans have been
a huge influence on the planet and nature
and we've been part of it. Then came agriculture. And with agriculture
and the settlement of cities came specialization. When we started specializing
on one particular kind of job, we started divorcing
ourselves from nature. The guy who makes the wheel
no longer needs to know where his water comes from
or where food comes from, he can simply trade
that wheel for food. And that is continued
all the way into the industrial era. Go out on the street today
and ask someone, "Where does
your water come from?" What are they gonna tell you? They're gonna say, "The tap,"
right? They're not gonna really think
about the river. So the pendulum has swung
all the way from connection with nature
to disconnection with nature but now it's starting
to swing back again for three interesting reasons. Reason one is that
science has come up to a point where we can really understand
the impacts we're having on the planet. The second is social networks. Social networks today
are allowing us to collaborate and create
collective action and also understand collective
impacts around the planet. So something that's
happening to me here, I can communicate with
and compare with what's happening in China
for example in real time. And the third reason is
we're a planet with seven billion people
heading to ten billion. When you have that many people,
every impact is gonna have a ripple effect. So those three reasons
are really causing the pendulum to sort of shift back today
and once again make us rethink our connection
to nature. And so seeing humans
as separate from nature, we're starting
to once again understand that nature
in some ways is the ultimate social network
and we humans are very much part of it. Now, nothing brings
to me that point or illustrates that point
better than those photographs that came to Earth
from those Apollo astronauts. So when the astronauts
went out to space and took those photographs,
all of a sudden we could see the whole planet. We could see all of planet Earth
for the first time in the history of humans. In fact, in the history
of any species that has ever lived
on the planet. That moment to me
really symbolizes this next era that we're going into. An era where our eyes
are opened to the impact that we can have
but we also have the opportunity now
to do something about it and to do something about it
at a planetary scale. So how do I feel
about the future? Here's what I think. I think technology
will really help us to a great deal
in moving us forward and solving some
of the big, intractable problems we have today. But really and most importantly
I think what's going on is right now
we have that window, that narrow window
in time where pretty much any problem that we can see,
we can start to understand it, fully understand it,
and also have the opportunity to do something about it. When it comes to population
with seven billion we'll probably end up
at ten maybe 11 billion, but most scientists agree
that we're going to start leveling off and population
will eventually be stable. The one part that
we don't really know much about is consumption,
how much we consume and we consume all this stuff
not just because we need it, but because we think
it actually makes us feel happy. It's a really weird thing. So it turns out that virtually
any way you can measure human well-being, whether
it's healthcare or education or how long will you live,
things have been getting better. But when it comes to happiness,
it's not so clear. Are we really happy than we...
than our parents were and were they really
happier than, you know, several generations ago. That's a harder question
to answer. If we can divorce now
our need for consumption as the driver towards happiness, then I think we really
have a chance of not just living and
fulfilling our aspirations on this planet but doing so in a way in which
that can really make us feel happy as well as make sure
there's enough space for everyone else.