麻豆视频

In Homo Ecophagus, physician with CU Boulder ties sees humanity devouring itself鈥攁nd the planet

鈥淎t the moment,鈥� writes Warren Hern, 鈥渨e are the most misnamed species on the planet: Homo sapiens sapiens鈥斺�榳ise, wise man.鈥� Not.鈥�

Hern, 84, physician, long-time abortion-rights advocate and adjunct professor of anthropology at the 麻豆视频, thinks the name he coined for his new book provides a much more accurate description of humanity in the 21st century.

鈥淚 propose that the new scientific name of the human species be Homo ecophagus 鈥� 鈥榯he man who devours the ecosystem,鈥欌�� he writes in (Routledge, 2022). 鈥淗omo ecophagus is a rapacious, ubiquitous, predatory, omni-ecophagic species that is a malignant epiecopathologic process engaged in the conversion of all plant, animal, organic and inorganic planetary material into human biomass or its adaptive adjuncts and support systems.鈥�

Hern (Spch, Anth, Chem鈥�61) traces the roots of the book all the way back to 1952, when he was working as a 14-year-old gravedigger in Englewood, south of Denver.

鈥淚 was standing on the hill, doing my thing and looking out north of the cemetery. Something was wrong. All I could see was the Capitol and the (Montgomery) Ward building through the brown cloud鈥� of smog, he recalls.

Throughout his long and varied career, from his Peace Corps work in Brazil to public health work in Washington, D.C., graduate school in North Carolina and medical school at CU, he slowly came to see humanity鈥檚 unfettered population growth and voracious demand for resources as a kind of global plague, an affliction that is mindlessly, inexorably killing its host, and thus, itself.

鈥淢aybe we are not god鈥檚 gift to creation, the flower of the universe,鈥� Hern muses. 鈥淢aybe we are something much, much worse: a malignant process on the Earth.鈥�

Homo Ecophagus is wide-ranging, deeply researched, full of citations鈥攏ot to mention some lovely color photographs鈥攊mpassioned and, despite its stark thesis, persuasive.

The first third of the book serves as a kind of mini-autobiography and roadmap to Hern鈥檚 eventual identification of what he sees as a truly existential problem. In the second third, he describes example after example of the kind of destruction being wrought on the planet from pole to pole.

Finally, he renders his grim diagnosis: humanity is a cancer, and that鈥檚 neither hyperbole, metaphor nor analogy, he argues. Hern notes, for example, that cities, like cancer:

• Invade and destroy adjacent normal tissues (i.e., ecosystems);
• Metastasize to ever more distant locales;
• Are progressive (i.e., growing); and
• Resistant to death.

Citing several further similarities, he concludes that, 鈥淗uman communities and human activities in general are ecophagic: they devour the ecosystem.鈥�

鈥淩apid, uncontrolled growth is the sine qua non of cancer. As long as the human population is growing at all, there is no hope of solving these major ecological problems,鈥� he says. 鈥淎ll the rest is secondary stuff.鈥�

He notes that while the rate of global population growth has dropped from about 2% a year in the mid-20th century to 1% per year in the third decade of the 21st century, even at half the rate, humanity continues to grow along a 鈥渓ogistic, or asymptotic curve, which is the same growth curve seen in malignancies鈥� and that (italics in original) 鈥�the declining growth rate of cancer occurs just before death of the host organism.鈥�

鈥淲e are conducting the Anthropocene Extinction Event, and we are on our way to becoming casualties of it. Soon,鈥� he writes. 鈥淚s that our goal?鈥�

What, then, must we do? Hern admits he is not optimistic.

鈥淪peaking as a physician, I would say the prognosis is not good, at least for the biosphere and the web of life as we know it, and that means extinction for us,鈥� he writes.

But he notes that there is one key difference between humanity and cancer: 鈥淲e can think and decide not to be cancer,鈥� he says. 鈥淩ight now, we are choosing extinction. But we can change what we are doing and no longer be a cancer on the planet.鈥�

In keeping with his long-time advocacy for reproductive choice and population control, Hern suggests those concerned about human destruction of the planet vote for candidates who 鈥渄on鈥檛 force women to have babies they don鈥檛 want,鈥� who promote an 鈥渆fficient economy based on good ecological principles, resource conservation instead of the next guy who wants to drill for oil in national parks鈥� and take climate change seriously.

鈥淲e have choices to make,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e can choose to change what we are doing and not be a cancer on the planet, stop changing the biosphere irreversibly. But the longer we wait, the harder that choice is to make.鈥�