Fire, Tools, and Language
10/05/22 • 44 min
Join renowned energy and sustainability expert, Richard Heinberg, as he describes the flow of power in hunter-gatherer communities of the Pleistocene. As people learned to wield fire, deploy an array of tools, and coordinate actions through increasingly descriptive language, they became more capable of concentrating power. This development produced mind-blowing impacts on brain capacity and other aspects of human evolution. As you go back in time to the dawn of civilization, you'll become familiar with self-reinforcing feedback loops and how they shaped humanity's rise to dominance. And finally, you'll get to hear about (and appreciate) the surprising power of beauty in all its varied forms, but especially in the form of music. For more information, please visit our website.
Learn more at power.postcarbon.org
Join renowned energy and sustainability expert, Richard Heinberg, as he describes the flow of power in hunter-gatherer communities of the Pleistocene. As people learned to wield fire, deploy an array of tools, and coordinate actions through increasingly descriptive language, they became more capable of concentrating power. This development produced mind-blowing impacts on brain capacity and other aspects of human evolution. As you go back in time to the dawn of civilization, you'll become familiar with self-reinforcing feedback loops and how they shaped humanity's rise to dominance. And finally, you'll get to hear about (and appreciate) the surprising power of beauty in all its varied forms, but especially in the form of music. For more information, please visit our website.
Learn more at power.postcarbon.org
Previous Episode
Power in Nature
To understand humanity's relationship with energy and power, and to get a handle on why we're experiencing a polycrisis of climate change, social inequality, and loss of biodiversity, you have to go back to the beginning – all the way back to the origins of life on Earth. Explore how power functions in nature, including predator/prey relationships, self-balancing mechanisms in organisms and ecosystems, and the maximum power principle. Along the way, you'll tour exotic locations like the Grand Canyon and volcanic vents at the bottom of the sea, as well as more humble destinations like a neighborhood pond and a root cellar – places that will help you appreciate how power in nature drives evolution and determines biological success. For more information, please visit our website.
Learn more at power.postcarbon.org
Next Episode
The Rise of Social Inequality
Richard Heinberg, renowned energy and sustainability expert, explores the development of social power – simply defined as the ability to get other people to do something. Whether through money, violence, writing, or other means, humans have devised interesting ways of exerting influence over one another. One major downside, with implications for the collapse of societies, is widespread inequality. Concentration of social power tends to create social instability. You'll hear how power acts as a drug, damages people’s brains, and leads to the tragedies of slavery and colonization. Along the way, you might adopt new verbs like "Tom Sawyering" and "Robin Hooding." Note: Choral music in this episode was licensed from Allen Grey Music, "Lost Voices Soundscape." For more information, please visit our website.
Learn more at power.postcarbon.org
Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival - Fire, Tools, and Language
Transcript
Melody Travers
Welcome to Power: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival. In this series, we explore the hidden driver behind the crises that are appending societies, and disrupting the life support systems of the planet. That hidden driver is power, our pursuit of it, our overuse of it, and our abuse of it. I'm your host, Melody Travers.
Rob Dietz
And I'm Rob Dietz, your copilot and program director at Post Carbon Institute. Join us as we explore power and why giving it up just mig
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