The Impact of Human Activities on the Physical and Social Environments: New Directions in Anthropological Ecology

Abstract

The rapidly accumulating evidence of danger associated with the human use of the earth has caught most of the sciences unprepared to mount the intensive and necessarily collaborative attack on the problem. Underlying the lack of preparation is the anthropocentric viewpoint of our industrial civilization: that the earth exists for the satisfaction of human needs and wants. Anthropology is no stranger to this idea: for a century, anthropological theory has visualized technological development and the growth of civilization as a triumph of human endeavor; culture has been defined as man's chief mode of adaptation to the natural environment, but for "adaptation," one must often read "exploitation."

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