Interestingly, I’ve read anthropologists and archaeologists who describe the first agricultural revolution as a trap. The advent of agriculture was probably not purposeful, but once it got started, populations found themselves unable to go back to former ways of life even when they wanted to, which many of them probably did.
Take a band of hunter-gatherers in the fertile crescent 10,000 years ago who would schedule certain annual journeys to coincide with wild wheat harvesting. Eventually, their campsites became places where better wheat grew, because they selected wheat to harvest based on larger fruit size and easier husking.
They dropped plenty of seeds in the process, which would then sprout while they were away. Over many generations, not only did better wheat evolve (from a human perspective) but people began to put two and two together about how seeds grow into plants. Eventually, some of the hunter-gatherers began planting wheat on purpose before leaving camp, just to ensure an even better harvest when they returned.
After many more generations, intentional planting enabled enough wheat to grow to support a population that didn’t have to leave camp if they didn’t want to. The wheat provided enough food to sustain them when combined with local foraging.
The band’s population increased significantly even though foraging became more and more difficult. Wheat grew more and more abundantly, and so did the population.
Until the people found themselves trapped. Going back to a hunter-gatherer way of life would not be possible without a drastic population decrease first. Maybe small bands did leave from time to time, but the main wheat-growing population continued to increase, even though some years were bad years and people died of malnutrition and sickness.
Eventually, that region became so dominated by wheat growers who also foraged that hunter-gatherer life just wasn’t possible in that area anymore. And so began cycles of conflict as populations increased and relative abundance of food decreased.
Some experts call that the first agricultural revolution, contrasting it to another one that started in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in which as a species we have come to depend on petroleum to feed ourselves.
We are in something of a similar trap now. Petroleum-powered farm equipment and petroleum-based fertilizers increased the food supply exponentially, and quite naturally human populations kept up. (Some people talk about it the other way around, like we were able to harness petroleum in order to feed increasing populations. But if we had not harnessed petroleum, populations would not have increased the way they did.)
So, like those original agriculturists who found themselves unable to go back to former, better ways of life, humanity is in kind of a similar spot right now. We can’t stop using industrial agriculture and making fertilizers from fossil fuels, because to do so would drastically decrease the food supply, necessitating a corresponding reduction in population — with results that would undoubtedly be horrific and violent.
Of course people resort to violence when they don’t have enough to eat. The urge to survive is powerful.
And unfortunately, as a species we are often terrible at foreseeing unanticipated consequences.
Those first hunter gatherers who learned how to plant wheat just wanted better food. They had no idea violence and strife would later result. Their peers undoubtedly thought of them as clever and maybe even heroes.
Today, we revere the people who invented petroleum-intensive agriculture. From a local perspective, they were doing good things, feeding more people with better food.
But the food supply can never keep up with the potential for human population growth, not short of technological revolution.
So are we facing the same sort of potentially violent revolutionary change our agriculturalist ancestors faced 10,000 years ago?
Probably. And climate change is just one face of the problem.
