Why Climate Change Is Necessary
for the Leap to Socialism
Editor’s Note: This article was written by Dave Winter, one of our founding members, in late 2011 and early 2012. The author is not a native speaker of English, and this draft has not been edited for spelling, grammar, punctuation, or style. (An edited version is available in International Trotskyist (New Series) Vol. 1, Issue 4 (Spring 2012).) The document has been divided up for easier browsing; this is page 1 of four pages. Click Next Page here or at the bottom of this page to continue to page 2.
The long perspective of human evolution portrays a consistent depiction which is of great relevance to the problem of climate change today. What emerges is that climate change played a critical role every time that hominids and homo sapiens sapiens (modern humans) had to go through a decisive evolutionary leap. It appears now that climate change is playing again a critical role in the transformation of primitive (socially speaking) homo sapiens’ capitalist social order into free egalitarian homo sapiens sapiens society, that is, free from the shackles of class societies. We’ll return to this later. For now we will show how climate change played a critical role in the most important leaps: from apes to the so-called modern humans in capitalist society.
Climate Change in the Early Stages of Human Evolution
The evolution of certain apes that resulted in the evolution of our specie (homo sapiens sapiens) has started about 6 to 7 million years ago. Between 10 million to 5 million years ago Africa became much drier. The forests shrank and open savanna developed in many areas. Climate change which made Africa drier was responsible for the first major leap in the evolution of some apes. With less food to share on the shrinking forest certain apes were forced to climb down from the trees and roam the open savannas for food. To survive these apes had to go through the evolution of bi-pedalism, that is, they had to be bi-pedals and stand or run on two feet. This was a necessary adaptation to see predators in the grass.
These hominids/apes could not hunt as of yet. They were scavengers that were always on the run. But with bi-pedalism these apes could walk and run dozens of miles on the open savanna watching for predators while grabbing carcasses when they could get away with this. This was also a critical evolution for later stages. Bi-pedalism allowed these apes to have free hands that in future evolutions would enable them to make tools. None of the above was not possible without a warmer climate in Africa that opened vast savannas. In other words, climate change was the main factor that allows the evolution of apes to bi-pedal hominids.
Ice Ages Key for Human Evolution
Although our first ancestors were bi-pedals their brain and body was more like ape-like than human. This was so for millions of years or more precisely until the cycle of ice ages started with the paleoclimatic era about 3 million years ago. In the paleoclimatic era the climate was changed dramatically alternating between long dry and cooler climate in Africa that increase the savannas at the expense of the forests and lakes, and shorter wet periods that were very productive for the development of our homo species. According to Anna K. Behrensmeyer, one of the scientists who is inquiring about the relations of climate and human evolution:“The biggest challenge involves how to relate different types and scales of paleoclimatic evidence between the marine and terrestrial realms. Marine-core records show that a cooler, drier, and more variable global climate regime began about 3.0 million years ago (Ma), gradually intensifying into northern continental glacial cycles by 1.0 Ma. The climate shift between ~3.0 and 2.5 Ma thus marks the onset of Northern Hemisphere glaciation, and this coincides generally with the timing of the origin of the genus Homo. Fluctuations in continent-derived dust and biomarkers in the marine record indicate that climate shifts recorded in the oceans affected the land as well”. (Science 2006 311:476)
This cycle of cool arid climate from the ice ages alternating with wet short cycles created us- humans. The more-ape-like creatures started to use stone tools as the size of their brain increases. William H. Calvin the author of A Brain for All Seasons comments in his book that “I'm one of the many scientists who try to figure out what's behind an interesting correlation: What did the ice ages have to do with ratcheting up our ancestor's brain size? Our australopithecine ancestors, though they were walking upright, had an ape-sized brain about 2.5 million years ago. Ape brains probably hadn't changed much in size for the prior 10 million years. But when the ice ages began 2.5 million years ago, brain size started increasing—not particularly in the other mammalian species, but at least in our ancestors. About 120,000 years ago, in the warm period that preceded our most recent ice age, modern type Homo sapiens was probably walking around Africa with dark skin—and sporting a brain that was three times larger than before the first ice age chatters 2.5 million years ago.”
All scientists agree that onset of the ice ages played a critical role in human evolution. For a long time scientists believed that it was the arid periods, when life was tough on the dry savannas, that forced our ancestors to adapt and change. But the current thinking is that the wet productive periods were responsible for our evolution:
“New evidence suggests human evolution was caused by specific periods of climatic change in Africa according to research presented at the Annual Conference of the Royal Geographical Society. These climatic influences played a crucial part in enhancing human development says Dr Mark Maslin, Senior Lecturer in Geography at University College London. [¶] New findings suggest that during the long-term trend of desertification in Africa over the last 2.7 million years, there were clearly identifiable wet and humid periods. According to Dr Maslin, this is the first study to identify the presence of a series of ancient lakes, some more than 100m deep and over 100 square kilometers in size at critical times when humans first appeared. [¶] This research challenges the old and accepted theory that a prolonged period of desertification in Africa initiated human evolution by forcing adaptation to a drier environment. The new theory suggests that humans actually evolved during short periods of great environmental change – when dry periods were punctuated by large rapidly appearing and disappearing lakes. It was these rapid changes in water sources that forced communities to rapidly change and adapt.” (Human evolution linked to climate change says study, mongabay.com, September 6, 2005)
The truth is that most evidence, including remains of Hominids, is very scant and it will be a long time before we could put a clear picture for the first stages of hominids developments 3 to 1 million years ago. Bourgeois scientists tend to emphasize one aspect of evolution while ignoring the others. As a conscious dialectical materialist I will try to synthesize dialectically this crucial era for our species that resulted in the development of the Homo line in evolution. The first one was Homo Habalus, a creature with larger brain, and later the Homo erectus appeared (1.8 million years ago). We know for sure that Homo erectus used stone tools (it is debatable whether Homo habalus used stone tools). The wet periods were very productive. These were the periods that specific species flourished. We are now in a “wet” period that has been lasting for 10,000 years. This is the era that class societies grew and flourished.
But it was the long dry arid periods that forced a leap in human evolution. The adverse climate conditions forced us to adapt by creating better tools, and larger brain with more “intelligence”. The Homo erectus emerged 1.8-2 million years ago when the climate in Africa was cooler and harsher. The Homo erectus responded by creating very sophisticated stone tools like the hand ax that lasted for a million years!
Here is the most basic dialectic materialist understanding of human evolution. Adverse conditions of scarcity resulted in leaps of human evolution. It forced us to adapt to the harsher climate by evolving our tools and social structure in some fundamental ways. The stable short periods between ice ages were the periods in which we did not need to create fundamental changes: The favorable conditions with easy food supply allowed us to stabilize our social and economic order and sometimes flourish.
The rise of Homo erectus was also associated with the development of the fire as an homo erectus’ tool. We don’t exactly know when they started to use fire. But it is clear that cold and dry climate from the ice age was the main motive for the invention of the fire. It was used to protect the groups from the cold nights as well as predators. Fire was also used to corner prey. Fire is without a doubt one of the most important tool to date. It allowed homo erectus to evolve more successfully than their ancestors. Homo erectus were the first from the Homo-line that moved to the Middle East, Asia, and Europe: a continent that was harshly cold. Homo erectus were successful because they could adapt to the cyclical changes in Ice Age eras.
As the most successful homo, homo erectus used increasingly more complex tools for hunting and living. Their groups became larger with more multifaceted social relations. For example they planned the hunting and coordinate them for the hunting of large animals. They also hunted in larger groups. Between 1.8 million years ago to 700,000 years ago homo erectus spread to the Middle East and the rest of the world. Using fire and increasingly more complex tools and social organization homo erectus showed a remarkable ability to adapt to the harsh ice ages. They adapted to the severe cold in Europe and to the Asian forests. All this was reflected in their increasingly larger brain.
The human race must thanks climate changes for spreading us all over the world. Without climate change homo erectus (as well as many animals) could not move from Africa to Asia and Europe. Homo erectus migrated out of tropical Africa to the Sahara that with its big lakes was better place for water and food in the wet period. As the climate oscillated between wet and long dry climate because of the ice ages, the Sahara was like a pump. The Sahara brought people in during the wet periods as it flourished with lakes and life. During the colder and dry period of the ice ages the lakes dried and homo erectus were pushed out from the Sahara with animals and their prey. They moved to the Near East and Asia. This was culminated in about 700,000 years ago as the ice age became longer and more dramatic.
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