Future+humans


 * //Science fiction has an amazing habit of becoming scientific fact in a very short period of time. The ‘anthropocene’ and ‘transhumanity’ would have been considered fictional a hundred years ago. But they are very real here and now and both have enormous future potential. The anthropocene refers to the incredible impact humans have already had on this world and transhumanity refers to the way we have changed ourselves to become more than human. Discuss. //**

A number of natural and human-induced markers have lead to new names for human and planetary cycles.

Presently our planet is experiencing an ice age, which extends back approximately 2.58 million years to present day.1. Features of this era include the permanent icing of Antarctica, the now-receding ice sheet covering Greenland and the fluctuating ice sheet which extends over significant parts of Canada and the United States. Within this ice age there have been cycles - eight over the past 740,000 years - and currently we are in an interglacial period of warmer climate. The beginning of this interglacial period is though to have occurred approximately 10,000 - 15,000 years ago. Its onset marked the start of another era descriptor - the Holocene.

The Holocene is a geological descriptor, which marked the end of the Pleistocene era and includes measures of human impact on the planet. More recently however, with the advent of the industrial revolution in the 1800’s, a number of scientists have begun referring to yet another epoch, first proposed by ecologist Eugene F Stoermer in the 1980’s. He and chemist Paul Crutzen determined that human impacts on earth’s environment since the 19th century have been of enough significance to warrant a new name for our time. They called it the Anthropocene.

However, there is also significant argument that human activity first began to shape the planet - and therefore the Anthropocene epoch began - much earlier, when man first transitioned from hunter-gatherer to farmer. With the establishment of agriculture and the rearing of animals for food, humans began to influence the balance of species. Land clearing use and hunting began to affect biodiversity. Increased populations as a result of greater food supplies exacerbated our effect. Our activity resulted in significant increases in CO2 emissions, taken to a new level with the event of the industrial revolution. From levels approximating 280ppm, our carbon dioxide emissions are now approaching 400ppm, according to Earth System Research Laboratory.2.

As one of several greenhouse gases causing climate change, CO2 is used as a measure of global warming. Along with increased average global temperatures and an increase in the melt rate of ice caps, this warming is widely known to be causing significant harm to plant and animal species, increasing the incidence and severity of extreme weather events such as bushfires, floods and hurricanes and endangering food supplies and human habitats. Even if greenhouse gas emissions were to stabilise today, the rate of change to climate and issues of climate feedback would continue to produce warming and sea level rise for centuries.3.

The term transhumanity is also subject to varied definition, though in this case, the variation is of a more ideological nature. Generally it refers to a period of transition - a shift from humanity as it has historically been mapped - to a hypothetical new era of evolution. Evolutionary biologist Julian Huxley referred to it as the “...threshold of a new kind of existence...”

This transhuman might be a hybridised synthesis of biology and technology, the fusion of medical advances and computerised functioning and natural genetic evolution. Transhumans could also enjoy a new synthesis of many cultures where organised religion and tradition are replaced by a globalised, homogenised view of life.

Whether this version of humanity needs its own moniker is also the subject of debate. According to physical anthropologist Jeffrey McKee, although we are currently evolving at an accelerated rate, species are constantly evolving anyway - so every species is transitional.4.

As a name for our species moving forward, transhumanity is exciting to futurists, philosophers and scientists alike. It is an unwritten book where our capacities may well extend beyond our wildest current interpretations. We cannot conceive of new humanity, when we consider our present rate of change.

The last hundred years of human history provide an example of how radical this shift may be. In that time, we have invented or discovered jet airplanes, the birth control pill, man in space, frisbees, the iron lung, photocopiers, the polio vaccine, ballpoint pens, car seat belts, lasers, cloud seeding, plutonium, communications satellites, microwave ovens, holograms, mobile phones, home computers, lava lamps, IVF, MRI, ECG, insulin, DNA fingerprinting, genetic sequencing and antibiotics, solar cells, wide screen cinema, Scotch tape, crossword puzzles, digital music, fibre optics, pacemakers, disposable contact lenses, waffle-soled running shoes, bras, zips, Hepatitis B vaccine, the electron microscope, hearing aids, artificial life, microchips and the World Wide Web - to name but a few.5,6,7.

**REFERENCES **

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation 2. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ 3. http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhuman <span style="color: #393232; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">5. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/news/2078467 <span style="color: #393232; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">6. http://www.naute.com/stories/100years.phtml <span style="color: #393232; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">7. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/inventions_1900_to_1990.htm