The case for re-naming the human race

We are in the process of destroying a great many things which are real – soil, water, energy, resources, other species, our health – for the sake of something that exists chiefly in our imagination: money.  To trade something real for something imaginary hardly appears wise.

Finally, as growing number of eminent scientists are now saying, these things carry the risk of catastrophic changes to the Earth’s systems, deleterious not only to our own future but that of all life.

When these issues are considered, it is difficult to justify a single epithet of ‘wise’, let alone two of them. Our official sub-species name is Homo sapiens sapiens (‘wise wise man’), which now looks not only like conceit – but insecurity. Such a name sends a misleading signal about the capacity – let alone the will – of humanity, as a whole, to manage the consequences of its own actions. It invites us to overestimate our abilities and underestimate the difficulties we are creating.

This is not to deny or belittle any of the great, creative, artistic or scientific achievements of humans today or over the centuries, which are indeed wonderful. Rather it is to recognise that our present behaviours combined with our numbers now have the capacity to nullify or even eliminate all other human accomplishments.

The human population is currently on track to reach 10 billion or more by the end of the century and this is a primary concern. An even greater one is our ungovernable appetite – for food, for material resources, for energy, for water, for land – and our lack of wisdom when it comes to managing and reusing these resources.

A creature unable to master its own demands cannot be said to merit the descriptor ‘wise’. A creature that takes little account of the growing risks it runs through its behaviour can hardly be rated thoughtful. The provisions of the International Code on Zoological Nomenclature provide for the re-naming of species in cases where scientific understanding of the species changes, or where it is necessary to correct an earlier error. I argue that both those situations now apply.

However this is not merely an issue for science: it concerns every one of us. There needs to be worldwide public discussion about an appropriate name for our species, in the light of our present behaviour and attributes.

Further down the track I would not rule out an eventual return to the name Homo sapiens, provided we can demonstrate that we have earned it – and it is not mere flatulence, conceit or self-delusion.

Two years ago another Swedish scientist, Johan Rockstrom and his international colleagues (including Australians Will Steffen and Terry Hughes) identified 10 planetary ‘boundaries’ which we ought not to transgress because of the damage it will cause to our world and our chances of surviving in it. They found we had already crossed three. These boundaries can be used as a report card on the human race: our success in remaining within them will be a direct measure of our wisdom - and of our determination to survive both as a species and a civilisation.

The wisdom to understand our real impact on the Earth and all life is the one we most need at this point in our history, in order to limit it.

Now is the time humans get to earn – or lose – the title sapiens.