The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center's video: Boundary Spanning Opportunities Panel: Dr Tim Kohler

Monday, June 11, 2018 SOCIO-ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS IN TRANSITION Dr. Tim Kohler I discuss what I consider to be the major transitions in socio-environmental systems, including the gradual accumulation of human cognitive capacity, the Holocene (which some also wish to call the Anthropocene), which almost simultaneously allows the Neolithic transition to intensive cultural niche construction, and accumulation of material goods. This in turn, in large portions of Eurasia (but not so much in the New World, for reasons to be discussed), leads to marked wealth disparities which are both a result of, and stimulate, polity growth, technological development and the earliest examples of urbanization. The Industrial Revolution, with its new energy sources, technologies, and demands for labor, greatly accelerated urbanization, eventually stimulating great improvements in sanitary conditions, public health, and vast increases in population size. These mark the completion of the Anthropocene, for most of those who do not wish to see it earlier. ​ Today, continued (though slowing) population growth and generally increased prosperity place many species and ecosystems in danger, both directly, due to land-use change, and indirectly, due to anthropogenic climate change. Every decade to come, for the foreseeable future, will constitute a new test of the ability of socioeconomic systems to respond adequately and quickly to emerging demands for the relocation of population and its supporting systems of resource production and distribution.