ABSTRACT
Members of the human species have basic material needs. All of us must have food, shelter, clothing, and fuel. But there is a big difference between the material demands of a Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer and those of a present-day inhabitant of, say, Los Angeles. So the satisfaction of those demands is of a different economic order between the two: the hunter-gatherer would expect an area of about 26 km2 to be sufficient to yield all the materials for survival and reproduction; a modern urbanite expects to have the kind of purchasing power to bring in the whole world’s riches. The demand for materials is different ecologically as well, for the environmental impact of the hunter-gatherer is low, even if fire is used to manipulate the landscape. By contrast, the rich citydweller not only obliterates Nature locally but causes it to be changed on the other side of the world, to provide energy, metals, baby vegetables, and roses in midFebruary.
