ABSTRACT
Evolution provides insight with which we can make sense of the modern varieties of environmentalism and ecology. Biological evolution refers primarily to natural selection as it acts on individual organisms and species. The term sociobiological evolution refers to behavioral selection that has effects within and among populations of social species. Sociocultural evolution refers to learned behavior that is acquired by imitation, communication, and education, not strictly by genetic inheritance. Humans, as social organisms, have evolved characters that enable the formation of an environmental ethic. These include cooperative reciprocity, mental scenario building, and cultural codes. Cooperative reciprocity urges us toward social cohesion. Time-shifting mental scenario building promotes foresight, idealism, and compassion. Social norms and mental constructs have allowed our species to develop morality, aesthetic appreciation, and spirituality. The development of language spurred the transmission of these ideas, taking them from genetic foundations to the elements of modern culture. These provide the foundation of environmentalism, but they also provide the conflict of environmentalism. There is conflict of utility and equity: we are biologically driven to use our surroundings to our own advantage, and yet we have a sense of equity and an instinct for reciprocity. We have the ability to imagine ourselves as the other, and yet our empathy is tested by cultural difference and parochialism. Our cultural code urges the transformation of the nonhuman world while simultaneously cherishing that which we perceive to be beautiful, vital, and sacred. All told, it seems that our evolutionary past has primed us for environmental anxiety.
