November 29th || 12:30pm || 354 Aubert Hall
To solve the modern environmental predicament we must understand how humans created it. Beyond emitting carbon, over-populating, polluting, or over-consuming, humans have come to dominate the planet, surviving in all terrestrial environments through a mix of cooperation and cumulative adaptation to the environment, from the tropics to the arctic. Dr. Waring argues that the factors that make the human species special, ultra-sociality and cumulative cultural adaptation, also present the best and only hope for surviving and managing modern ecological crises. This talk will explain how human culture and cooperation both evolve, and how the dynamics of cultural adaptation play out at multiple levels of social organization in different social ecological systems, with detailed examples from around the world.
This event is free and open to all. Refreshments will be provided.
For more information, please contact Meggan Dwyer at meggan.dwyer@maine.edu
About Dr. Waring:
Dr. Waring studies how cooperation determines sustainability outcomes. Using economic experiments and agent-based simulations, he builds evolutionary models of social and economic change to learn how sustainable behaviors, and durable institutions arise and persist. He has led two national working groups to refine this theory and apply it to case studies around the world. Dr. Waring now leads a five-year research project to study how cooperation can improve the success of local food organizations, and grow the local food economy.