
The Human Scaffold
How Not to Design Your Way Out of a Climate Crisis
Josh Berson(Author)
University of California Press
1st Edition
Published on 23. March 2021
Book
Hardback
248 pages
978-0-520-38048-6 (ISBN)
Description
Humanity has precipitated a planetary crisis of resource consumption-a crisis of stuff. So ingrained is our stuff-centric view that we can barely imagine a way out beyond substituting a new portmanteau of material things for the one we have today.
In The Human Scaffold, anthropologist Josh Berson offers a new theory of adaptation to environmental change. Drawing on niche construction, evolutionary game theory, and the enactive view of cognition, Berson considers cases in the archaeology of adaptation in which technology in the conventional sense was virtually absent. Far from representing anomalies, these cases exemplify an enduring feature of human behavior that has implications for our own fate.
The time has come to ask what the environmental crisis demands of us not as consumers but as biological beings. The Human Scaffold offers a starting point.
In The Human Scaffold, anthropologist Josh Berson offers a new theory of adaptation to environmental change. Drawing on niche construction, evolutionary game theory, and the enactive view of cognition, Berson considers cases in the archaeology of adaptation in which technology in the conventional sense was virtually absent. Far from representing anomalies, these cases exemplify an enduring feature of human behavior that has implications for our own fate.
The time has come to ask what the environmental crisis demands of us not as consumers but as biological beings. The Human Scaffold offers a starting point.
Reviews / Votes
"Berson's mind is on display in all its brilliance and eccentricity. Be prepared. . . . Berson's analytical discernment of contemporary culture burying ourselves with 'stuff' and mindlessly devouring the world's natural resources rings with descriptive eloquence. . . . Keep writing, Josh Berson. We need you." * National Catholic Reporter Online *More details
Series
Edition
First Edition
Language
English
Place of publication
Berkerley
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
9 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
408 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-520-38048-6 (9780520380486)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Book
03/2021
1st Edition
University of California Press
€30.95
Article not available at the moment

E-Book
03/2021
1st Edition
Naval Institute Press
€28.99
Available for download
Person
Josh Berson has held appointments at two Max Planck Institutes-Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, and the History of Science-and at the Berggruen Institute, where he was inaugural USC Berggruen Fellow in the Transformations of the Human. He is the author of The Meat Question: Animals, Humans, and the Deep History of Food and Computable Bodies: Instrumented Life and the Human Somatic Niche.
Content
List of Figures
Preface: Living Epiphytically
Kansha
1. Treadmills
2. Scaffolds
3. Equilibria
4. Landscapes
4boro. Landscapes and Scaffolds
5. Ditch Kit
Postscript: Foaminess
Glossary
Notes
Sources
Index
Preface: Living Epiphytically
Kansha
1. Treadmills
2. Scaffolds
3. Equilibria
4. Landscapes
4boro. Landscapes and Scaffolds
5. Ditch Kit
Postscript: Foaminess
Glossary
Notes
Sources
Index