Social Development as Trophic Expansion. Food systems, prosthetic ecology and the arrow of history

Samenvatting

In issue 31/3 Stephen Quilley's article was misnamed twice (as Social Development as Social Expansion), on the first page of the article itself as well as in the table of contents. We regret this mistake on our part; the correct title should read: Social Development as Trophic Expansion. (AST 31/4 (2004)) The ecology of human social development is presented as a process of 'trophic expansion' leading to the establishment of an increasingly 'prosthetic ecology' in which natural processes are channeled to divert solar energy for the demographic and industrial growth of the dominant species. From this long-term perspective, the key regulatory and technological choice facing humanity is how to separate and/or integrate the trophic systems of the anthroposphere and the biosphere. Outlining the technological possibility of hiving off a closed-system prosthetic ecology from the wider systems of the biosphere, the essay poses the question of the social conditions necessary for transforming technological possibilities into viable practices. 45 References. Adapted from the source document.