| Summary: | The alarming increase in the human population, with its immense need for agriculturally productive land and its growing environmental degradation, has pushed the Earth's biosphere to the breaking point. Qualitative progress must quickly lead to a type of agriculture that combines high productivity with a greatly reduced environmental impact and the sustainable protection of endangered species, water resources, soils and the climate. An analysis of the realistic possibilities thus concent2 Historical Development of Agriculture, Urban Lifestyles and Man's Perception of Nature.
Three major developmental steps were crucial for the rapid cultural evolution of humans: upright posture (including all the subsequent anatomical consequences right up to intelligence and language), a settled life as a result of agriculture and animal husbandry, and the extension of the range of action through science and technology. The transformation from appropriation to the production of food fostered new forms of settlement and the creation of sophisticated social structures with a 3 Man and His Environment; The First Two Phases: Founding and Securing Human Existence.
With reference to the environment, past human history can be divided into three phases whose transitions are marked by the Neolithic and the Scientific/Technological Revolutions. The first phase involved the founding of human existence while the second was concerned with securing it. We presently find ourselves in a decisive stage of the third phase with overriding emphasis on securing a biosphere that tolerates and sustains a dangerously large human population. Providing adequate amount.
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