Why a journal on ‘global bioethics’?

Abstract

In order to survive, every human individual on average requires 2,000 Kcal per day for the acquisition of the 3F: Food, Fuel and Fiber. From the origins of the human phylum (which came about through the centric fusion of two chromosomes 6–5 million years ago) to the Lower Pleistocene (2 million years ago), hunting and gathering activities in savannah environments had to cater for the subsistence of no more than 500 thousand individuals in the Earth’s ecosystem. It was during the “aquatic phase” of human evolution in Eastern Africa, around 1–2 million years ago, that our ancestors underwent considerable physical alterations (loss of fur, more streamlined bodies with subcutaneous fat, the development of the cartilaginous portion of the nose, differentiation in the facial hair of men and women, breasts in women, voluntary breath control and language, and cerebral increase from 800 to 1500 c.c.) with increased manual dexterity resulting in the production of tools. These were important triggers which boosted the survival of Hominids, leading to significant population growth and diffusion throughout the various continents. However, it was the innovations related to the discovery of agriculture, 8–6 thousand years BC, with the domestication of animals and the establishment of stable settlements, which occurred almost simultaneously in 8 different areas of the Earth’s ecosystem, which truly boosted and sustained further population increases. Culture, as the adaptive product of the human mind to different environmental situations and the sum of all previous experience, spanning the last 2 million years, has facilitated the survival of increasing numbers of individuals. The human population has increased enormously over the past few centuries. From the time of Christ, when the population was around 250 million, it took 15 centuries (to the discovery of America) for it to double. A further 3 centuries sufficed (in 1835) for it to reach the first billion. Then, only another 100 years (1925) to reach 2 billion, leading to today’s figure of 7 billion, after less than 90 years. Nevertheless, this increase is not distributed equally throughout the Planet. In the last century, this growth has been twofold in Europe, fourfold in North America and Asia, sixfold in Oceania, sevenfold in Africa, and tenfold in Latin America. The impact of our species on the ecosystem was naturally sustainable until 8,000 BC, in other words, until the end of the Pleistocene, with less than 10 million individuals spread throughout the entire ecosystem.