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AbstractThe notion that social facts can be caused only by other social facts is obsolete. Human societies today are affected by biogeochemical change. "Developed" human societies so overuse the finite planet they share with "underdeveloped" societies that the future of all is threatened.Medicine's prosthesis concept becomes useful for sociology when extended beyond referring to devices for replacing lost body parts or restoring impaired sensory powers. If we regard all modern tools and machines as prosthetic devices, we see them enabling humans to act as giants—giving us colossal resource appetites and huge environmental impacts.Prosthetic apparatus (and familiar assumptions) previously useful are subject to obsolescence. But there is cultural lag. Conceptual habits restrict the way we see our world. The bubble of twentieth century experience obstructs our understanding of the future into which we giants are plummeting. To explain severe hardships ahead in the twenty‐first century, sociologists need to break out of our discipline's traditional conceptual bubble. Twentieth century expectations have become misleading. The basis of past progress (a carrying capacity surplus) is gone, replaced by a carrying capacity deficit. Earth's diminished carrying capacity will sustain fewer (dinosaur‐equivalent) Homo colossus than original Homo sapiens.

Issues associated with the phrase "sustainable development" are clarified by careful analysis of the meaning of carrying capacity. In their impressions of carrying capacity's effects, two explanations for the death of a memorable culture (Easter Island) differed fundamentally. One explanation was captive to a premature notion of a carrying capacity ceiling no population growth could ever penetrate. For the other, population was seen as having grown until it did exceed the maximum sustainable load, thus having inflicted environmental damage that reduced carrying capacity. The former view had to imagine a geological catastrophe to account for the culture's death. In the latter view, it was a case of excessive success proving fatal. A proponent of the latter view regarded Easter Island as a "preview in microcosm" of what may be happening globally. As such, the Easter Island experience would have important implications for industrial societies. Comparison of the two autopsies has implications for the social sciences.

The increasing importance of the field of "bio-ecology" to the practices & theorizing of all other social scientists is approachable by encouraging an understanding of the inevitability of forthcoming shortages to prepare for sociocultural effects. A short history of examples of mass death in plant & human life is presented to demonstrate that humanity is not unaffectable, & the present disregard for the large & growing needs for photosynthetic processes, both from urbanization & from a growing farming technology, is a potential danger. Some approaches for social scientists to take in aiding the human approach to a disaster are suggested: fostering the need for moral & self-restraint, placing more value on environmental processes & less value on material standing, & using energy other than "fossil fuels." A procedure for bypassing panic & accusations is best carried out by preventative measures that foster current concern. Modified HA.