I will use my time to try to bring forward and link together some of the diverse contributions to this symposium. I will give my own take on what we might mean by “human ecology”. I will emphasize that disciplines such as economics, sociology, and demography, previously considered the preserve of social science, necessarily include ecology – interactions between humans and their abiotic and biotic environments – and should necessarily incorporate the expertise of ecologists. Then I will highlight how macroecological and metabolic approaches can offer novel and valuable perspectives on the past, present, and future of our own species.