Originally published on September 5, 2016
This week, scientists have officially declared we have moved
into a new epoch in the overall history of our planet, known as “Anthropocene”,
or the age of humans. A geological epoch is defined by a globally occurring “signal”
that is found in materials in the Earth, like the pieces of the meteorite that
killed the dinosaurs. Anthropocene’s signal is not specifically clear, but
there are several possibilities, including radioactive materials, excess carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere, plastic pollution, and even the spread of the
domestic chicken. What is clear, though, is there has been enough of an impact
to warrant a change of epoch.
Scientists at the WGA (Working Group on the Anthropocene) has
been around for a few years, but only last week voted to declare the Anthropocene
is a real thing. They will be spending the next few years determining what
exactly the “signal” is and when the new epoch started and the 12,000 year
Holocene epoch ended. Most agree it started in the 1950s, with the rise of nuclear
weapons. The rise of these technologies and the resulting pollution of the
atmosphere really has only occurred since then.
How do I feel about this?
It is sad, yet interesting at the same time. The fact that
in such as short amount of time (compared to the overall age of the Earth)
humans have managed to make enough of an impact on the rocks underneath us and
the air above us to give the Earth a new age is sad if you look at it one way. We
have destroyed, somewhat irreversibly, our natural world with our unnatural technologies.
Thousands of years in the future, even if humanity has died out or moved to a
different planet, whatever animals are left or aliens discover our world will
find evidence of our existence. Not just in fossils or artifacts, but in the
very foundation of the world. That’s so cool, but in a morbid way.
Perhaps this is the natural order of things. Who’s to say if
there was no meteorite that wiped out the dinosaurs they would have overrun the
Earth and ended up creating similar technologies and the Earth would be in the
same situation (probably not since they all had tiny brains and tiny arms but
it’s fun to picture). No animal should have overrun the Earth like humans did,
but we did, and now we have to deal with the consequences.
The only way we can look is forward. We have been informed
of our situation. It is real. The question is how we, as a collective race, are
going to move forward. We can continue to harm our world and drive ourselves
into an uninhabitable planet, or we can start changing our ways now and maybe
in a few generations the Earth will be a little better. Anthropocene is here to
stay; there’s no changing what we’ve already done. So what will we do?
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