A panel of scientists rejected the term “Anthropocene” to describe a period in which humans have profoundly impacted the environment — but others keep using it.
I think it is darkly hilarious and ultimately wonderful symbolism that geologists rejected the Anthropocene label only for everybody else to laugh at them and keep using it anyways.
At this stage in the game acting like there isn’t enough proof that we are in the Anthropocene is something you only believe if you hope to one day get a cushy job at an energy or oil company :)
We’re not in the Anthropocene because the next epoch hasn’t taken shape yet. What humanity has done is create a transition from the holocene to whatever epoch will come next, the nature of which is unknown though we can predict some aspects. The idea that this right now is the new geological epoch is absurd hubristic misunderstanding of what a geological epoch is.
It’s not an epoch any more than the crash that totaled your car is your new car.
I mean, I guess? But regardless of what comes next, we know that humanity is having a global impact on geology, so calling it the anthropocene seems reasonable. Even if we reverse anthropogenic climate change and use science and technology to live in a climate utopia, that’s still man-changed. Or if we cause our own extinction, then we were the cause of the next geological epoch. Regardless, “anthro” works.
I think it is darkly hilarious and ultimately wonderful symbolism that geologists rejected the Anthropocene label only for everybody else to laugh at them and keep using it anyways.
At this stage in the game acting like there isn’t enough proof that we are in the Anthropocene is something you only believe if you hope to one day get a cushy job at an energy or oil company :)
We’re not in the Anthropocene because the next epoch hasn’t taken shape yet. What humanity has done is create a transition from the holocene to whatever epoch will come next, the nature of which is unknown though we can predict some aspects. The idea that this right now is the new geological epoch is absurd hubristic misunderstanding of what a geological epoch is.
It’s not an epoch any more than the crash that totaled your car is your new car.
I mean, I guess? But regardless of what comes next, we know that humanity is having a global impact on geology, so calling it the anthropocene seems reasonable. Even if we reverse anthropogenic climate change and use science and technology to live in a climate utopia, that’s still man-changed. Or if we cause our own extinction, then we were the cause of the next geological epoch. Regardless, “anthro” works.