The Anthropocene

Last week the International Geology Commission voted 12-4 that we should not name the present geological age the “Anthropocene Era.”  That name has been proposed for the human disturbance in the earth’s geology.  Humans have been messing with the planet to the point that we have changed the geology.

Some people have tried to put an actual year on the label change.  One suggestion is 1952 when plutonium residue fell from tests of the H-Bomb.  The present era, currently labeled the Holocene, began about 11,000 years ago, a very short period in geological history.  Most of the geologists felt that name should continue.

I am all in favor of labeling the present age the Anthropocene.  When you can see changes in the surface of the earth from space, when you can see the Amazon rain forests or the Canadian pine forests burning, when you can see the Aral Sea drying up, or the Antarctic ice cap melting, or plastic floating on the ocean in state-sized mats, we have changed the planet, we continue to change the planet, and none of it is improving.  I cannot think of a single species in all of geological time that wreaked planetary destruction as much as the one that is supposed to be the pinnacle of the evolutionary process.