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The Anthropocene: Can Humans Survive A Human Age?
by Adam Frank -Astrophysicist at University of Rochester
NPR News
http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/06/21/137317694/the-anthropocene-can-humans-survive-a-human-age?sc=fb&cc=fp


Will we eventually go the way of the dinosaurs?

About 12,000 years ago (give or take a thousand) the glaciers covering much of the northern hemisphere disappeared and an ice age gripping the Earth ended. The planet became warmer, wetter and entered the geological era scientists call the Holocene. Marked by a stable climate, the Holocene has been good to humans. The entire history of our civilization (agriculture, city building, writing etc.) is bound within the Holocene and its bounty of productive land and oceans.

Now, it appears, the Holocene is over.

Recently The Economist reported on a radical idea that has been floating around in the geological community for last few years: we are entering a new era in the history of the planet dominated by human "forcing." As the article aptly puts it: "Welcome to the Anthropocene."

I've been introducing the Anthropocene concept for the last few years in my "Astrophysics of Planets" course. It such a deep perspective-shift that it always soaks up an entire class-hour's worth of discussion.

The first point to absorb is that there are no politics in the designation. It is neither a value judgment nor a critique. Instead, it is simply a recognition that human activity has now come to be the most significant "forcing" driving the various interlocking systems that define the current "state" of the planet.

Scientists digging through sediments millions of years from now should easily be able to identify the transition from the Holocene to the Anthropocene. From the fossilized remains of our cities to changes in the carbonate content in sea-floor sedimentation, the Anthropocene may appear as clearly to future scientists as the Cretaceous appears to us.


And before we begin the usual tired argument about climate change, it's important to understand that climate is just one part of this transition. Along with unintentional changes in the carbon-cycle, humans have also intentionally altered the nitrogen-cycle as well. With the invention of the Haber process we figured out how to extract more nitrogen from the atmosphere and use it to create fertilizer to grow more plants. The dead zones increasingly common in costal regions where algae blooms feed off fertilizer-rich run-off are one result of an epic alteration of the planet's nitrogen cycle. The presence of so many of us eating all that fertilized food is another.

To see how recognition of the Anthropocene is relatively free of politics, consider the responses various communities have had to the concept. For some the advent of the Anthropocene is recognition of our greed and ignorance. With the birth of industrialization we failed to recognize the forces we were unbalancing and now a planet "tipped" into another, perhaps harsher, regime relative to human habitation is the fate awaiting us. For others our entry into the Anthropocene is the ultimate acknowledgement of our privileged status in the hierarchy life. It was exactly through the intelligence that forged industry that this planet was shaped in our image. In response, it will be through intelligence that we will engineer our way through the Anthropocene to a planet that can handle our ever-growing numbers.

Thus one response sees the Anthropocene as the advent of an eco-apocalypse. It is a disaster that can only be averted through a draw down of the technologies that brought us here and the development of smaller scale human footprints on the planet.

The other response sees global-scale technological responses as the only effective solution. "Geo-engineering" projects — such as altering the chemistry of the oceans to increase carbon uptake — represent one proposed mechanism to a human friendly Anthropocene (with genetic engineering perhaps designing new forms of carbon eating algae).

Regardless of your philosophy, the recognition that we have entered a geologic age of humanity raises the obvious question of just how long such an age will last.

In the infamous KT boundary geologists can see evidence for a rather short-lived event that also reshaped the planet. Sixty five million years ago an asteroid struck the Earth, driving one of only five mass extinctions in the planet's history. The loss of the dinosaurs turned out to be an opportunity for our mammal ancestors and led directly to our own age.

Since the Anthropocene appears to mark a sixth great extinction, one has to wonder what it will take for us to make it out of own era with civilization intact.

I think the fact an argument for the change in terminology was published in the Economist instead of in Nature, Science, Geology, or Journal of Geology says a lot about how widely this idea is accepted.  That aside, the premise is strong.  Looking at late Holocene (ie modern) systems, we can see huge fluctuations in natural processes like sedimentation/erosion, carbonate composition (O18/O16 and Ca/Mg ratios), fluvial behavior (dams and levees do horrors to hydrological systems), and mass extinctions.

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Pretty good article. I like the name....Anthropocene....it is fitting.

I would say that I fit into the second camp. Do not go backwards. Keep pushing forwards and use technology and innovation to solve the problems that crop up.

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Originally Posted by Mark Simmons:

I would say that I fit into the second camp. Do not go backwards. Keep pushing forwards and use technology and innovation to solve the problems that crop up.

I agree.

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Originally Posted by Mark Simmons:
Pretty good article. I like the name....Anthropocene....it is fitting.

I would say that I fit into the second camp. Do not go backwards. Keep pushing forwards and use technology and innovation to solve the problems that crop up.

Am surprised no-one has said "Drill baby Drill" yet...... :-P

I'd fall somewhere between the two camps: we definitely have made a negative impact to the planet and we can go forwards and make things better, BUT ONLY IF we realize it and act on it, changing our behaviour if necessary and financing the type of scientific research that will come up with sustainable ways to maintain the human population.

At the moment we're not doing that, and I'm not overly hopeful because:

* Science doesn't know everything, nor can it know everything
* Science/technology can't fix everything
* What may look like a good plan in the short term may not be so good in the long term - and may in fact be disastrous (an example being putting lead in petrol to stop the engines knocking, or using CFCs in fridges/aerosol cans)
* A lot of natural processes are too complex and too intertwined/interdependent to go tinkering with them without being 100% sure of the full and long-term ramifications.
* People "cherry-pick" science to fit their own preconceptions/prejudices/political views and ignore anything that isn't convenient to them
* Science/technology doesn't get funding unless it's "sexy" or topical. Most of the science that will help make the planet sustainable isn't "sexy" or popular enough to be in the public eye and so doesn't get enough money to be developed to the point where it's technically AND economically viable.  (it has to be both, super-tech that costs trillions will get nowhere).
* Without new science/technology, the current way we use the planet's resources is unsustainable in anything but the short term ("resources" include plant and animal life, water and air as well as oil and gas)
* Big businesses,  corporations, governments etc will not make radical changes to the way things are done unless they are forced to by public opinion  
* People are incapable of thinking in the long term - especially politicians who only think as far as the next election cycle.
* People will never worry about a threat if the threat is big enough, until the threat is actually happening  ("cognitive dissonance" )
* Most people will not radically change their behaviour/lifestyle or do anything that will cost them money because of some long-term fuzzy goal of "saving the planet".  

(took a few of them points from that "prophets of doom" vid that Dod posted the other day actually, thanks Dod ;-P)

So, I think we COULD do it if we wanted to, but not enough people want to enough to make any meaningful changes. The optimist in me knows we can and hopes we will, the pessimist/realist in me thinks it'll take a pretty disastrous event to jar enough people out of their comfort zone for it to start.  

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Originally Posted by Mark Simmons:
Pretty good article. I like the name....Anthropocene....it is fitting.

I would say that I fit into the second camp. Do not go backwards. Keep pushing forwards and use technology and innovation to solve the problems that crop up.

we can't go back. not if we are to remain a "civilization." if there is a successful transition phase for civilizations from our current state, to some futuristic, techno-sustainable, possibly interstellar civilization, then our accent will continue. if there is not, then at some point it will break down, and we will either die out, or be knocked back technologically.