Repeatedly, over hundreds of thousands of years, glaciers expanded south and north from the polar regions, covering much of the Earth with ice sheets several kilometres deep. Twelve thousand years ago, the Earth warmed and the ice retreated — the relatively warm and stable time since then is known to geologists as the Holocene epoch. It’s the time when agriculture was invented and all great human civilizations were formed. Holocene conditions, as Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Center likes to say, are the only ones in which we know for sure that humans can survive and prosper.
Is the Holocene now over? Has human activity changed the Earth System so much that a new epoch has begun? Are we now in the Anthropocene?
That idea, first proposed by Nobel prize winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, has been the subject of intense research and debate among Earth Scientists for 16 years. From a strictly physical science point of view, the most important discussions have been centered in the Anthropocene Working Group, created in 2008 by the International Commission on Stratigraphy to consider: (a) whether a new geological epoch has begun; and (b) if so, when it began. It plans to present its conclusions for a vote at the conference of the International Union of Geological Sciences in South Africa, this coming August. (I discussed the AWG and its work last year, in When did the Anthropocene begin, and why does it matter?)
This month, two-thirds of the members of the AWG published their strongest statement to date. The title of their paper, published in Science magazine on January 8, is unequivocal: “The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene.”
Interviewed by The Guardian, the lead author of the paper describes the global shift as “a stepchange from one world to another that justifies being called an epoch. What this paper does is to say the changes are as big as those that happened at the end of the last ice age. This is a big deal.”
The new paper summarizes recent research that identifies major ways in which Holocene conditions no longer exist.
- Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have exceeded Holocene levels since at least 1850, and from 1999 to 2010 they rose about 100 times faster than the increase that ended the last ice age. Methane concentrations have risen further and faster.
- For thousands of years, until 1800, global average temperatures were slowly falling, a result of small cyclical changes in the Earth’s orbit. Since then, increased greenhouse gases have caused the planet to warm abnormally rapidly, overriding the orbital climate cycle.
- Between 1906 and 2005, the average global temperature increased by up to 0.9°C, and over the past 50 years the rate of change doubled.
- Average global sea levels began rising above Holocene levels between 1905 and 1945. They are now at their highest in about 115,000 years, and the rate of increasing is accelerating.
- Species extinction rates are far above normal background rates. If current trends of habitat loss and overexploitation continue, 75 percent species could die out in the next few centuries. This would be the Earth’s sixth mass extinction event, equivalent to the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago.
A particularly frightening observation: even if emission levels are reduced, by 2070 Earth will be the hottest it has been in 125,000 years, which means “hotter than it has been for most, if not all, of the time since modern humans emerged as a species 200,000 years ago.”
Much of the paper focuses on a key issue for geologists: is human activity leaving a stratigraphic signature in sediments and ice that is distinct from the Holocene? It turns out, contrary to the doubts some expressed at the beginning of this process, that future geologists will have a wealth of indicators to identify the beginning of the Anthropocene.
“Recent anthropogenic deposits contain new minerals and rock types, reflecting rapid global dissemination of novel materials including elemental aluminum, concrete, and plastics that form abundant, rapidly evolving ‘technofossils.’ Fossil fuel combustion has disseminated black carbon, inorganic ash spheres, and spherical carbonaceous particles worldwide, with a near-synchronous global increase around 1950.”
Anthropocene ice and sediments are also marked by unique concentrations of chemicals, such as lead from gasoline, nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers, and carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Of all the possible markers, however, “potentially the most widespread and globally synchronous anthropogenic signal is the fallout from nuclear weapons testing. . . . Aggregate yields from thermonuclear weapon tests that began in 1952 CE and peaked in 1961−1962 CE left a clear and global signature.”
These stratigraphic signatures are either entirely new or outside of the Holocene range of variability—and the changes are accelerating. The paper argues that the International Commission on Stratigraphy should accept the Anthropocene as a new epoch.
On the question of when the Anthropocene began, the authors’ analysis is “more consistent with a beginning in the mid-20th century” than with earlier proposed dates. They do not make a specific mid-century recommendation, beyond noting that a number of options have been suggested, ranging from 1945 to 1964.
Finally, they leave open the question of “whether it is helpful to formalize the Anthropocene or better to leave it as an informal, albeit solidly founded, geological time term, as the Precambrian and Tertiary currently are.”
“This is a complex question, in part because, quite unlike other subdivisions of geological time, the implications of formalizing the Anthropocene reach well beyond the geological community. Not only would this represent the first instance of a new epoch having been witnessed firsthand by advanced human societies, it would be one stemming from the consequences of their own doing.”
There is still a strong possibility that the generally conservative geological community will reject or decide to defer any decision on adding the Anthropocene to the geological time scale, but as the AWG majority wrote a year ago, “the Anthropocene already has a robust geological basis, is in widespread use, and indeed is becoming a central, integrating concept in the consideration of global change.”
In other words, a failure to win a formal vote will not make the Anthropocene go away.
sidzepp on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 7:49 pm
I have been tracking headlines on major new networks since the first of the year. I gave up Monday when three of the top headlines involved celebrities. It is not that people are climate deniers, they are simply climate ignorers. To compound the matter, my daughter is interviewing tomorrow with a lobbyist group that specializes in climate denial. I guess it is time to sit back and enjoy the show.
makati1 on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 8:00 pm
The planet doesn’t care what humans call time brackets. It just moves on in whatever direction the laws of physics and biology dictate.
“… future geologists will have a wealth of indicators to identify the beginning of the Anthropocene.”
What “future geologists”? There will be no geologists or any other cheap, energy supported fields/careers in the future. For those who might make it through the coming extinction bottleneck, survival will be the number one priority, not some esoteric interest in rocks and junk unless it can be used to keep them alive.
The Western world cannot seem to see through their BAU blinders and rose colored glasses. The future will be more like the ancient past than anything we have today. What good is a knowledge of medicine if none of the supporting materials exist? Or of engineering? Or electronics? Or even … gasp! … petroleum. LOL
Apneaman on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 8:06 pm
What “future geologists”?
Lol
I read that type of shit every day. Future historians. Future economists. Future scientists. Present retards.
makati1 on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 8:22 pm
sidzepp, I agree. Time to just watch the unraveling of all we take for granted in the 1st world. Ignorance and denial is rampant and decadence, greed and sloth is killing off the population faster and faster. Ancient Rome 2000.
When the person that reads the lines is more important then the writer and director of a movie, we need to rethink our priorities. When they are more important than their god, we are seeing the end of a great country.
Would the same people who stand in line for hours, sometimes in the rain, and pay high prices to watch their fave actor in the latest flick, also stand in line to enter their house of worship on an average Sunday/Saturday and pay for the privilege of doing so? I doubt it. Certainly not in the millions.
When the world knows who Harrison Ford is but not who Niels Bohr or Ernest Rutherford or James Clark Maxwell are, we shame the title of ‘intelligent ape’.
There are so very many examples of how the Empire is crumbling that it is impossible to not see them everyday, everywhere. Yet some seem to be blind.
IF there is a god, she must be laughing her ass of at the joke she played on homo sapiens. I would laugh also, if it wasn’t so sad.
Apneaman on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 9:08 pm
The great dying continues unabated and mostly unacknowledged.
RAW: Dozens of beached whales die as hundreds wash up in India
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ONaFJVwbmg
Not baffling
Mysterious mass deaths of Alaskan birds baffles scientists
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/01/12/mysterious-mass-deaths-of-alaskan-birds-baffles-scientists/
Researchers Detect Devastating Virus in Farmed Salmon
http://news.yahoo.com/researchers-detect-devastating-virus-farmed-salmon-190251883.html
Nony on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 10:16 pm
TL;DR.
I prefer this approach to healing the planet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA
Apneaman on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 10:20 pm
The only healing will happen long after were gone. Which should easily be before the next century. Did you go wading in the foamy surf?
pennsyguy on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 10:24 pm
“When the world knows who Harrison Ford is—-.” Again you speak the truth with wisdom Makati! The sad thing is that it doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t take great wealth or genius to know the works of the finest of our species, or to enjoy the beauty created by Mozart or Beethoven, or to revere life. Maybe the next “intelligent” species will get it right.
Apneaman on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 10:28 pm
The Ominous Greenhouse Gas Accumulation Continues: Peak Methane Approaches 3,000 Parts Per Billion as CO2 Growth Rate Jumps Higher
“Another Troubling Methane Spike
On January 8th of 2016, we saw another record methane reading for the global atmosphere. The most recent single point peak for NOAA’s METOP measure hit a new all-time atmospheric high of 2,963 parts per billion or just 37 parts per billion shy of the milestone 3,000 parts per billion threshold.”
http://robertscribbler.com/2016/01/12/the-ominous-greenhouse-gas-accumulation-continues-peak-methane-approaches-3000-parts-per-billion-as-co2-growth-rate-jumps-higher/
ennui2 on Tue, 12th Jan 2016 10:51 pm
“When the world knows who Harrison Ford is—-.”
At least Harrison Ford tried to use that name-recognition to raise awareness.
http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/correspondent/harrison-ford/
makati1 on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 1:12 am
Yes, he is an exception to the ‘air head’ rule, but he started out as a carpenter and only by luck, so it is said, became and actor. He has always had my respect for that reason.
Apneaman on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 1:39 am
Way to go Harrison. Where would we be without your kind?
“Let’s just check how Harrison is doing in terms of responsible stewardship, by reading his own words in an interview.
1. There’s nothing better than seeing a herd of elk right outside the window of my house in Wyoming. My land gives me an opportunity to be close to nature, and I find spiritual solace in nature, contemplating our species in the context of the natural world.
2. All of my planes are great to fly, and that’s why I’ve got so many of them. I have a Citation Sovereign, a long-range jet; a Grand Caravan, a turboprop aircraft capable of operating on unimproved strips; and a De Havilland, a bush plane. I have a 1929 Waco Taperwing open-top biplane; a 1942 PT-22 open-top monoplane trainer; an Aviat Husky, a two-seat fabric-covered bush plane; and a Bell 407 helicopter. I also have more than my fair share of motorbikes – eight or nine. I have four or five BMWs, a couple of Harleys, a couple of Hondas and a Triumph; plus I have sports touring bikes.”
http://witsendnj.blogspot.ca/2015/12/extinction-goes-glam.html
Harrison Ford Reveals He Had Amnesia After Near Fatal Plane Crash
http://www.etonline.com/news/175074_harrison_ford_recalls_near_fatal_plane_crash_while_dressed_as_a_hot_dog/
That’s right. Harrison had amnesia, so he must have forgotten he has the eco/carbon foot print of 1000 middle class families before he went on camera and preached at everyone else to cut theirs.
Should have called it the year of living hypocritically. Hollywood fucks. Why would anyone listen to an actor in the first place? They pretend to be other people for a living ffs, so that makes them experts on what? Pretending, as in pretending to give a fuck. Fucking culls. Go fly a lap around the world Han Solo Harrison…… before it ends.
theedrich on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 3:59 am
“Lest we forget, planet Earth is overpopulated. As I write, it has 7.3 billion people. Even if national birthrates continue to decline across much of the world, United Nations estimates suggest we’re still on track for world population to peak later in this century somewhere between 11 and 17 billion people.
“Here’s another statistic: most population specialists think that the largest number of humans our planet can support sustainably is around two billion, maybe three tops. And that’s if most humans live like Europeans, with far smaller consumption and emission footprints than Americans take for granted. To get there from here, we’d need to reduce human numbers roughly threefold. To get there from where we’ll be when population crests, we’ll need more like a four- to sixfold reduction.”
— From Tom Flynn, “China’s One-Child Policy: A Requiem”, in: Free Inquiry, Feb/Mar 2016, p. 5.
The functionaries of Their Majesties’ Ministry of Propaganda, and other White genosuicidists in the world, while claiming to want problem-solving, love-spreading, Commie or pro-growth unicorns, really want the death of the White race. They cannot tolerate envisioning anything other than a mongrelized mass of narcoticized sludge growing Victory Gardens in back yards and enjoying bread and circuses under a Big Brother (likewise mongrelized) of Socialist persuasion. They really do not concern themselves with the distasteful details of the “reduction” mentioned by Flynn in the above quote. For that might upset some of the little snowflakes among them.
Now we have the persisting fallout from nuclear testing. But nothing seems to move the minds of our masters and mistresses. Angela Merkel insists on importing hordes of primitives from Allahland and elsewhere, to make up for the declining German population and (she thinks) to keep BAU whizzing forward. Ditto with the paranthropoid in the Oval Orifice, plus hellish Hillary and most of the Repub candidates (excepting Trump, who is attacked by the Great Ones for not wanting the instant death of the U.S. via a flood from the Tercero Mundo). All we are submerged with is tear-jerking (now even displayed by our royal dung beetle in D.C.). Yes, we need more parasites to help intensify the Anthropocene.
Maybe, from Gaia’s perspective, ISIL is the needed curative. Since Whitey has decided to commit genosuicide, nothing else matters. It is time for τὸ ἔσχατον.
Davy on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 7:38 am
“largest number of humans our planet can support sustainably is around two billion, maybe three tops.” I dispute this number as sustainable. It could be a sustainable number in a longer term descent. In other words maybe in the next two to three decades of a collapsing status quo we can manage a salvaged status quo allowing a two or three billion declining population of a “long emergency”. Maybe the forced use of the traditional efforts of pre-industrial man that revolved around a direct use of renewables from land and animals will be enough along with a salvaged oil culture to allow a slow drop. Maybe we could follow a descent down from 3 to 2 Billion in a step down. One billion of less is a more realistic number.
Two to three billion still seems like a reach when one acknowledges the reality of systematic structures and how they break into much lower levels of complexity and activity. Nature is full of examples of die offs and bottlenecks we are just too human to acknowledge these realities. The outcome too horrible to contemplate so we discount them and diminish them as nutter. The likely number within a generation of 50 years is 1 billion or less. Here is a good site for details if interested: http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html
“Europeans, with far smaller consumption and emission footprints than Americans take for granted”. Europeans are not into less consumption and emissions because they are wonderful people. They do this because they have to because of the limits of such a large population in a small space and limits of resources. I know because I have lived there. My wife is 1st gen Italian. My daughter is Spanish living in Madrid. Bring Europeans over to North America and they are just as wasteful. The same is true of any other immigrants to step foot in North America. North American’s days are numbered in any case. Limits are going to make a profound appearance very soon leaving the car and consumer culture in tatters. Just look to Asia to what happens with large populations and increasing consumption. Asia is the pinnacle of the cancer of population and consumption growth.
Simon on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 8:15 am
Even though we have only one car and that is a small diesel, I still lust after my 79 Caddy, let alone the 73 Camaro
On the other hand I did used to cycle to work in Florida
JuanP on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 8:22 am
Theedouche, Your racist rants are a reflection of a truly sick mind. If you are representative of the white race you so much love, the world will be much better off without you and your race. Let’s hope you all complete your genetic extinction soon. I’d love to live in a world without delirious racist trash like you.
I see they must have free Wifi in trailer parks these days!
Davy on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 8:41 am
“Epocalypse” is a great word. I shows a process and an event. We are at a turning point (event) but the outcome “process” will unfold over time and over a global world of locals.
“2016 Economic Predictions: Year of the Epocalypse”
http://thegreatrecession.info/blog/2016-economic-predictions/
“An economic apocalypse upon us. My 2016 economic predictions provide the full explanation as to why 2016 will be the year of the Epocalypse — a word that encompasses the roots “economic, epoch, collapse” and “apocalypse.” I needed a word big enough to describe all that is about to befall the world in 2016. When you see the towering forces that are prevailing against failing global economic architecture and the pit of debt beneath that structure, as laid out here, I think you’ll recognize that the Epocalypse is here, and it is everywhere. The Great Collapse has already begun.”
Davy on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 8:57 am
A great look inside Putin’s Russia. I might add I feel Putin’s Russia is a better structure for a collapsing global economy than a representative democracy. Russia has strength from a leader with power. The downside is Putin is a man and men die and diminish. What will Russia be after Putin is a wide open debate?
“A Fallen Russia Oligarch Sends Warning to Rest of Putin Insiders”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/a-fallen-russia-oligarch-sends-warning-to-rest-of-putin-insiders
“Now Yakunin, 67, has some parting advice for the remaining members of what he dismissed as Putin’s “so-called inner circle”: know your place.”
“The comments are a rare public admission from a longtime insider of the fragility of wealth and influence in the opaque and seemingly ironclad system of control Putin has built over 15 years. With that system under unprecedented pressure from plunging oil prices and international sanctions, any step Putin takes to maintain his grip on power reverberates far beyond Moscow.”
“Still, nobody’s position but Putin’s will be secure until a governing elite like the one that existed before the Bolsheviks swept to power a century ago is fully formed, a process that may take decades, according to Yakunin.”
“Trying to measure influence by proximity to political resources is a relic of the Soviet system,” he said.”
Davy on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 12:47 pm
I didn’t know one was on the way. Sarc. How about that hubris!
“The Good News on Global Warming: We’ve Delayed the Next Ice Age”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-13/the-good-news-on-global-warming-we-ve-delayed-the-next-ice-age
“The conditions necessary for the onset of a new ice age were narrowly missed at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research near Berlin wrote Wednesday in the journal Nature. Since then, rising emissions of heat-trapping CO2 from burning oil, coal and gas have made the spread of the world’s ice sheets even less likely, they said.”
“This study further confirms what we’ve suspected for some time, that the carbon dioxide humans have added to the atmosphere will alter the climate of the planet for tens to hundreds of thousands of years, and has canceled the next ice age,” said Andrew Watson, a professor of Earth sciences at the University of Exeter in southwest England who wasn’t involved in the research. “Humans now effectively control the climate of the planet.”
Dredd on Wed, 13th Jan 2016 4:16 pm
No civilization has survived au natural.
Death is in their blood oil (The Way of Civilizations).