The Human Epoch<\/strong><\/p>\n What is the Anthropocene?\u00a0 As of May 2019, an interdisciplinary international committee recommended it be the official designation of the current geological epoch, a standard term for describing planetary history, like the Pleistocene Epoch that came before the current period. Final approvals and the details and formalizing of the definition are still being worked out, Thorson says.<\/p>\n The term is not new, having been coined about 20 years ago. \u201cAnthropocene\u201d comes from the prefix “anthro,” meaning human. Though climate has changed repeatedly across geological time, this new epoch is the first one in the earth’s history in which the earth’s climate has changed because human actions.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a new epoch, a new normal relative to the geological past,” Thorson says. “Physically we are in the same world; chronologically we are not, certainly not since 1950.\u201d<\/p>\n 1950 was the start of what is often called the Great Acceleration, when changes in industrial development that have had huge impacts on the global systems started, says Thorson. 1950 is also likely to be the starting point for the Anthropocene Epoch. It was in this decade when phenomena like over-production and over-consumption of goods, and overuse of resources, especially fossil fuels, began rapidly raising the global temperature. As a result, Thorson says, we as a species have become the dominant geophysical force on the planet.<\/p>\n \u201cThe word \u2018fossil\u2019 is from the Latin root meaning \u2018dug up,'” he says. “Fossil fuels are a carbon store and we are simply transferring carbon faster into the atmosphere than from it, and the Earth system is responding quickly and dramatically in various ways.\u201d<\/p>\n In transferring this stored carbon from the ground, the atmosphere is becoming increasingly carbonized, which increases temperature around the world, leading to unpredictable effects on everything from storm systems to agriculture. Carbonizing the atmosphere is also contributing to ocean acidification, a process that is changing the geochemistry and ecology of the world\u2019s oceans. These changes are happening more rapidly than at any point since human beings first evolved, which is why advocates favor the designation of the current period as the Anthropocene: the world is being remade by human activity.<\/p>\n
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