Paul J. Crutzen describes the human world
Smog obscures Chinese coast.
For the past three centuries, the effects of humans on the global environment have escalated. Because of these anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, global climate may depart significantly from natural behavior for millennia to come. It seems appropriate to assign the term “Anthropocene” to the present, in many ways human–dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the Holocene, the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia. The Anthropocene could be said to have started in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when analyses of air trapped in polar ice showed the beginning of growing global concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane . . . Unless there is a global catastrophe – a meteorite impact, a world war or a pandemic – mankind will remain a major environmental force for many millennia.
Paul J. Crutzen is a 1995 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. The excerpt presented here is from his seminal article titled Geology of Mankind, which originally appeared in the journal Nature in January of 2002. It is used here with permission from the author.
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