Man’s impact on earth so big scientists mark the first new epoch in 11,500 years: ...

[NorthStar]

... the Anthropocene

• http://news.nationalpost.com/news/w...rst-new-epoch-in-11500-years-the-anthropocene

 

[GaryProtein]

That's a little frightening.

 

[NorthStar]

There is no turning back Gary, unless Man stops evolving the way he does. :b

It's normal, with all the industrial world today and all the plastic around. We now have to enter this new epoch with pride and dignity. By making sure we have a balanced control over the planet's ATMOSPHERE and climate. It has to be clean, breathable, more oxygen, more healthy for our human race in order to survive few more billion years...our children children.

Anthropocene; most people aren't aware, I wasn't till I read the news. And with our planet's temperature change, even our music listening is slightly affected. Our rooms and speakers and amplifiers and cables are susceptible to changes in temperature's variation. I bet we can measure it if scientifically analysed for the last two hundred years or so. :b

Anyway, I thought it was news that we can all use. I'm not frighten too much myself, but I am more frighten for the replacements...people coming after us.
I don't think we can reverse the Anthropocene ? http://anthropocene.info/
________

* And instead of starting a new thread, this: http://www.universetoday.com/130538/6-million-years-ago-milky-ways-supermassive-black-hole-raged/

 

[es347]

..three cheers for OWG...hip hip...hurrah

 

[NorthStar]

Olympic Winter Games?

 

[BlueFox]

There is no turning back Gary, unless Man stops evolving the way he does.

Evolution for humans stopped once medicine was able to start saving the life of people that should have died naturally from whatever. Now genetic engineering will take evolution's place.

 

[Keith_W]

Evolution for humans stopped once medicine was able to start saving the life of people that should have died naturally from whatever. Now genetic engineering will take evolution's place.

Technically speaking, evolution for humans has not stopped. Evolution is defined as "the change in the frequency of an allele in a gene pool", and up till now, the natural driver for evolution was natural selection. And ... natural selection for humans has not stopped either. What HAS changed are the selection pressures driving natural selection - as you say, modern medicine and so on. But yes, I know what you are saying

 

[the sound of Tao]

Thanks Bob for pointing to this.

While apparently the next/new geological epoch is still to be formally adopted it is seeming more likely that the recommendations of the Anthropocene Working Group at the 35th International Geological Conference is a very significant step towards the formal realisation that we are now in a new geological epoch. Anthropocene...truly the age of man has come when the Earth itself bears itself as witness that we finally leave our mark on the planet in the dominant and permanent geological record and that humanity has allowed itself to have outgrown the capacity of our only home, our planet without any sufficient plan effectively in place to either save the planet or a realistic plan to get off the planet. I am not sure that pride and dignity should be the main takeaway from the implications that we may well have completely accelerated past the capacity for ourselves to survive our own behaviour and possibly more importantly for our planet and it's ecology to survive us.

It's interesting that the big growth sector in the population... us older fellas, have worked towards creating a system that has made for an expensive and evergrowing ageing population that is largely in terms of the future seemingly disfunctional, redundant and apparently increasingly unsustainable. We have little to give to the future if we can't help fix this in some ways ourselves... especially if all we do is respond by consuming more things. What can we do? Perhaps we should consider getting more actively involved in finding solutions and not just sitting on our backsides waiting for the next generations to fix what we have all (in part) done to them. At some level we could all be guilty in this. We are all still using resources unsustainably. It is not possible to live in a developed nation at this time and not use much much more biocapacity than the planet can possibly provide.

In earlier cultures the older generation just didn't live as long and largely had greater opportunity to remain valued and working as a useful part of the community as both mentors and caretakers for the newer generations... now it seems that we spend much of our time debating on how best to bi-amp apogees and similarly important things. Surely it might be time for all this creative ingenuity to be put to more substantial and directed purposes. Can we really afford to have such a potentially useful resource as experience rich and diverse older generations just going to fallow and keeping ourselves occupied by the quality of debate that we witness every day on forums and social media. We need to make ourselves more useful to the future... not less. So perhaps the question could be is it too late to change the tide.... a geological epoch is the ultimate evidence of a nexus point where tipping points and intersections of great change create dramatic new futures. That if 1950 is where the marker points to acceleration beyond the sustainable that also 2050 is a target point for a carbon neutral world. Whatever we do between now and the end of our generation is actually an opportunity. These points in time are vital because the choices we make at any nexus point are even more critical in setting the future course for humanity.

PS I am not suggesting putting us all out into soylent green though also note that the vision of science fiction interestingly once again showed itself to be so far ahead of us. The older generations (us) definitely need to find a way to contribute more to the planet than just more greenhouse gasses. YMMV.

 

[NorthStar]

This is powerful reality; I think we better plant more trees, more forests, and start building new industries that renew the air, huge purifier systems.
We need to abandon oil, build water aqueducts, use undercurrent wave energy, concentrated ultra violet ray energy, build underground cities, above ocean cities, fly higher, flying cars too, and all sort of futuristic expansion. Our planet is melting; we have to cool it off. The natural refrigeration system can't keep up. We have to start digging deeper down to the earth's cooler crusts, and build giant umbrellas to keep atmospheric pollution from falling like debris on our cities and forests. With the warming of our planet more volcano eruptions, and with it tsunamis and earth splitting like hamburgers steak.

Anyway, we all have the imagination of tomorrow that comes with today. No wonder man is looking for other habitable planets of the universe.
We became very powerful as the human race...over 7.35 billion of us. A thousand years from now, if we don't control our populations, guess how many more will be here?
Humans are used to heat big buildings in some countries. ...Natural human body heat. This will eventually reverse itself, buildings will need cooling assistance. We'll use frozen rocks deep into the crevasses of Alaska and Siberia.

This is getting serious; this first epoch of the last 11,500 years...the Anthropocene...human roots influencing the entire planet's temperature; atmosphere, geology, hydrology, biosphere.

 

[Rodney Gold]

We are a mutating virus , consuming our host..we need a reset like a huge cull..

 

[NorthStar]

A reset button? :b

I think we also need more music, more films, more documentaries on where we want to take this planet to the next level.