Since the decline of the Paris Agreement I have tried to learn as much as I can about the environment but to learn we have to look at the roots of our problems and the start of our true effects on the environment. About a week ago I learned the word Anthropocene from a friend. As I stated in my previous post I want to learn these things along with the reader and I had no idea want the Anthropocene was, so here we go. The Anthropocene is proposed as the most recent period of our era that we live in and it is determined to be the most destructive time of human history.
The Anthropocene is less climate change and more of a time period that climate change is a big part of. While much of the history of humans has little effect on the environment over the past 2.8 million years (when the first human imprint allegedly appeared) the larger environmental impact started only 11,000 years ago. This is when humans may have established the first urban settlement. While many other environmental problems arose from humans, like the Megafuana extinction and other less major tolls pre-holocenic homo sapiens affected, a vast majority of issues to the planet happened after that in a period known as the Holocene.
The Holocene is the most recent epoch of the Quaternary period in the Cenozoic era. What does all this mean? So the history of the earth is defined in eons which are broken down into eras. You might recognize the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. The Mesozoic era is the time frame of the Triassic and Jurassic periods, shortened down to dinosaurs. Periods are the next measurement of time which are the next step down from eras. The Cenozoic era is the era evolutionists believe humans have come in at. The Cenozoic era has three periods that are defined as the Paleogene (the rise of the mammals,) the Neogene (evolution of the mammals) and finally the Quaternary (intro to humans 101.) Quaternary period has the Pleistocene epoch and the Holocene epoch. The Pleistocene epoch had the Neanderthals and other early humans while Holocene has today’s humans and is the most recent measurement of time in the model. The Holocene epoch is the disconnect and where creationist derive their arguments, this is where we see the level of critical thinking and creativity.
The origins of farming started roughly 11,000 years before Christ and this is when humans really started affecting the environment. From then on humans began destroying natural ecosystems for farming. Fast forward 4,500 years and rice production was in full swing, spewing the greenhouse gas, methane, into the air slowly depleting the ozone layer. Of course this was not as detrimental as more recent activity but depletion is depletion. By 3000 B.C.E. Anthropogenic soil is detected as large levels of phosphorus reside after the use of fertilizers and the wear and tear of soil is evident. Earth’s population continued to grow and humans became more creative and learned effective ways to produce weapons and goods through ever growing technology. In 1439, the first printing press was developed and the world changed, distributing literature and news was now expedited and technology and ideas were shared at a much faster process.
Until 1492, humans were progressing at a mediocre rate. Much of the world was still unknown to the majority of the human population. Not many were confident enough to traverse the rough seas in order to find the new land but as Christianity took hold of Europe the desire to explore and share beliefs exponentially grew. The world was about to evolve as colonization brought “civilization” to much of the tribal world along with disease. The population dipped in America as many of the people did not have a resistance to the new diseases brought by the Europeans, this smothered the need for farming as the populations were small and there were obviously less mouths to feed. Forests began to regrow and take over, reducing the amount of C02 in the atmosphere.
The Scientific Revolution ranged from 1543 to 1687 and offered a blueprint and mindset that fueled many of the inventions today as our sciences were born. The Industrial Revolution was taking root demanding a fuel source. In 1678, coal became the primary energy source for steam engines and eventually became commercialized in 1712.
The Anthropocene period is argued to began in 1760 with the start of the the Industrial Revolution. Our processes went from manual to mechanical, demanding the consumption of oil, gas and coal. These energies were and are the most harmful emissions to the ozone and environment as digging for coal and oil destroyed ecosystems and CO2 and methane emissions grew. Industrial growth brought population growth as well while the new economy brought money to sustain larger families. In 1804, the world population reached 1 billion people. While new technologies boom across the United States, a man named Edwin Drake drilled for salt brine and accidentally got oil. This was disputed to be the commercial oil well, developed in 1859. Everything until 1960; the creation of the car, World War 1 and 2, the creation of CFCs (aerosol and the development of the ozone hole above Antarctica,) the Atomic Age and nuclear bomb, all lead to one destructive point in time, The Great Acceleration.
The Great Acceleration is the past 67 years, starting in 1950. We have seen a tremendous technological reform since then. Our energy consumption and access to technologies became universal. Every single outlet of our lives have doubled since 1950, whether it be shrimp consumption or nitrogen output. Our population went up by 6 billion people in the matter of 200 years, which is absurd in comparison to the 2.2 million years it took for the first standing human to reach 1 billion people. Because of an extraordinary population growth and the coinciding consumption of fossil fuels we raised carbon dioxide ppm (parts per million or ppm) from 315 ppm in 1958 to 409 ppm as of April 2017. Before the Industrial Revolution, we sat at about 280 ppm. The planet has not seen 400 ppm since about 800,000 to 15 million years ago where we saw much higher temperatures and much higher sea levels.
What does all this mean? In the Anthropocene, or the proposed time period since the Industrial Revolution, we have increased the carbon ppm by nearly 200 ppm. Why is that an issue? Well carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gasses are effective in the way that it heats the Earth, without it we would likely be a frozen tundra. That being said the more CO2 we have in the atmosphere the higher temperature. That’s not good if you like going to Miami, because waters will rise and flood it. In order to prevent our effects on Earth from melting glaciers and destroying our ozone the people over at 350.org have proven that lowering our emissions to 350 ppm will bring us to the point we need to be at. Otherwise at the same rate we are going we will see massive droughts, extreme temperatures and the extinction of many species.
That being said it is our duty, as the people who have caused this absurd spike in carbon ppm, to work towards bringing to our only planet back to what it’s supposed to be, and we need to do whatever it takes.
Featured Image:
https://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/CarbonCycle/page5.php
Sources
http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/holocene.php
http://www.livescience.com/40352-cenozoic-era.html
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004577.17928.fa
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/aess/2012/619548/
http://anthropocene.info/anthropocene-timeline.php
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