GRP1_THE ANTHROPOCENE

The Anthropocene
Humanity’s impact on the planet has been

profound. It is widely accepted that our species,
has had such a significant impact on Earth and its
inhabitants that we will have a lasting - and
potentially irreversible - influence on its systems,
environment, processes and biodiversity. From
fire, intensive hunting, and agriculture, it has
accelerated into rapid climate change, widespread
pollution, plastic accumulation, species invasions,
and the mass extinction of species—changes that
have left a permanent mark in our planet. In the
past 60 years in particular, these human impacts
have unfolded at an unprecedented rate and
scale.
The story of the earth is written in rocks.

Scientists have gradually deciphered the secrets
by patiently “reading” the records. The rocks
unfold the story of the earth, the geologic events
and the succession of life. Its history is very long
that geologists feel the need to divide it.
Earth’s history is divided into a hierarchical series of smaller chunks of time, referred to as the
geologic time scale. These divisions, in descending length of time, are called eons, eras, periods, epochs,
and ages. Its division is marked by the extinction of many life forms and the appearance of new ones.
The current epoch, the Holocene, is the 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age during
which all human civilization developed. But the striking acceleration since the mid-20th century of carbon
dioxide emissions and sea level rise, the global mass extinction of species, and the transformation of land
by deforestation and development mark the end of this geological time. The Earth is so profoundly
changed that the Holocene must give way to the Anthropocene. Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of
geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to
have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems.
The word Anthropocene comes from the Greek terms for human ('anthropo') and new ('cene'). It
was coined in the 1980s, then popularised in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J Crutzen and diatom
researcher Eugene F Stoermer. To date, the Anthropocene has not been formally adopted into geologic
timescale but has been gaining traction as a cultural concept.
Evidence of the Anthropocene
Human activity has:
• Pushed extinction rates of animals and plants far above the long-term average. The Earth is
on course to see 75% of species become extinct in the next few centuries if current trends
continue.
• Increased levels of climate-warming CO2 in the atmosphere at the fastest rate for 66m
years, with fossil-fuel burning pushing levels from 280 parts per million before the industrial
revolution to 400ppm and still rising today.
• Put too much plastic in our waterways and oceans that microplastic particles are now
virtually ubiquitous and plastics will likely leave identifiable fossil records for future
generations to discover.
• Doubled the nitrogen and phosphorous in our soils in the past century with fertilizer use.
This is likely to be the largest impact on the nitrogen cycle in 2.5bn years.
• Left a permanent layer of airborne particulates in sediment and glacial ice such as black
carbon from fossil fuel burning
Ecological Footprints
In all things that we do, we use different kinds of products and resources. Since people’s lifestyles
differ, some people use more resources than others. This can be observed among developed and
developing countries. Some things can be easily acquired because they are abundant or cheap, while
others are difficult to access because it needs more energy to process or are more expensive or rare. But
no matter how easy or difficult to access them they are all derived from resources that are either
renewable or non-renewable. These resources are mostly from lithosphere and hydrosphere.
All of the resources which people use for their daily needs and activities come from somewhere,
even if not from their immediate surroundings. Food, electricity, and other basic amenities for survival must
be produced within the confines of nature, using raw natural resources. The use of resources between
developed and developing countries differs. Developing countries where most of the people struggle to
survive used these resources for survival while those in richer countries use resources more than their
needs.
The processing of raw materials into products that man can use produce pollution that has an
impact to our environment. Ecological footprint – the amount of biologically productive land and water
needed to supply the people in a particular area or country with resources and to absorb and recycle the
wastes and pollution produced by such resource use. The per capita ecological footprint is the average
ecological footprint of an individual in given country or area.
There is said to be an ecological deficit if the country’s total ecological footprint is larger than its
biological capacity to replace its renewable resources and absorb the resulting waste products and
pollution. Data showed that humanity’s global ecological footprint go beyond the earth’s biological capacity
by about 25%. Among the affluent countries United States has the world’s total ecological footprint. If the
present exponential growth in the use of renewable resources continues it is estimated that by 2050 people
will use twice as many renewable resources as the planet can supply.
The per capita ecological foot print is an estimate of how much of the earth’s renewable resources
an individual consumes. United States has the world’s second largest per capita ecological footprint, 4.5
times the average global footprint per person and 12 times the average per capita footprint in the world’s
low – income countries. It would take the land area of about five more planet earth’s for the rest of the
world to reach U.S. levels of consumption with existing technology or if a person from developing country
will consumes as much as the average American does, the earth’s natural capital could support only 1.3
billion people not today’s 7.8 billion. In short, we are living unsustainably by depleting and degrading the
earth’s rare natural capital and the natural renewable income it provides as our ecological footprints grow
and spread across the surface of the earth.
Work on this activity. Research about the topic below and fill in the table.
Present to the class.

GRP1_THE ANTHROPOCENE

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

GRP1_THE ANTHROPOCENE

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

GRP1_THE ANTHROPOCENE

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Anthropocene

Humanity’s impact on the planet has been

The story of the earth is written in rocks.

You might also like