A Legacy to Learn and Live By

Yesterday my PI (Principal Investigator),Dr. Patrick Megonigal  gave a presentation at SERC entitled "The Coastal Anthropocne" It was a fascinating talk! And it really got me thinking about human's effect on the Earth.

So firstly, what is the Anthropocene? Well, "anthro" means human and "cene" means new. Anthropocene is the unofficial term for a new epoch in the time scale of the Earth. We are officially in the Holocene, "entirely recent," epoch; but some experts claim a new label need to be created to address the effect of the human race on Earth. Humans have had a significant effect on the Earth through our actions such as plant and animal mass species extinctions, pollutants in the air, ground, and oceans, and significant impacts on the atmosphere. These effects are long lasting and will continue to have re-occurring repercussions in the future. But geologists, who are the scientists who define epochs, claim that there is not enough rock evidence in the stratas of the earth, even though we have left a significant mark in every other aspect.

Among those who support the idea that we are currently in the Athropocene, there is also the debate of when this epoch began. Dr. Megonigal suggested a start date of the late 1700s, the age of the Industrial Revolution, when human population began to boom and with this large increase in humans came a large environmental footprint on the Earth by humans. I personally tend to agree with this theory. However, other scientists believe the Anthropocene began far before then, in fact, they connect the new term with other significant events in human existence on this Earth, such as the rise of agriculture during the the Neolithic Revolution (about 12,000 years ago). Others speculate that the beginning of the Athropocene began 14,000 to 15,000 years ago, based on atmospheric data; however, that belief challenges the structure of the already established Holocene.

During our day and age on Earth, no matter how scientists chose to name our era, humans have left many footprints on Earth. We have caused destructive consequences in almost every ecosystem on this Earth through our direct invasion and through indirect mechanisms originating from our actions. We are only now starting to understand the effects of our actions, but it may be millenia before we completely comprehend what we have done to this planet. What we are doing today will be the conditions our children and grandchildren will be forced to live with. So we must all take responsibility for our own actions.
What we do now is not our future, it is the present of the future.