Holocene Epoch

Humanity is confronted by multiple environmental challenges which threaten to undermine the advances in health achieved over recent decades. The Rockefeller Foundation/Lancet Commission on Planetary Health showed how climate change, loss of biodiversity, land use change, ocean acidification and overfishing, nitrogen and phosphorus loading and environmental pollution more generally all have the potential to adversely affect health through a range of pathways1. A recent joint publication by WHO and Convention on Biological Diversity articulated the myriad connections between biodiversity and health and the threats to both posed by environmental change2. The dramatic changes in the global environment have led many scientists to conclude that we are living in a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – in which the activities of one species – homo sapiens -have become the dominant driving force transforming the Earth’s natural systems3. These natural systems provide food, clean water and air and modulate the global temperature within limits in which humanity has been able to flourish for around 11,500 years during the preceding Holocene epoch.

Anthropocene is a term used to describe earth’s history including when humans dominated a majority of natural processes globally. Anthropocence was a term used throughout the article to discuss the impact humankind had on the environment that caused many changes that had a negative impact over many years. Another term used was anthrones, the human footprint, which describes how much human kind has made lasting impassions on the earth. These terms have made me come to the realization anthropology operates at the crossroads of social and physical sciences, along with humanities to examine the diversity of humankind across many cultures and time.

Coexisting with each of its counterparts, Mother Earth and the system in which we live in effortlessly orchestrates the fundamental basis of not only human existence but nevertheless all of the life in which it contains. The climate of our Earth however, has been continuously changing since the beginning of its formation about 4.5 billion years ago although; it wasn’t until around the early 18th century that a widespread concern occurred in American minds regarding the treatment of our environment. This altered perspective made way for understanding that humans have made the biggest impact to our planet, biosphere, and atmosphere etc. drastically more so than any other organism. It is commonly argued in Jared Diamond’s The Worst Mistake in

The Pleistocene epoch was a time period of almost 2 million years of repeating glaciation around the globe. This epoch was known for its megafauna that roamed the Earth during the last great ice age. Although this was a time of mass extinction for species that could not adapt to the climate changes, many mammals and vertebrates that can be identified today were found during this time (Zimmermann, 2013). The Pleistocene epoch is an important foundation for understanding life that exists today, including carnivores, herbivores as well as the evolution of humans.

The Anthropocene additionally enables us to rethink the connection amongst people and whatever is left of the normal world. Regardless of when it started, the idea of the Anthropocene is noteworthy. It features the size of our effect on Earth. By characterizing another epoch, we are announcing that the effect of our activities is worldwide and irreversible. It enables us to join various talks in regards to the condition of the planet, from environmental change to loss of biodiversity to natural degradation, by distinguishing the one thing they have in like manner; they have all been influenced by human impact.

Many people have even become extremely proficient in dealing with them. However, being able to deal in large numbers and understanding what they truly mean are two entirely different things. Human being experience an extreme cognitive dissonance between the two. The difference between 1,000,000,000 and 100,000,000 years may not look like much to the average person’s eye, but that difference is the difference between running a marathon, something a human being can reasonably accomplish in a day, to running from Stony Brook to Rochester, something which would take days to accomplish. The difference between a million seconds and a billion seconds is almost 32 years. Our place in the history of the planet, and the Anthropocene’s context in our own history can only really be understood in the context of extremely large numbers. Through a better understanding of large numbers and the geological timescale, the

Everyone has their opinion and it depends on a person and what they choose to believe or accept. Per the research of Geologic Time (radiometric) the Earth is about 4.600 billions years old. The bible said it’s

The Mesozoic Era is an interval of geological time from about 252 to 66 million years ago. It is also called the Age of Reptiles, a phrase introduced by the 19th century paleontologist Gideon Mantell .

Gone are the ages where geological events were shaped by animals, climate, and other forces. Today, much of the earth’s activities involve acquiring of energy and utilization of resources used not only to survive but also to thrive in a way that no species has done before in history. Jessica Abramovic’s posting has outlined how several natural resources such as forests, minerals, and water have been utilized as energy sources to the point of near depletion in many parts of the world. The anthropogenic period has been marked by significant human influence, which has for the few thousands of years affected the overall geological make-up of the earth. Natural events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes do not come close to affecting the earth in the way that human activities to today (Steffen et al, 2011; Ellis, 2011). What is more interesting is the fact that humans have lived on earth for only a few hundred thousand years, but have become a geologically dominant species within that time as compared to the estimated 4.5 billion years of earth’s existence.

The significance of the Anthropocene is effecting the earth system, which we are the doers.

The Anthropocene is a term used in recent times to give an overarching term for the destructive and environment changing behaviour of humans. As Baskin (2014:9) puts it, an ‘’...idea which posits that the human species is now the dominant Earth-shaping force.’’

As time passed, the Pleistocene period ended and the Holocene period began. Accompanying the shift to Holocene was high temperatures that were as much as 2°C (3.6°F) higher than present averages in some places. It may have been because of this climate change or because of human intervention, or both that large game perished with the coming of the Holocene. Lacking the rich game hunting economy that their Pleistocene predecessors had, small bands of American Indians focused on the killing of small game, feeding of aquaculture, and an ever increasing dependency on the collection of specific plant foods.

Have you ever wondered what the earth would be like if one tiny change happened during earth's history. Would the earth be the same, or would it be completely different. The Earth's processes change the way most organisms are today. After all, if the asteroid never hit, dinosaurs would still be roaming the earth. Very much like this example, there are many ways that populations of organisms have changed. There are natural causes like extinctions, climate, and invasive species that change the way organisms live today.

Since before the industrial evolutions humans have been pumping green house gasses—carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons— into the atmosphere however, it wasn’t until recently that the amounts being produced are shoving the Earth into a sixth extinction. While the causes of this upcoming extinction are constantly debated on it has earned itself the name Holocene extinction. This name is derived from the theory that humans are the main contributors to this extinction. To investigate the cause Elizabeth Kolbert, and American journalist and professor at Williams College, took the world on a wild and saddening journey on the human contribution to this looming extinction in her novel, The Sixth Extinction; An Unnatural History. Not only does Kolbert’s book explain how humans have contributed to global warming and its effects on life on land but also ocean acidification and how life under the sea has changed over the years.

For decades the age of the Earth has been a major conflict between science and religion, but why is it such a big conflict? If, in the year AD 1600, an individual had asked an educated European how old the planet Earth was and to recount its history, the response would have been that it was about 6000 years old and that its ancient history was given by the biblical account in Genesis (Changing Views of the History of the Earth). If one asked the same question of an educated European in AD 1900, one would have received a totally different answer (Changing Views of the History of the Earth). The answer would have been the Earth was ancient, there had not been a Noachian flood, and that the species of life had not been fixed over the history of Earth (Changing Views of the History of the Earth). In short, Genesis was an allegory and not literal history (Changing Views of the History of the Earth). This brings up the different views between “young earth creationists” and “old earth creationists” and those that support an infinite universe. The problem today is each side contains major valid points of evidence of both biblical and scientific, on the age of the planet Earth.