The Role Of Anthropocene And Its Effects On The World

The carbon dioxide levels in the 20th century have been highest in 650,000 years. Till 1950, the levels rose by 11% and recently the levels have risen by 40%. Arctic ice is melting rapidly. It is estimated that by 2040 the region is to have a completely ice free summer, or even earlier. More than 1 million species have become extinct due to disappearing habitats caused due to global warming. Sea levels have risen about 7 inches in the last 100 years, which is more than the previous 2000 years combined. The rising sea levels due to global warming could threaten the lives of people living along the coastal areas. The consumption of fossil fuels in last few decades has contributed much to the destruction of our environment. Global warming, climate

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.

Earth’s environment is affected everyday by pollution. People must make changes in order for global warming to be slowed. People causing pollution are the largest factor in the climate change. Plants and animals are the most affected by the climate change. “The change has mostly consisted of humans emitting dangerous gases into the atmosphere causing global warming.” (Confronting the Realities of Climate Change). With the Earth’s average temperature rising, many animals and plants are being forced to adapt. The forcing of adaptations is also causing different species to slowly die and eventually they will become extinct. The extreme change in climate has happened before to the dinosaurs. When the dinosaurs roamed the Earth, they lived in a widely tropical climate. Once the climate began to rapidly cool, the cold-blooded reptiles did not have enough time to adapt to the change. People have also stated because the dinosaurs became extinct naturally that this is just a cycle but it is not. The

To begin with, Scranton describes the scenery of war in Iraq and if he would have survived and persevered this journey. Humans would have to embrace the modern advancements today’s society to outlast the Anthropocene. As a matter of fact, struggles, consequences, obstacles and death are various aspects of life that we should embrace and not ignore. The understanding of civilization is very important and acquiring the knowledge to be aware of major concerns and issues of the environment is substantial. Scranton emphasizes that humans have not progressed to avoid the “unmanageable global warning”, but humankind could live and adjust to the changes of the environment (Scranton 24). The is future is always a concern but uncertain, whereas we cannot disregard our destinies.

Some contend that the Anthropocene started with the appearance of agriculture, in light of the fact that specific horticulture related activities, for example, rice paddy water system and deforestation may have prompted sharp ascents in convergences of CO2 and methane as ahead of schedule as 8,000 years prior. Many trust that it was not until the Industrial Revolution that our abuse of fossil fuels and monumental increases of energy utilize and populace began to push us sufficiently far to demonstrate a recognizable 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

In the scientific community, climate change is practically undeniable and its universal importance not trivial. However, in respects to a new concept called the Anthropocene, debate has waged over the struggle of its classification. In the article The “Anthropocene” epoch: Scientific decision or political statement?, California State University geological sciences professor Stanley Finney and U.S. Geological Survey geologist Lucy Edwards unmask the current representation of the Anthropocene and explain its implications of being recognized as a geological unit to the ICC. Finney and Edwards examine the basis of the Anthropocene’s validity and lead the reader towards potential political and social motives for proceeding in admitting the Anthropocene

An article “Anthropocene: Humanity has changed the Earth so much that it has entered a new epoch, scientists conclude “by Andrew Griffin on UK Independent news on Friday 8 January 2016, pointed out what happens to the Earth and how humans affect the environment.

Climate change has been an increasing problem throughout history, although some still deny the effects we have had on earth. As humans, our actions have the potential to kill every natural thing on the planet, sometimes slowly, but other times too fast for us to do something about it. The Sixth Extinction found a way to inform a large audience about the current and past problems involving climate change and how we, as humans on this earth, are going into another extinction, the sixth extinction.

Through the years, our planet has been negatively affected by anthropogenic activities. The Anthropocene has been thought of as a geological period where human activity has negatively impacted ecological systems on the planet. These harmful activities have led to, air pollution, soil degradation, and soil contamination in urban and suburban areas, by dangerous pollutants like heavy metals and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (Kumar & Hundal, 2016). Soil and air pollution and other environmental issues and pressures will continue to be a problem as the world’s population rises in an urbanizing society. Now, more than ever, we must collectively work towards a good Anthropocene, which is essentially building sustainable systems that will mitigate the environmental harm already done to the planet and its people. A good Anthropocene will have positive impacts on the natural, built, and social environments.

“Humanity’s terrifying impact on Earth justifies new Anthropocene epoch” is the title of an article published in the Guardian newspaper in October 2014, the purpose of this essay is to assess if this statement was and is true.

The anthropocene debate hinges to a large extent on how epochs are defined, and scientists now face the unprecedented task of defining an epoch at its genesis rather than millions of years after its end. Castree argues that the severity of human impact on the Earth, indicative of the Anthropocene is already stratigraphically evident in radionuclides from atomic bombs, micro particles of plastic and hydrocarbons from fossil fuels. He also argues that these effects, because of their extremity and the feedback’s triggered between systems, will be pervasive for thousands of years, causing environmental systems to vastly diverge from their natural behavior. (Castree, 2014) Ocean warming, sea level rise and acidification will continue for thousands

Since 1975, society has pushed for greater protection and conservation of depleted areas to reduce the anthropocentric impact on ecology. The need to protect areas from globalisation and “human violence” (Cronon 1995, p.19) is due to the over extraction of natural materials. The overuse of materials from the natural realm has devastating effects on the biodiversity of the land due to the lack of replenishment once resources have been extracted. Berkes (2004) presents this notion of community-based conservation, referring to conservation and development being simultaneously achieved. In theory, this allows the interest of both the natural and human world to be fulfilled although in reality there would be large displacements between the needs of conservation and development (Berkes 2004). The worlds movement into the anthropocene era creates strife between the protection of the environment in contrast to the capitalist influence of development. West et al. (2006) conceptualises nature and culture dichotomy disempowering each other as an ultimatum is presented referring to excluding the anthropocene from the land or placing unrealistic standards in which one must achieve. It is believed that the simultaneous development of the world and protection of nature is achievable although many critics, such as West, demonstrate another truth, being the natural world and the anthropocene cannot co-exist. Sarkar (1999) discusses overconsumption of the wilderness and biodiversity, making

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.

We as a society have reached one of the most crucial time periods in the history of our world. Due to the way we have used the resources on this earth we have created a situation in which our climate is drastically changing. The burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil has caused gases like carbon dioxide to become trapped in the atmosphere causing a natural greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect has caused the earth’s average temperature to rise and has resulted in arctic glaciers melting. These glaciers had gases trapped inside them that are now being released into the atmosphere further raising the earth's temperature. Due to the way we are polluting our air we have caused global warming. This global warming has caused stronger natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires putting our society in more danger than ever before.