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The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#11

Post by namirez »

chimi wrote: post #10
namirez wrote: post #6

It seems to me this person is missing the point. When people talk about Anthropocene, they're not talking about geological or fossil evidence left behind by humans in million of years. Anthropocene refers to the Holocene or the sixth mass extinction on the planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

My understanding is that the Anthropocene is definable because human gas emissions have created a visible layer in the rock strata that will be evident for millions of years. Geological time from now, there will be a black line in the rocks that will include the toxic chemicals coming from our industrial processes and tail pipes.

I think you are right.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#12

Post by rexaliquid »

namirez wrote: post #6

It seems to me this person is missing the point. When people talk about Anthropocene, they're not talking about geological or fossil evidence left behind by humans in million of years. Anthropocene refers to the Holocene or the sixth mass extinction on the planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

Holocene and Anthropocene refer to the epoch, not the extinction event occurring during that epoch. An epoch is a measure of geological time.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#13

Post by nostrademons »

namirez wrote: post #6

It seems to me this person is missing the point. When people talk about Anthropocene, they're not talking about geological or fossil evidence left behind by humans in million of years. Anthropocene refers to the Holocene or the sixth mass extinction on the planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction

He wrote a similar piece on why earth is not in the middle of a sixth mass extinction:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/the-ends...

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#14

Post by api »

CoreSet wrote: post #7
gameswithgo wrote: post #3

>If, in the final 7,000 years of their reign, dinosaurs became hyperintelligent, built a civilization, started asteroid mining, and did so for centuries before forgetting to carry the one on an orbital calculation, thereby sending that famous valedictory six-mile space rock hurtling senselessly toward the Earth themselves—it would be virtually impossible to tell. I consider this claim to be complete nonsense. Change…

What about if dinosaurs got to the point of early hunter-gatherers - establishing communities, language, basic tools - but were then wiped out? It's different from the case he cites, but tracks the general point that there are limits to what we can learn about prehistory / "deep time"

Think of it this way: distance in time is like distance in space. It's just another dimension (with the catch that apparently we can't actually move backward). The dinosaurs are as far from us as Alpha Centauri, maybe further.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#15

Post by Udik »

CoreSet wrote: post #7
gameswithgo wrote: post #3

>If, in the final 7,000 years of their reign, dinosaurs became hyperintelligent, built a civilization, started asteroid mining, and did so for centuries before forgetting to carry the one on an orbital calculation, thereby sending that famous valedictory six-mile space rock hurtling senselessly toward the Earth themselves—it would be virtually impossible to tell. I consider this claim to be complete nonsense. Change…

What about if dinosaurs got to the point of early hunter-gatherers - establishing communities, language, basic tools - but were then wiped out? It's different from the case he cites, but tracks the general point that there are limits to what we can learn about prehistory / "deep time"

If we can find their fossilized skeletons, can't we find their stone tools? Maybe scattered around their ritual burials?

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#16

Post by FooHentai »

CoreSet wrote: post #4

As an addendum, the author, Peter Brannen, published another article with The Atlantic titled "What Made Me Reconsider the Anthropocene" four days ago. In it, he responds to criticism and ultimately comes to the conclusion that - even if no trace of humanity is left (no civilization, tools, etc) in "deep time" - the biosphere itself has been changed by humanity, and that gives the concept of the Anthroprocene validit…

I think this should be front-and-center rather than an addendum point - Can't help but question the good faith of an author putting this article up while only recently having published one that appears to take an opposite view. Frankly, smells like click bait dressed up as high-brow op-ed.

I was going to post a comment in response to some of the points in the article, but upon seeing that the other article existed... what's the point?

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#17

Post by jerf »

gameswithgo wrote: post #3

>If, in the final 7,000 years of their reign, dinosaurs became hyperintelligent, built a civilization, started asteroid mining, and did so for centuries before forgetting to carry the one on an orbital calculation, thereby sending that famous valedictory six-mile space rock hurtling senselessly toward the Earth themselves—it would be virtually impossible to tell. I consider this claim to be complete nonsense. Change…

I think we'd be able to find a previous civilization of our current technological advancement by finding a lot of veins of mineral resources mined out, except for the trailings around the edges. I've never heard even a whisper of such a mineral formation being found, and with the amount of money such mineral industrial research accounts for, I suspect by now we would have found such a thing if it exists, especially if it existed in quantity.

There may be no structures or artifacts that survived 65 millions years, but there's plenty of holes that would have, in natural structures that to all appearances are older than 65 million years, should have been about as available then as they are now, and are obviously undisturbed.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#18

Post by jerf »

api wrote: post #14
CoreSet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about if dinosaurs got to the point of early hunter-gatherers - establishing communities, language, basic tools - but were then wiped out? It's different from the case he cites, but tracks the general point that there are limits to what we can learn about prehistory / "deep time"

Think of it this way: distance in time is like distance in space. It's just another dimension (with the catch that apparently we can't actually move backward). The dinosaurs are as far from us as Alpha Centauri, maybe further.

This is a reasonable way of looking at time for certain purposes, and the conversion factor is c. So, 65 million years "ago" is also 65 million light-years "away" in the -t direction.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#19

Post by Sandman »

CoreSet wrote: post #4

As an addendum, the author, Peter Brannen, published another article with The Atlantic titled "What Made Me Reconsider the Anthropocene" four days ago. In it, he responds to criticism and ultimately comes to the conclusion that - even if no trace of humanity is left (no civilization, tools, etc) in "deep time" - the biosphere itself has been changed by humanity, and that gives the concept of the Anthroprocene validit…

Cool, I didn't know about that one! I'm going to check it out, thanks for the link!

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#20

Post by nostrademons »

FooHentai wrote: post #16
CoreSet wrote: post #4

As an addendum, the author, Peter Brannen, published another article with The Atlantic titled "What Made Me Reconsider the Anthropocene" four days ago. In it, he responds to criticism and ultimately comes to the conclusion that - even if no trace of humanity is left (no civilization, tools, etc) in "deep time" - the biosphere itself has been changed by humanity, and that gives the concept of the Anthroprocene validit…

I think this should be front-and-center rather than an addendum point - Can't help but question the good faith of an author putting this article up while only recently having published one that appears to take an opposite view. Frankly, smells like click bait dressed up as high-brow op-ed. I was going to post a comment in response to some of the points in the article, but upon seeing that the other article existed...…

I read both and think that the second supports the point made in the first.

The point of the anthropocene, as presented in the second article, is to acknowledge the effect humans have already had on the earth. The point of the first is to acknowledge how little an effect that is, relative to other events in geologic time. The events described in that article still stand - global temperature differences of 8C over a few tens of thousands of years, sea levels 400 feet lower (and that was a blink of an eye ago in geologic time), a 90M year long ice age.

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