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The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#31

Post by FooHentai »

cavanasm wrote: post #22
FooHentai wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...…

It's a little backwards. The top level article is the original. The grandparent linked article is the author's response from last week indicating responses to the top level article made him re-think and feel he was wrong.

Ah, thank you. I mistakenly believed this one was new given it being posted.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#32

Post by i_am_nomad »

willis936 wrote: post #30
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…

Outside of a blip in CO2 emissions and soil nitrogen, and a dramatic decrease in biodiversity, we will leave almost no trace if we disappeared tonight. https://youtu.be/8xDK2LgSeyk

If nothing else, telltale traces of our nuclear industries will be clearly identifiable. There was a natural nuclear reactor in what is now Gabon, and the fission products it left behind (e.g. Rutherfordium) are how we know it was there.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#33

Post by Donald »

>Will our influence on the rock record really be so profound to geologists 100 million years from now, whoever they are, that they would look back and be tempted to declare the past few decades or centuries a bona fide epoch of its own?

Yes, there will be a thin but noticeable layer of hydrocarbons and odd pollution signatures in the crust that will act as a permanent geologic record of our existence.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#34

Post by ncmncm »

Donald wrote: post #33

>Will our influence on the rock record really be so profound to geologists 100 million years from now, whoever they are, that they would look back and be tempted to declare the past few decades or centuries a bona fide epoch of its own? Yes, there will be a thin but noticeable layer of hydrocarbons and odd pollution signatures in the crust that will act as a permanent geologic record of our existence.

"Humanity: it was thin but noticeable."

If you were specifically looking for it.

Somebody might notice a lack of elephant teeth above a peculiar boundary, or a reduction in fish bones and corals, and look closer at the boundary. But to notice a lack is much harder than to notice the advent of something new. A layer of paperclips might not attract much attention, once oxidized, or be interpreted with anything like fidelity.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#35

Post by ncmncm »

nostrademons wrote: post #24

The holocene always struck me as odd. Here we have the final geologic epoch, and it's 10,000 years old, and every other geologic epoch is ~50M years long. And it just happens to coincide with the rise of our species, who just happens to be the one creating the taxonomy. Paleohistory is pretty fascinating, and it's easy to forget just how small we are on this big earth and how much things differ from today. For exampl…

And produced the whole Columbia Gorge in just two weeks.

Most likely almost all of human history in the Americas, and maybe too in Africa, is 200 feet under the sea.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#36

Post by ncmncm »

ilaksh wrote: post #29

It's obvious that human history is very short but it's less obvious that all of our buildings and trash will be so hard to find underground in five million years or so. Wouldn't there at least be some places where ruins or landfills were largely exposed? And aren't there lots of materials that would stand out since they degrade slowly? For example, what is going to happen to all of the concrete and steel in Manhattan…

It will all wash away, sand grain by sand grain. You can see the erosion of stone temples even a thousand years old, made of harder stuff than concrete.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#37

Post by ncmncm »

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.

He makes the point in the article that there are innumerable unnamed razor-thin layers in the rocks already. What's one more? Why would anyone be drawn to study that one?

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#38

Post by ncmncm »

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…

There are plenty of rocks from the late ("upper") Cretaceous, with a boundary containing elevated iridium. Suppose some microscopically thin boundary, microscopically lower, had a slightly different carbon isotope mixture. Who would notice, even looking? Would the two be even distinguishable, or hopelessly jumbled? Indeed, is anyone looking now? Would there be any reason to conclude that the difference was not also caused by the meteorite?

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#39

Post by ncmncm »

namirez wrote: post #9
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…

Most likely it is nonsense. The carbon and nitrogen composition of sedimentary layers will show anomalies in case of intelligent civilizations. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1804.03748.pdf

The article you link directly contradicts your claim.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#40

Post by ncmncm »

jerf wrote: post #26
nostrademons wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they used different minerals because before they mined them out, different minerals were present? To what extent is our dependence on iron, copper, and bronze a historical accident because that's what was available to our ancestors, and to what extent might we have used different metals if easily-extractable ores for them were present? Despite being the third most common element in the earth's crust, aluminum…

"What if they used different minerals because before they mined them out, different minerals were present?" I'd point out I didn't say that all the minerals were gone, but that the good veins were gone, surrounded by the stuff they left behind. I say that because that's how we do it now, and we do it for economic reasons that any civilization will be subject to. This is a particular pattern that I'm not aware of anyo…

Of all of the above, the existence of holes seem to be the only compelling traces.
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