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The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#41

Post by ncmncm »

i_am_nomad wrote: post #32
willis936 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For a while, until it all decays. But the total amount of material involved is minuscule. You would be looking for parts per trillion, if indeed you were bothering to look at all. And what would draw your attention to look?

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#42

Post by throwaway5d097 »

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 fossils of hundreds of millions of years old, and microfossils of microorganisms over 3 billion years old. Why couldn't there be fossils of technology?

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#43

Post by ilaksh »

ncmncm wrote: post #36
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.

The steel will wash away?

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#44

Post by ncmncm »

ilaksh wrote: post #43
ncmncm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The steel will wash away?

It will rust first, and the rust will wash away. The glass will wash away. Water conquers all.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#45

Post by AstralStorm »

nostrademons wrote: post #28
acqq wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point of the first is to acknowledge how little an effect that is, relative to other events in geologic time. And speaking only about that geologic time is deceptive, without mentioning context: for the biggest part of the whole geologic time, not even multi-cellular life existed. Half of the whole geologic time, nothing was able to depend on oxygen as the modern life does -- there wasn't much of it in the atmo…

I thought that was actually the point of the article. The author freely admits that from a human perspective, climate change and habitat destruction and the bleaching of coral reefs are a big deal. The point he's making is that from a planetary perspective, humans are insignificant. Indeed, from a planetary perspective multi-cellular life is insignificant, and life at all is a minority. The thing is that much of the…

From planetary perspective, multicellular life was and is huge. Oxygen catastrophe is not called that because it was invisible from space. Nor are ok deposits geologically insignificant.

It is big timeframe though compared to anthropocene.

The warming is indeed planetary, but not the magnitude of the earlier atmospheric changes. The crust changes are more visible for now, especially mining. The temperature will be pretty important at about +1 C out more globally - not quite yet. At that level moisture circulation would get affected a lot...

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#46

Post by chimi »

ncmncm wrote: post #37
chimi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Okay, now I get it. I missed that part of the article. That's the arrogance. I like the ideas in a lot of these articles, I just don't have time to read them all. I miss the old days of tldr's.

Re: The Arrogance of the Anthropocene

#47

Post by jerf »

ncmncm wrote: post #40
jerf wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I mention it because it's the earliest one I can think of in our technological development. If we continue advancing, we will eventually get to that genetic diversification bit, but it seems that happens after you get the point where you can wipe out your own civilization with nukes, so that one is much less reliable.

(The Singularity paragraph is just for fun. Almost by definition, there is no reasonable way to ever collect evidence for it.)

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