Filed under: Alzheimer's, Climate Change, Global Warming, Health, Hospice, Predictions, Science, Society
Humans have altered Earth so much that scientists say a new epoch in the planet’s geologic history has begun.
Say goodbye to the 10,000-year-old Holocene Epoch and hello to the Anthropocene. Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch:
- Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns.
- Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature.
- Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns.
- Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.
The idea, first suggested in 2000 by Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, has gained steam with two new scientific papers that call for official recognition of the shift.
There’s more, basically explaining how the shift from the Holocene can be established. Worth reading.
I may post more later, but am fighting a bit of a sore throat thing that has my energy reduced. Brief update on my MIL: hospice nurse was in this morning to bring us meds and do a check up, and it is clear that my MIL is losing ground. We’ve stepped up her duragesic dosage again, to make sure that she stays comfortable, and Lisa (the nurse) went over some other things we can do if she gets into difficulty. We’re just taking things on an hour-to-hour basis.
Jim Downey
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Communion Of Dreams 
The Holocene epoch coincided with the end of the Ice Age and massive glacial melting. We’re entering another “melting age” and whether you attribute it to global warming caused by humans (I do) or as just another phase in the earth’s cycle, there’s no denying it’s beginning and it too is massive. The changes to habitats caused by coastal flooding alone (http://archive.cyark.org/hazards/index.php) should be enough to have the scientific community questioning the birth of a new epoch. Toss global temperature changes, proliferation of severe weather, and altering animal migratory patterns into the mix and I don’t see how it’s debatable.
Comment by danwalsh January 28, 2008 @ 2:47 pmDan, I completely agree. I just thought it was interesting (I’m not a scientist, let alone a geologist) that there seems to be an emerging consensus that it is appropriate to bestow a name on this new epoch.
Thanks for the comment!
Jim D.
Comment by Communion of Dreams January 28, 2008 @ 3:19 pm