science The magazine said: “A proposal to end the Holocene (the current geological epoch that began 11,700 years ago at the end of the last ice age) and begin a new era, the Anthropocene, has been proposed by a group of 20 geologists. I can confirm that it was rejected by the committee.”
“From the 1950s onwards, it was a time when humankind's influence on the earth became overwhelming.”
The vote, first reported by the New York Times, is a surprising — but not unexpected — rebuke of the proposal, which has been through a formal approval process for more than a decade. [S]Mr. Omeh points out that what has been proposed as a marker of the times (about 10 centimeters at Crawford Lake in Canada, which marked a worldwide surge due to fossil fuel burning, fertilizer use, and atomic bomb fallout that began in the 1950s) felt that the mud) was not conclusive enough. Others questioned whether it was possible to pinpoint when humans began to have a widespread impact on the planet, and why not the rise of agriculture. Why didn't the large-scale changes that accompanied European invasion of the New World occur?
Stanley Finney, a stratigrapher at California State University, Long Beach and president of the International Union of Geological Sciences, said, “If they had not avoided submitting it to the stratigraphic community for careful consideration, this paper would have been It would have been rejected years ago.”
Finney also complains that the AWG was determined from the start to secure an “epoch” classification and ignored or opposed proposals for a less formal Anthropocene designation. …Anthropocene proponents will have to wait 10 years for their proposal to be formally decided. I'll think about it again…
The Anthropocene will persist, even if it is not officially recognized by geologists. It's used in art exhibitions, magazine titles, and countless books…and others believe it may remain an unofficial geological term, calling it the “Anthropocene.” It promotes the view that it may be called “the event of…”
From the New York Times:
Geoscientists do not deny that our era stands out in its long history. Radionuclides from nuclear tests. Plastic and industrial ash. Contaminants in concrete and metals. Rapid greenhouse warming. Species extinctions are rapidly increasing. These and other products of modern civilization have left an unmistakable mark on the mineral record, especially since his mid-twentieth century. Still, for the Anthropocene to qualify as its own entry onto the geological time scale, it would need to be defined in a very specific way that meets the needs of geologists, but not necessarily anthropologists or artists. , it does not meet the needs of other people already using it. term.
That's why some experts have voiced skepticism about enshrining the Anthropocene.A vote against the Anthropocene should not be interpreted as a referendum among scientists on the broader state of the planet. He emphasized. “For the most part, this has been a narrow technical problem for geologists,” said one of the skeptics, Arle C. Ellis, an environmental scientist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “This has nothing to do with the evidence that people are changing the planet,” Dr. Ellis said. “The evidence just keeps mounting.”
Francine MG McCarthy, a micropaleontologist at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., is the opposite of the skeptic. She helped lead some of her research supporting ratification of the new era. “Regardless of the line on the time scale, we are in the Anthropocene,” Dr. McCarthy said. “And acting accordingly is the only way forward for us.”
Thanks to Slashdot reader Science Habit for sharing the news.
