Can you, however you try, alter the processes of the world collective? I ask that in the contexts of both the past and the present. You, for example, might argue that emperors and dictators have altered the courses of many lives and changed the world significantly. Alexander the Great spread Hellenism widely, Augustus Caesar and each of his successors for centuries ruled over a widespread empire, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and others determined the fate of billions over the course of decades; recently Baghdadi ruled over a short-lived caliphate that displaced an untold number of people in the Middle East. So, you could say that yes, there have been individuals who have affected the collective many. And today? Well, the conversation seems to be centered on the power of social media giants and their ability to quash any ideas with which their collective members disagree, in effect, altering the course of human thought and action. But how far into the future will their effects last?
About those emperors and dictators, except for a couple of living examples, they’re all dead if you haven’t noticed—and the living examples will also die. True, those people did set in motion the course of human affairs, and remnants of their effects can be seen in current day China and Russia or even in the continued influence of Hellenistic thinking in the West. One might even say that Hitler, in causing WII, reshaped with the Japanese Oligarchy and Mussolini, the entire world or at least set the stage for its present makeup. Your argument that individuals can alter the processes of the collective has some considerable historic background, therefore. We might not like the changes any of them set in motion—might even disdain them—but we can’t avoid acknowledging that those changes did occur and that we are to some degree the product of what those individuals did to or for the masses and the ages.
You might also argue that everything anyone in the past did led to the present and that you are contributing to the future. You are “shaping” the world to come, even if only by operating as a member of the collective, a busy bee in the hive of humanity. Your consumption of goods and energy, for example, though personally small, fits into a larger worldwide consumption and use. And although all humans have consumed and wasted Earth’s materials as shards of pottery and even broken ancient hammer stones reveal, you, individually, leave a larger mark on the planet than most of your predecessor humans. But how big a mark and how far back in human history? Do you leave a bigger mark than people of a century ago? Depends, I suppose. How far back should we go to determine the degree of your effect?
You might have come across the Geologic Time Scale in some science course. It’s divided into eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages, all five of decreasing durations. The Archean Eon, for example, encompassed more than a billion years, whereas the more recent Zanclean Age lasted less than 2 million years. The now numerous time “periods” * (the scale has evolved with ever more specificity) include a new epoch, the Anthropocene, ** named after you, or rather after your species. Distinguishing among the temporal categories is a big deal for geologists and at least a little deal among the general population: Everyone, it seems, is aware of the “Jurassic Period” because of the popular dinosaur films. In contrast, some of the temporal divisions probably mean next to nothing (or nothing) to most people like the Tonian Period of the Neoproterozoic Period of the Proterozoic Eon of the Supereon called the Precambrian.
Because so many of those time divisions encompass durations beyond our comprehension and because we live such short lives, temporarily, we’re like split seconds to the age of our planet. So, what’s this stuff about an “Anthropocene Epoch”? Is it just vanity? At the very least, it does show that unlike all past species, probably numbering, according to a rough estimate by David M. Raup, between 5 and 50 billion historic species, *** humans have the wherewithal to name things. In tracing Earth’s past, we’ve discovered something in process or composition significant enough to warrant our designating a boundary between adjacent “times,” such as the extinction of the dinosaurs. Apparently, the name “Anthropocene” entails some actual weighty details, heavier, it seems, than the fossilized bones of a massive Mesozoic Era dinosaur. NO, really: Nine billion tons of plastic, for example. And what of all the chemicals and steel? Although not as numerous as insects which are not even close to the number of bacteria, people are numerous enough to leave a mark on the planet. Your mark.
We number more than seven billion as of this writing. And take all the stuff we produce, from foods to machines. Then consider all we have done to change Earth’s surface and under-surface with farming, water impounding, drilling, and mining. Just look around. Sure, the place where you live will, like the mightiest of pyramids, fall eventually into decay, but your stuff and your effects will last for centuries if you count your (yes, your) nuclear waste as well as your most durable synthetics.
We’ve changed the courses of rivers, turning, for example, the once fourth largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea, into four small puddles. And we’ve made those changes fast. The Aral Sea was big in 1959. It took only about 40 years to radically alter its size by diverting the inflowing rivers. We’ve deforested, denuded, and polluted landscapes. Sure, past organisms have also changed Earth. Look no further than the coral reefs off eastern Australia and Belize for examples. But those little colonial critters took hundreds of thousands to millions of years to build their limestone homes. Brasília, a city in the middle of what was once a wild tropical rainforest, was built in a generation. This is definitely a human epoch, one might say “even more human” than all past human epochs, and more planet-altering than the product of any emperor’s avarice.
In an article justifying the new epoch’s inclusion in the Geologic Time Scale, Jaia Syvitski and others put up the big numbers that mark our slice of Earth’s time. Among those are numbers associated with our energy consumption: “Human energy expenditure in the Anthropocene, ~22 zetajoules (ZJ), exceeds that across the prior 11,700 years of the Holocene (~14.6 ZJ), largely through combustion of fossil fuels.” **** A zettajoule, in case you are wondering, is 10^21 joules. So, in the Anthropocene, we’ve used more energy than all ancestral humans used prior to 1950.
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering whether this is a problem that will keep you awake at night. “Am I using too much electricity? My electric bill is rather high. Should I look into not only my energy consumption, but also into my use of ground and stream water? Do I share a universal guilt for not doing something about plastics, water impoundment behind massive dams, and extinction? And can any individual like little old me do anything to alter the processes of the present?”
And therein lies the problem for all of us. In a world of seven billion people, all wanting a life of relative safety and luxury, what role does the individual play? If we turn off street lights and sensor lights around homes to save energy, do we encourage miscreants? Do we jeopardize our safety while simultaneously stumbling around in the dark like our ancestors? Do we shop less with the overall result of an economic decline? Do we nurse along that old car or buy a new electric car? And what if we do buy that electric car? From what source do we derive its energy? Windmills? Geothermal energy? Hyrdoelectric power? Solar cells?
The Anthropocene is here to stay until there are no more humans. That isn't long in coming in the context of a Geologic Time Scale. According to David M. Raup, “The average life span of species in the fossil record is about four million years.” ***** Now, it seems evident that sticking around for four million years hasn’t been the fate of hominid and hominin species. But “average” in the fossil record includes critters like the lowly brachiopod species and the moon-driven horseshoe crab, species that have endured for tens of millions of years. Obviously, many species have come and gone like the proverbial daffodils. Remember Robert Herrick’s opening lines? “Fair daffodils, we weep to see/You haste away so soon…We have a short time to stay, as you/ We have as short a spring….”******
Yet, here you are, a human “daffodil,” an organism capable of leaving a mark that will endure well beyond your “short spring.” And you are surrounded by a field of similar “daffodils,” all capable of leaving such marks on the planet. Sure, the Anthropocene will end, but it will, like the epochs and ages before it, leave something behind. Maybe much more than any previous age left in the fossil record. Of course, only conscious beings can interpret the effects of the past. When the Anthropocene ends, the universe might have no way of knowing that there was an Anthropocene—or any age, epoch, period, era, eon.
As Raup points out, we live the “Gambler’s Ruin.” Start out with much, play longer. But like the gambler who starts out with little, the end of being in the game will come. The system has no memory. Every coin flip is a new flip. Every species is a coin flip. Some have left some rather enduring marks, such as ancient coral reefs and giant reservoirs of petroleum and natural gas. Most have come and gone like daffodils.
But take heart! This morning, in a Pennsylvanian October and under a rain of yellow, orange, and red leaves, I came upon a batch of daffodils. Should I draw any conclusions from their presence in the fall? Should I hope that in the fall of the Anthropocene some unknown years hence, there will emerge a renewal of the species, even if only for a short time?
*Lest you be confused, note that I use the word period loosely, here. There are specific geologic “periods,” such as the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, the last one ending with the demise of the dinosaurs.
**Anthropos (ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos), Greek for “man”; kainos (καινός), Greek for “new” and related to the Latinized English word “recent.”
***Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? New York. W. W. Norton & Company 1991. P. 3.
****Syvitski, Jaia, et al., Extraordinary human energy consumption and resultant geological impacts beginning around 1950 EC initiated the proposed Anthropocene Epoch, Communications Earth & and Environment (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-020-00029-y
*****Raup, p. 108.
******Herrick, Robert. (1591-1674) “To Daffodils.”
About those emperors and dictators, except for a couple of living examples, they’re all dead if you haven’t noticed—and the living examples will also die. True, those people did set in motion the course of human affairs, and remnants of their effects can be seen in current day China and Russia or even in the continued influence of Hellenistic thinking in the West. One might even say that Hitler, in causing WII, reshaped with the Japanese Oligarchy and Mussolini, the entire world or at least set the stage for its present makeup. Your argument that individuals can alter the processes of the collective has some considerable historic background, therefore. We might not like the changes any of them set in motion—might even disdain them—but we can’t avoid acknowledging that those changes did occur and that we are to some degree the product of what those individuals did to or for the masses and the ages.
You might also argue that everything anyone in the past did led to the present and that you are contributing to the future. You are “shaping” the world to come, even if only by operating as a member of the collective, a busy bee in the hive of humanity. Your consumption of goods and energy, for example, though personally small, fits into a larger worldwide consumption and use. And although all humans have consumed and wasted Earth’s materials as shards of pottery and even broken ancient hammer stones reveal, you, individually, leave a larger mark on the planet than most of your predecessor humans. But how big a mark and how far back in human history? Do you leave a bigger mark than people of a century ago? Depends, I suppose. How far back should we go to determine the degree of your effect?
You might have come across the Geologic Time Scale in some science course. It’s divided into eons, eras, periods, epochs, and ages, all five of decreasing durations. The Archean Eon, for example, encompassed more than a billion years, whereas the more recent Zanclean Age lasted less than 2 million years. The now numerous time “periods” * (the scale has evolved with ever more specificity) include a new epoch, the Anthropocene, ** named after you, or rather after your species. Distinguishing among the temporal categories is a big deal for geologists and at least a little deal among the general population: Everyone, it seems, is aware of the “Jurassic Period” because of the popular dinosaur films. In contrast, some of the temporal divisions probably mean next to nothing (or nothing) to most people like the Tonian Period of the Neoproterozoic Period of the Proterozoic Eon of the Supereon called the Precambrian.
Because so many of those time divisions encompass durations beyond our comprehension and because we live such short lives, temporarily, we’re like split seconds to the age of our planet. So, what’s this stuff about an “Anthropocene Epoch”? Is it just vanity? At the very least, it does show that unlike all past species, probably numbering, according to a rough estimate by David M. Raup, between 5 and 50 billion historic species, *** humans have the wherewithal to name things. In tracing Earth’s past, we’ve discovered something in process or composition significant enough to warrant our designating a boundary between adjacent “times,” such as the extinction of the dinosaurs. Apparently, the name “Anthropocene” entails some actual weighty details, heavier, it seems, than the fossilized bones of a massive Mesozoic Era dinosaur. NO, really: Nine billion tons of plastic, for example. And what of all the chemicals and steel? Although not as numerous as insects which are not even close to the number of bacteria, people are numerous enough to leave a mark on the planet. Your mark.
We number more than seven billion as of this writing. And take all the stuff we produce, from foods to machines. Then consider all we have done to change Earth’s surface and under-surface with farming, water impounding, drilling, and mining. Just look around. Sure, the place where you live will, like the mightiest of pyramids, fall eventually into decay, but your stuff and your effects will last for centuries if you count your (yes, your) nuclear waste as well as your most durable synthetics.
We’ve changed the courses of rivers, turning, for example, the once fourth largest lake in the world, the Aral Sea, into four small puddles. And we’ve made those changes fast. The Aral Sea was big in 1959. It took only about 40 years to radically alter its size by diverting the inflowing rivers. We’ve deforested, denuded, and polluted landscapes. Sure, past organisms have also changed Earth. Look no further than the coral reefs off eastern Australia and Belize for examples. But those little colonial critters took hundreds of thousands to millions of years to build their limestone homes. Brasília, a city in the middle of what was once a wild tropical rainforest, was built in a generation. This is definitely a human epoch, one might say “even more human” than all past human epochs, and more planet-altering than the product of any emperor’s avarice.
In an article justifying the new epoch’s inclusion in the Geologic Time Scale, Jaia Syvitski and others put up the big numbers that mark our slice of Earth’s time. Among those are numbers associated with our energy consumption: “Human energy expenditure in the Anthropocene, ~22 zetajoules (ZJ), exceeds that across the prior 11,700 years of the Holocene (~14.6 ZJ), largely through combustion of fossil fuels.” **** A zettajoule, in case you are wondering, is 10^21 joules. So, in the Anthropocene, we’ve used more energy than all ancestral humans used prior to 1950.
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering whether this is a problem that will keep you awake at night. “Am I using too much electricity? My electric bill is rather high. Should I look into not only my energy consumption, but also into my use of ground and stream water? Do I share a universal guilt for not doing something about plastics, water impoundment behind massive dams, and extinction? And can any individual like little old me do anything to alter the processes of the present?”
And therein lies the problem for all of us. In a world of seven billion people, all wanting a life of relative safety and luxury, what role does the individual play? If we turn off street lights and sensor lights around homes to save energy, do we encourage miscreants? Do we jeopardize our safety while simultaneously stumbling around in the dark like our ancestors? Do we shop less with the overall result of an economic decline? Do we nurse along that old car or buy a new electric car? And what if we do buy that electric car? From what source do we derive its energy? Windmills? Geothermal energy? Hyrdoelectric power? Solar cells?
The Anthropocene is here to stay until there are no more humans. That isn't long in coming in the context of a Geologic Time Scale. According to David M. Raup, “The average life span of species in the fossil record is about four million years.” ***** Now, it seems evident that sticking around for four million years hasn’t been the fate of hominid and hominin species. But “average” in the fossil record includes critters like the lowly brachiopod species and the moon-driven horseshoe crab, species that have endured for tens of millions of years. Obviously, many species have come and gone like the proverbial daffodils. Remember Robert Herrick’s opening lines? “Fair daffodils, we weep to see/You haste away so soon…We have a short time to stay, as you/ We have as short a spring….”******
Yet, here you are, a human “daffodil,” an organism capable of leaving a mark that will endure well beyond your “short spring.” And you are surrounded by a field of similar “daffodils,” all capable of leaving such marks on the planet. Sure, the Anthropocene will end, but it will, like the epochs and ages before it, leave something behind. Maybe much more than any previous age left in the fossil record. Of course, only conscious beings can interpret the effects of the past. When the Anthropocene ends, the universe might have no way of knowing that there was an Anthropocene—or any age, epoch, period, era, eon.
As Raup points out, we live the “Gambler’s Ruin.” Start out with much, play longer. But like the gambler who starts out with little, the end of being in the game will come. The system has no memory. Every coin flip is a new flip. Every species is a coin flip. Some have left some rather enduring marks, such as ancient coral reefs and giant reservoirs of petroleum and natural gas. Most have come and gone like daffodils.
But take heart! This morning, in a Pennsylvanian October and under a rain of yellow, orange, and red leaves, I came upon a batch of daffodils. Should I draw any conclusions from their presence in the fall? Should I hope that in the fall of the Anthropocene some unknown years hence, there will emerge a renewal of the species, even if only for a short time?
*Lest you be confused, note that I use the word period loosely, here. There are specific geologic “periods,” such as the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, the last one ending with the demise of the dinosaurs.
**Anthropos (ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos), Greek for “man”; kainos (καινός), Greek for “new” and related to the Latinized English word “recent.”
***Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? New York. W. W. Norton & Company 1991. P. 3.
****Syvitski, Jaia, et al., Extraordinary human energy consumption and resultant geological impacts beginning around 1950 EC initiated the proposed Anthropocene Epoch, Communications Earth & and Environment (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-020-00029-y
*****Raup, p. 108.
******Herrick, Robert. (1591-1674) “To Daffodils.”
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