http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080127/sc_livescience/humansforceearthintonewgeologicepoch;_ylt=ArNauprf.F3k15wy_N3JeWOs0NUE

Apparently, a society of Geologists are proposing a new word for the most recent of the Earth's eras, the anthropocene. For some crazy reason, they actually think that little, tiny humans can affect the big, gigantic earth:

Quote :

" Humans have altered Earth so much that scientists say a new epoch in the planet's geologic history has begun. ADVERTISEMENT 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. "

This comes just on the heels of the AGU, the worlds largest organization of Earth scientists, reaffirming notions of climate change:

Quote :

"The world’s largest society of Earth and space scientists has released a new statement on climate change that unequivocally names human activity as the cause of global warming. "Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming," according to the first paragraph of the statement by the American Geophysical Union. The statement cites many components of the Earth system that are changing at unnatural rates, including rising global temperatures, ice melt, sea level rise and the distribution of precipitation around the globe. "

Considering that the Earth's climate is probably not changing, there's probably some commie-liberal gov. hand involved in manipulating these 2 groups to making the false statements. Or those greedy scientists, driving around with their Bentleys and Ferraris, are just trying to trick people in to giving them grant money.

1/28/2008 10:01:27 PM

I love it. one teeny-tiny part of the earth is allegedly changing, so we should name a whole fucking period of eath's history after it, making up as many things that are allegedly different yet are actually related to the teeny-tiny alleged part.

brilliant

1/28/2008 10:13:26 PM

^ You are the stupidest person who posts here.

[Edited on January 28, 2008 at 10:15 PM. Reason : ]

1/28/2008 10:15:01 PM

You two are too ideologically entrenched to consider that they are right

1/28/2008 10:15:12 PM

Seems a little short-sighted of them, but then again I haven't extensively studied ground erosion and marine biology.

1/28/2008 10:16:10 PM

^^ Who are you referring to?

I think it's very possible that humans are capable of changing Earth's geology. We obviously have enough knowledge of geology to know what does what and I think someone could easily argue that we have the power to physically change things. Whether this is good or bad is up to debate though.

1/28/2008 10:19:28 PM

duh, they're perfectly correct, once things play out over the next 10,000 years, it's clear that it will be a stark change from the period postulated for up until now.

it's inevitable that such nomenclature would be introduced eventually, encompassing modern man on, and eventually that will be broken down into smaller geologic time periods as well after enough time passes.

this is just jumping the gun. The argument to NOT do this is that history is incomplete for the present. In 100 years we'll know very clear painful details the effects of global warming and other influences on the net state of the natural world.

Whoever proposed this probably just wanted to be the first to name it.

1/28/2008 10:20:12 PM

^Agreed, assuming things over the next 10,000 year play out as predicted.

1/28/2008 10:21:30 PM

At what point do you declare it happened then? They claim that it's been going on for 2 centuries.

1/28/2008 10:21:47 PM

dude, do you even know what GEOLOGY is? geez.

^^^ and, it's gonna be great in about 5 years when the temperatures all go down or don't change at all and all the "scientists" are scratching their heads trying to make that fit in with the global fearmongering propaganda.

I'm sorry, but the day science began taking a conclusion and looking for evidence to back it up is the day science died.

1/28/2008 10:22:51 PM

Dude, even Bush admitted that climate change is a real threat and that greenhouse gas emissions are bad. When are you going to wake up out of your dream world where nothing humans do impacts the world we live in?

1/28/2008 10:24:59 PM

dude, bush also said that Iraq had WMDs.

and, just because a politician says it, doesn't make it true. It was a lie when Al Gore lied about it, and it will be a lie the next time a politician talks about it.

If you knew anything about statistics, you'd understand that error margins on the order of 10^6 are NOT good. Correlations of zero are NOT good. Feeding random numbers through a model and generating the same "affirmative" result as when you feed real data through is NOT good. Yet, all of this perfectly described the "science" behind climate science. Yet, somehow, that's not a problem

1/28/2008 10:28:25 PM

^I would be intrigued if I saw your sources.

1/28/2008 10:29:40 PM

What in the hell are you talking about?

1/28/2008 10:30:14 PM

^^ you want sources? Try "google"

Or, if you are too lazy, try this: http://www.climate2003.com/blog/050202.scorecard.htm
Or, look up the Wegman report.

1/28/2008 10:35:54 PM

Quote :

"and, it's gonna be great in about 5 years when the temperatures all go down or don't change at all and all the "scientists" are scratching their heads trying to make that fit in with the global fearmongering propaganda."

The first link encompasses more than climate change. Erosion patterns are much easier to blame on humans than climate change.

But, human population has been increasing exponentially. You're delusional if you think our effect on the earth will decrease. It's one thing to argue that we don't have an affect now, but plain stupidity to argue that at some point in the next 10,000 years we won't have or be able to directly measure global effects of our presence.

1/28/2008 10:51:22 PM

Quote :

"^^^ and, it's gonna be great in about 5 years when the temperatures all go down or don't change at all and all the "scientists" are scratching their heads trying to make that fit in with the global fearmongering propaganda. I'm sorry, but the day science began taking a conclusion and looking for evidence to back it up is the day science died."

I really wish that you were right. [no homo]

1/28/2008 10:54:00 PM

This will be nothing compared to the Nucleocene

1/28/2008 10:54:11 PM

globar warming is part of the liberal conspiracy in which faggot hippies like leonardo dicapio own stock in First Solar and hybrid car technology thus trying to make $texas off of fear mongering climate change to get people to drive prius's as well as mainstream the use of solar cells for home heating needs. Not using oil and coal is completely unamerican. Prius drivers might as well attach a French flag to their roof.

1/28/2008 10:55:53 PM

Quote :

"I love it. one teeny-tiny part of the earth is allegedly changing, so we should name a whole fucking period of eath's history after it, making up as many things that are allegedly different yet are actually related to the teeny-tiny alleged part. brilliant"

If by "one teeny-tiny part" you mean "the entire surface of the planet, oceans included"...

1/28/2008 11:04:43 PM

really? I was not aware that deep in the oceans much was changing, go figure. I also wasn't aware that the surface area of the earth drawfs every other aspect about the earth

1/28/2008 11:07:19 PM

Regardless of whether the current human impact is all that severe, it's not really possible to decide that it's a new era in Earth's history starting just a few decades ago. That kind of decree takes long-term (thousands of years) observation to decide.

1/28/2008 11:09:27 PM

corals can't grow anymore because the Ph of the ocean has changed too much.

The northern ice cap will be gone in 5 to 10 years.

And species are going extinct at a rate 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than the last 60 million years, potentially making this the sixth "great extinction".


But you know, small change. liberal conspiracies. unamerican. [/debate]

1/28/2008 11:11:20 PM

I agree that stuff is changing, but there's no way to know for sure that the changes are permanent or that the trends are going to continue. I agree they probably will, but you can't be sure. It's too early to make the call.

But in the end I guess it's all semantics.

1/28/2008 11:14:50 PM

nah. in the end, it's all politics

1/28/2008 11:15:48 PM

looks at pictures like these and tell me that you don't think humans can effect the earth. all of these are direct results of or exacerbated by human activities
























is the earth resilient? Of course. Can it figure out how to clean itself? Sure, given enough time. But are we having an impact on what otherwise would have occurred naturally? No question about it.

1/28/2008 11:43:59 PM

What's to say that the actions of humanity are unnatural? Why is it that people continuously dissociate themselves from things considered to be "nature"? What is to say that the technological development and resulting actions of humans are not part of a natural process?

1/28/2008 11:46:06 PM

you had me with that pic bomb until the forest fires

those are completely natural

[Edited on January 28, 2008 at 11:52 PM. Reason : 

1/28/2008 11:51:57 PM

You know, plants really fucked up the Earth's environment millions upon millions of years ago. Replaced the entire atmosphere with a deadly poison.

1/28/2008 11:52:33 PM

Look at these PICTURES! clearly they are evidence of a disruption of a geological system that is billions of years old!!!

1/29/2008 12:04:27 AM

Quote :

"those are completely natural"

only the ones not started by some kid setting off fireworks in some field during a drought in the summer

1/29/2008 12:08:21 AM

ZOMG GLOBAL WARMING IS A LIBERAL CONSPIRACY SPREAD BY THE TERRORIST IN AN EFFORT TO CREATE THE DOWNFALL OF THE US ECONOMY

1/29/2008 12:10:43 AM

stop posting

you aren't funny

you aren't clever

[Edited on January 29, 2008 at 12:13 AM. Reason : ,]

1/29/2008 12:13:05 AM

was it Superman 2 where homeboy tries to nuke a faultline?

LOL

1/29/2008 12:31:52 AM

Quote :

"Look at these PICTURES! clearly they are evidence of a disruption of a geological system that is billions of years old!!!"

Exactly. The pictures show that we have clearly become a measurable part of, and thus a factor in, that system.

1/29/2008 12:51:48 AM

seriously. pictures are worth far more than empirical data.

1/29/2008 12:56:02 AM

Quote :

"corals can't grow anymore because the Ph of the ocean has changed too much. The northern ice cap will be gone in 5 to 10 years. And species are going extinct at a rate 1,000 to 10,000 times faster than the last 60 million years, potentially making this the sixth "great extinction". "

Bullshit hyperbole like this (and it is bullshit) only hurt your argument and marginalize your opinion. If you want to be taken seriously, don't pass off wild speculation and doomsday scenarios as facts.



[Edited on January 29, 2008 at 1:44 AM. Reason : 2]

1/29/2008 1:41:48 AM

^^ the empirical data leans to the side of those pictures, fyi.

1/29/2008 3:05:59 AM

^ what empirical data? The stuff that doesn't exist?

1/29/2008 6:46:11 AM

Quote :

"What's to say that the actions of humanity are unnatural? Why is it that people continuously dissociate themselves from things considered to be "nature"? What is to say that the technological development and resulting actions of humans are not part of a natural process?"

so then i guess it would also be natural to make international agreements to replace the use of fossil fuels as well in order to advert calamity?

i mean really, if we're so natural, then what's so artificial about us fixing the problems that we created?

1/29/2008 7:01:14 AM

In a billion years we won't matter, but in the near term, I think graphs like this are certainly worthy of a new epoch:


[Edited on January 29, 2008 at 8:56 AM. Reason : Mature Forests]

1/29/2008 8:55:38 AM

Global warming doesn't exist.

And if it did, we'd beat it with technology ok.

1/29/2008 9:49:06 AM

Quote :

"What's to say that the actions of humanity are unnatural? Why is it that people continuously dissociate themselves from things considered to be "nature"? What is to say that the technological development and resulting actions of humans are not part of a natural process? "

a thousand years after we are gone, it will be nearly impossible to tell that we were even here. a thousand years in terms of the age of the earth is a blink of an eye.

1/29/2008 9:59:25 AM

Quote :

"Regardless of whether the current human impact is all that severe, it's not really possible to decide that it's a new era in Earth's history starting just a few decades ago. That kind of decree takes long-term (thousands of years) observation to decide."

1/29/2008 10:18:56 AM

Quote :

"In a billion years we won't matter, but in the near term, I think graphs like this are certainly worthy of a new epoch:"

I am sure the English colonists in the 1600's used their imaging satellites in order to properly evaluate the extent of mature forest in the N. America

1/29/2008 10:26:01 AM

Coming from a geology graduate...

the geologic time scale is largely classified according to fossil evidence... so when large extinction events happen, new epochs/periods/etc are set.

the rate of extinctions happening now is EXTREMELY rapid, and it does make sense to form a new epoch at least.

you have got to be shitting me if you don't think humans have affected the planet in MAJOR ways.

1/29/2008 10:53:19 AM

Quote :

"What's to say that the actions of humanity are unnatural? Why is it that people continuously dissociate themselves from things considered to be "nature"? What is to say that the technological development and resulting actions of humans are not part of a natural process?"

That's really more of a philosophical question, but I think that once you introduce conscious thought into a process, it starts to separate from "nature". That's not to say humans aren't natural or don't belong in nature, but the simple fact that we are conscious being, conscious of our own existence and of our surroundings/environment, gives us the unique distinction of now being able to purposefully alter our habitat.

Quote :

"you had me with that pic bomb until the forest fires those are completely natural "

I know that forest fires are natural occurrences, but is is well known that
1) some/many forest fires are started intentionally or accidentally by human behavior, and
2) human behavior can and is exacerbating the problems of forest fires. For example, by attempting to squelch even the smallest of fires as soon as they start, which may have been started naturally, we allow undergrowth to build up, which end up as fuel for future fires which will burn bigger and longer than otherwise. Also, logging, damming, altering water flows, etc can change the behavior of natural fires.

Quote :

"Look at these PICTURES! clearly they are evidence of a disruption of a geological system that is billions of years old!!! "

Well, yes - clearly they are. The fact that the geological system is billions of years old has nothing to do with what's happening to it now.

Quote :

"seriously. pictures are worth far more than empirical data. "

I never said they were. But if people choose to ignore empirical data or are too stupid to understand it, maybe pictures are a better way to get the point across.

Quote :

"a thousand years after we are gone, it will be nearly impossible to tell that we were even here. a thousand years in terms of the age of the earth is a blink of an eye. "

Yes, that may be true, but that doesn't change the fact that we live on the earth now, and what we're doing affects how we and future generations live. After humans are extinct or life on earth ends as we know it, who gives a shit what it will look like? All of this has to do with maintaining the quality of life for people and animals here now and in the foreseeable future.

Quote :

"I am sure the English colonists in the 1600's used their imaging satellites in order to properly evaluate the extent of mature forest in the N. America "

Right, because without satellite imagery, we have no way to know what the earth even looks like! I mean, we didn't even discover the earth was round until 1957!

[Edited on January 29, 2008 at 10:54 AM. Reason : .]

1/29/2008 10:53:28 AM

again this is a philosophical discussion, but i don't think we're the only animals with self-conciousness. we're just the most technologically advanced of those species.

1/29/2008 10:55:08 AM

^ true. but this does nothing to prove why we shouldn't use our natural gift of intelligence to prevent devastating events [caused by us] from happening to the earth.

Quote :

"you had me with that pic bomb until the forest fires those are completely natural "

Ask a firefighter in the American west if he thinks human caused climate change is real. Those are the people who have to deal with the very real effects of the stupidity of people like you.

1/29/2008 11:01:34 AM

Quote :

"Ask a firefighter in the American west if he thinks human caused climate change is real."

what exactly makes them qualified to comment on humans' influence on climate change? let me guess, because they deal with hotter temperatures on a regular basis than you or I do? Why don't you ask an ice fisherman in Canada if he thinks human caused climate change is real. You might get a different answer than the fireman, but both answers will be worthless

1/29/2008 11:19:38 AM