Earth System Science: A Very Short Introduction by Tim Lenton

Author:Tim Lenton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780198718871
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2015-12-24T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

Anthropocene

Could the Earth system be on the brink of another revolutionary change, thanks to our activities as a species? We humans are very recent products of evolution, yet already we are transforming the planet at a global scale. The recognition that humans are now a key component of the Earth system was encapsulated in the Bretherton diagram (Figure 5). More recently, the term ‘Anthropocene’ has been coined to describe a new geological epoch in which human activities are transforming the Earth system at a global scale. There is much debate about whether this really is a new epoch, and if so, when it began. This chapter introduces how human evolution was shaped by changes in the Earth system and how we have gone on to transform the Earth system—tracing the key events on a timeline (Figure 20).

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