The climate change convinced dared to dream a dream: that human beings, single-handedly, uniquely, in the 4.2 billion year geological history of planet Earth, had, some time within the last few hundred years, initiated a new geological epoch they dubbed the Anthropocene. They have lovingly nurtured their dream for nearly two decades now, eagerly anticipating the day when it would finally be officially accepted as the most recent geological epoch, the one which ended the (natural) Holocene, replacing it with the decidedly unnatural, man-made Anthropocene. Alas, ’twas not to be.

It already wasn’t looking that good for the Anthropocene to be honest. It had many critics among geologists especially, then along came this excoriating article recently by Mark Sagoff of George Mason University who renamed it, rather aptly and somewhat amusingly, the Narcisscene. As Sagoff points out pertinently in his article:

Geologic epochs typically last around three million years. In establishing them, the ICS has historically proceeded by first identifying a stratum or “chronostratigraphic unit,” which is usually categorized in terms of the fossils it contains. By figuring out how long fossil layers took to accumulate, geologists date them and derive the geologic time scale, which is used to estimate the age of the Earth.

By contrast, in convening the AWG to determine the onset of the Anthropocene, the ICS apparently abandoned this practice, instead presuming that the new epoch had already begun and then casting about for a fossil record or other stratigraphic evidence of the existence of the Anthropocene and of when exactly it began.

This has been the main bone of contention among opponents of the Anthropocene; the fact that it cannot be defined conventionally according to evidence dug up from the past, i.e. a clearly defined stratigraphic layer of fossilised remains and mineral deposits combined with the palaeo-climatological evidence of the changing climate and the abrupt increase in CO2 from ice cores. Anthropoceenies have countered with various arguments re. the onset of farming, mass tree felling/land clearance, nuclear tests and most recently the widespread problem of plastic rubbish floating around in our oceans. These things, they contest, will demarcate the beginning of the Anthropocene once they’ve been squished down into a thin layer by Mother Nature and buried beneath more recent deposits. But Anthropoceenies can’t wait that long so they ask us to suspend our scepticism and basically imagine that in several millennia from now, the incontrovertible evidence for a new geological epoch will be there, in the hard geological record; a globally identifiable, well-defined, stratigraphic layer. Meanwhile, they can flaunt their new epoch to politicians and policy-makers as ‘evidence’ that humans are indeed profoundly affecting the planet and that we must do something about it.

Anthropoceenies got their very own working group at the ICS (International Commission on Stratigraphy) and it was all going swingingly until another group of scientists at the ICS announced earlier this month that the most recent unit of the Geologic Time Scale is now officially the Late Holocene Meghalayan Age. Not a new geological epoch, just a most recent subdivision of the Holocene, starting around 4200 years ago, precipitated by a natural climatic event which coincided with the collapse of civilisations across the globe.

The Late Holocene Meghalayan Age, newly-ratified as the most recent unit of the Geologic Time Scale, began at the time when agricultural societies around the world experienced an abrupt and critical mega-drought and cooling 4,200 years ago. This key decision follows many years of research by Quaternary scientists, scrutinized and tested by the subcommissions of the International Commission on Stratigraphy under the chairmanship of Professor David Harper, Durham University, UK.

Agricultural-based societies that developed in several regions after the end of the last Ice Age were impacted severely by the 200-year climatic event that resulted in the collapse of civilizations and human migrations in Egypt, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yangtze River Valley.  Evidence of the 4.2 kiloyear climatic event has been found on all seven continents.

The 4.2kyr climatic event was one of a series of North Atlantic Cold Events which affected climate and circulation patterns across the globe and involved the slowing of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), at least some of which also coincided with a marked downturn in solar activity. The Little Ice Age Maunder Minimum marked the culmination of the last Holocene North Atlantic Cold Event. The 4.2kyr event resulted in cooling and intense aridification across many regions of the globe, including North Africa, Spain, the Arabian Peninsula, south central Asia and India, Mesopotamia and China.

Afterwards, the global climate continued to gradually cool and stayed dry, unlike in the early Holocene when the ‘norm’ was hot and humid. Quite obviously then, the beginning of the latest geological subdivision of the Holocene coincided with natural climate change (a transition to cooler and drier). It remains to be seen if the modest warming we’ve seen since 1850, the early phase of which consisted of a recovery from the LIA, will reverse that cooling and drying trend. There is little convincing evidence thus far that modern climate change is highly unusual in that it exceeds the bounds of past natural Holocene climate variability.

Prof Mark Maslin, of University College London, has invested considerable time and energy in researching and promoting the Anthropocene, along with his colleague Simon Lewis, and as such is considerably peeved by it being effectively sidelined by this new official ratification from the ICS:

I doubt this will mark the end of efforts to try and get the Anthropocene officially recognised, but it deals a severe blow to that endeavour and to the concept that humans drive global environmental change. Quite the opposite in fact, it affirms that the most recent subdivision of geological time involved human civilisation being severely affected by natural global climate change.

NASA climatologist Gavin Schmidt wasn’t too happy about Judith Curry effectively dissing the Anthropocene by quoting Sagoff’s excellent article above either. Bizarrely, he posted this tweet in response as somehow providing ‘proof’ that the signal of the current warming episode and the accompanying increase in atmospheric CO2 is comparable to the signal of the PETM warming episode 56 million years ago! (Hint: just look at the chronological scales of both ‘events’ and note also that most of the ‘signal’ in the modern event consists of model projections).

Not really a very convincing argument for adopting the Anthropocene I think!

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64 Comments

  2. The BBC has picked up on the news and quotes Maslin:

    “Already the decision to discriminate ages within the Holocene has drawn fire from some scientists who believe the move is premature. They question whether some of the climate shifts used as anchors for the new ages were truly global in their impact.

    They are also concerned that the divisions have been approved when there is still an active debate about assigning a new geologic slice of time to reflect specifically the influence of humans on the planet.

    Tentatively referred to as the Anthropocene, its precise definition – its beginning point and the spike used to denote its initiation – is the subject of ongoing research.

    Mark Maslin is professor of geography at University College London, UK, and a key figure in the Anthropocene discussion.

    He told BBC News: “After the original paper and going through various committees, they’ve suddenly announced [the Meghalayan] and stuck it on the diagram. It’s official, we’re in a new age; who knew? We have lots of new definitions that perhaps now contradict the Anthropocene Working Group and go against what most scientists perceive to be the most important change on Earth in the last 10,000 years.”

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44868527

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  4. I posted this over at Bishop Hill and thought it relevant here

    “Meghalayan, Anthropocene. Who cares? It’s not important. Even the Holocene is not important and really is only the latest interglacial within the Pleistocene, making the Quaternary (Pleistocene + Holocene) unnecessary. It’s only because we think ourselves super-important that we give so much importance to these latest slivers of time that involve us. Some humans also believe we are so damn important that we can affect the Earth globally and this is unique – they forget the evolution of turf-forming grasses in the Miocene that clothed semi arid areas with vegitation for the first time, creating grasslands, that must have substantially reduced erosion of those regions and allowed evolution of the savanna biota.

    There are also confusions about subdivisions of time (which actually can only be subdivided artificially) and subdivisions of the geological rock record. Thus we can talk about the London Clay (a rock unit) being of Eocene age (a time Unit).

    My advice, ignore this squabble, it’s of no importance.”

    Liked by 3 people

  7. There are two things (as always): what it really means in scientific terms, and what it means in the world. The latter was always the laser-like focus of the Anthropoweenies. The goal was always to get something officially sanctified in the attempts of which the activists are not at all averse to using the scientific aspect to persuade, beg, and plead their way through. Once done (which is now thwarted), the next step would have been to turn around, shed the pious robes of science and declare ‘it is now official, mankind has changed Earth forever.’

    Dump this anti-scientific nonsense.

    Liked by 1 person

  8. Maslin is whining. Dozens of sulky tweets from him today. But the IUGS are having none of it, in fact accusing him of “seriously misrepresenting” things:

    Like

  10. Is Maslin really arguing that scientific papers exist that state that periods of time – the Quaternary and the Holocene – should not exist? How can time not exist? This does not seem to represent the reasoning of a sane person. Could it be that Maslin does not understand what chronostratigraphic units are?

    Liked by 1 person

  11. Alan, indeed he does seem to suggest that such papers exist. See if you can guess who wrote them.

    Yes, it’s a paper by Lewis and Maslin. But they cite other authorities in their argument, for example Maslin and Lewis, before drawing conclusions about “the anomaly that the Holocene Epoch was ratified”.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Wow, just going through the tweets. There’s enough dust being kicked up by this new classification to be able to define the beginning of a new geological epoch, once it settles! Geology just got exciting!

    Liked by 2 people

  14. :Gosh “the Late Holocene Meghalayan Age, newly-ratified as the most recent unit of the Geologic Time Scale, began at the time when agricultural societies around the world experienced an abrupt and critical mega-drought and cooling 4,200 years ago. This key decision follows many years of research by Quaternary scientists, scrutinized and tested by the subcommissions of the International Commission on Stratigraphy under the chairmanship of Professor David Harper, Durham University, UK.”

    So strange that the beginning of this new time unit, advertised as being so important and well marked at 2250 BC, was not identifiable previously in Europe where the boundaries between the Atlantic, a warm moist phase and the Subboreal at 5700BP and between the Subboreal and the Subatlantic at 2600BP have been recognized for decades (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blytt–Sernander_system).

    Might be interesting to pursue who has been pushing the “official” subdivision of the Holocene and why, but I can’t really be arsed.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. Pingback: Ignore The ‘Anthropocene’ Hype: We’re Still Living In The Late Holocene | The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

  20. Interesting article at The Atlantic on this dispute:

    https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/anthropocene-holocene-geology-drama/565628/

    “What the fuck is the Meghalayan?” asked Ben van der Pluijm, a geologist.

    “Whatever the Meghalayan is, we live in it now.”

    “I was stunned by this whole thing,” says van der Pluijm, who is a professor of geology at the University of Michigan. “I think they’ve trivialized the Anthropocene by doing this.”

    Van der Pluijm believes that the ICS slighted the Anthropocene by chopping the Holocene into three. The timescale “shouldn’t be cut into smaller and smaller pieces,” he told me. “This is a bit of a silly activity. It’s very Monty Python—the Ministry of Silly Cuts.”

    Finney agreed that the new subdivisions were not meant to slight the Anthropocene working group. “People have tried to say, ‘Oh, this was hidden, it was not transparent, it was dumped on the world. There’s a bitter fight between the Holocene and the Anthropocene working group,’” he said.

    But Zalasiewicz’s support for the new subdivisions proved this was not the case, he told me. “The chairman [of the Anthropocene working group] voted to approve these subdivisions, and he did it back in 2016. So there’s no collusion. Nothing’s hidden. Those charges, they’re lies.”

    He then criticized the Anthropocene working group at length, accusing them of committing ethical lapses and of courting an unseemly amount of press coverage.

    “They have an incredible press campaign that has misrepresented the science and history of the units of stratigraphy,” he said.

    He charges that the Anthropocene working group has fixated on finding a “golden spike” in time to start the new epoch. They have failed to find “a stratigraphic unit,” a rock layer that associates with the Anthropocene.

    “Anthropogenic climate change is real, there’s no doubt about that,” Finney said. But he said that geologists didn’t need a new “core stratigraphic unit” to discuss this change: They could just say the year when things happened. “If you find a pile of garbage somewhere, then ‘That’s the Anthropocene!’ No, that’s a garbage dump,” he said.

    LOL

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  21. Strata of the Anthropocene used to identified on British geological maps as “made ground”.

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  25. As Jaime reports, Sagoff’s article is excoriating indeed, all the more so for being so erudite, matter of fact and low key. It brings into sharp focus the astonishing hubris of those who seek to reverse the Copernican revolution by placing Man back at the centre of the cosmos, as he puts it.

    Sagoff’s statement that, “It is the first rule of rationality that reason recognize its limits” is an apt rebuke to Maslin et al, and to Colose and Seitz, who commented negatively under the article, the former calling it “extremely poorly thought out”! Pearls and swine come to mind.

    Liked by 2 people

  26. Oz, Great Southern Land, is a land of distances, hence our screeching cockatoos,
    the carrying laughing song of kookaburras and boy scout call … ‘coo-ee!’

    Don’t think Brad heard me, Alan. )

    Like

  27. Beth. I lived for a time in the great white equivalent of Oz – Canada, with its sounds of howling wolves.
    There is a perhaps apocryphal tale of messages passed between English and ex-pat relatives living in the Prairies at a time when trans Atlantic flights had to refuel at Gander in Newfoundland.
    English relative: “uncle Fred flying to see you, suggest you meet him at Gander”
    Canadian relative: “You meet him, you’re nearer!”

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  32. LOL. Six years ago, Anthropoceenies were losing their rag about the Meghalayan being defined as the latest division of the Late Holocene, because it stomped all over their dream of having the Holocene officially ended and a brand new geological era – the Anthropocene – officially declared as having begun. I said they would keep trying:

    I doubt this will mark the end of efforts to try and get the Anthropocene officially recognised, but it deals a severe blow to that endeavour and to the concept that humans drive global environmental change. Quite the opposite in fact, it affirms that the most recent subdivision of geological time involved human civilisation being severely affected by natural global climate change.

    And they did. Alas, to no avail. The Anthropocene is officially dead, just like Monty Python’s parrot.

    The highest governing body in geology has upheld a contested vote by scientists against adding the Anthropocene, or human age, to the official timeline of Earth’s history.

    The vote, which a committee of around two dozen scholars held in February, brought an end to nearly 15 years of debate about whether to declare that our species had transformed the natural world so thoroughly since the 1950s as to have sent the planet into a new epoch of geologic time.”

    Despite the continued objections of Dr. Zalasiewicz and his vice-chair, Martin J. Head:

     “…the committee’s parent body, the International Union of Geological Sciences, has decided the results will stand, the union’s executive committee said in a statement on Wednesday.

    That means it’s official. Our planet, at least for the time being, is still in the Holocene epoch, which began 11,700 years ago with the most recent melting of the ice sheets.”

    Pray for Mark Maslin. He has probably run out of toys to throw out of his pram and may be considering more drastic measures.

    Liked by 1 person

  34. That’s interesting Robin, thanks.

    Simon: thanks. It will be most interesting to note whether the ICS (and various learned geological societies) eventually accept that the Holocene has ended. My suspicion is that that’s unlikely to happen for a long time – if ever. I may of course be quite wrong – we’ll see.

    You were right!

    Liked by 2 people

  36. Does anyone here care a mini jot about the Anthropocene or Meghalayan, the first of which seems to have been rejected and seems to be based on non geological criteria, the second seemingly based on climatic changes that are weak enough not to be easily recognisable in Europe where the vast majority of geologic stages were recognised?
    Why not replace with “Latest Holocene” which everyone could understand (or ignore)?

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  37. Does anyone here care a mini jot about the Anthropocene…?

    Only to the extent that Mark Maslin and other climate activists seem to care a great deal and it’s not a bad thing to demonstrate their foolishness.

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  38. Robin the problem is that a geologic unit akin to the Anthropocene could be justified on the basis that mankind now shifts more sediment than any geologic process. Anthropocene sediments could be identified by the presence within them of particles of anthropomorphic origin like plastic or radioactive elements. Nevertheless I see no reason to do so.

    Those who support the concept of the Anthropocene do this as if the time unit can be defined independently of the geologic methodology that needs to be adopted – identifying it by its faunal content, need to identify a stratotype (a location where the boundaries can be established by reference to a sedimentary sequence). Instead they identify a tree (a tree!!) where the beginning of the Anthropocene can be identified. Is it any wonder that a gaggle of male white geologists turned the proposal down. That the proposal could be useful to climate activism would cut no ice with them.

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  39. Robin, that’s quite hilarious, Maslin thinking that the Anthropocene should not be decided by a group of mainly white male scientists who presumably, despite their alarming lack of diversity, are assessing the actual stratigraphic evidence necessary to formally declare a new geological epoch. He advocates the involvement of people (presumably less white, less male, less heterosexual) from the social sciences and humanities plus indigenous people – despite their presumed lack of experience and expertise in the geological sciences. He also conveniently ignores the fact that the three authors of that Con article (Turney, Palmer and himself) are all male and white!

    What’s even more hilarious is that this tree they’re talking about on Campbell island was sampled during the ill-fated Spirit of Mawson expedition of summer 2013/14, which became known as The Ship of Fools, because Turney and his team were trapped by ice in the Antarctic, the documentation of the ‘disappearance’ of which was the main purpose of the expedition! Instead of melting away due to global warming, Antarctic ice extent that season was at a record high and they had to be airlifted off the ship!

    https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2014/01/07/a-ship-of-fools-in-antarctica/

    If the present is being unkind to Maslin and his fellow climate change cultists, then I imagine history is going to prove even more mean when it is finally and fully documented!

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  40. Robin – thanks for that link “Note this exchange occurred in March 2009 – nine years ago”

    Well maybe 2015 but in the right epoch 🙂

    Your comments were on the Mark & proved right over time (eons)

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  41. PS – From the comments on above –

    “Robin Guenier

    Simon and Mark:

    Yesterday someone drew my attention to a piece in The Conversation last August. Entitled “Calling recent human history ‘Anthropocene’ won’t help us solve the problems we face“, it can be found here: https://theconversation.com/calling-recent-human-history-anthropocene-wont-help-us-solve-the-problems-we-face-30387

    In his article, the author Tony Brown suggests that advocates of a new geological epoch “argue that recognising the Anthropocene might move society towards a more sustainable path”. In other words, that calls for a change may be more political than scientific.

    Do you think there’s any truth in this?

    Report

    1. Paul Matthews In reply to Robin Guenier“… calls for a change may be more political than scientific. Do you think there’s any truth in this?”There is an article in Geographical Magazine by Professor Maslin that sheds some light on this question. It’s title is “Neoliberal nightmare” and the last sentence reads: “This is where ‘geography’ can make a difference by envisioning new political systems of governance, enabling collective action and with more equal distribution of wealth, resources and opportunities.”

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  42. Jaime, I think you may like this: https://theconversation.com/with-encyclical-pope-francis-elevates-environmental-justice-42871

    As you see, it’s another TC piece from 2015 that referred inter alia to the alleged Anthropocene – this time authored by Lisa H. Sideris, a professor at Indiana University. It contains a lot of interesting and amusing material (e.g. re the ‘consensus’), but I suspect you may be particularly interested in Professor Sideris’s accusation that I was ‘mansplaining’ despite the arguments I used being exactly the same – both in tone and content – as the arguments I’d used with two males (Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin) in the TC piece referred to above. Yet they didn’t resort to insult or give any sign of finding my remarks condescending or patronising. So why did Professor Sideris?

    It’s also of interest that Geoff Chambers and Paul Matthews – both of this parish – were also involved.

    Liked by 2 people

  44. And the BBC reports that the IUGS said that

    “Despite its rejection as a formal unit of the geologic timescale, the Anthropocene will nevertheless continue to be used not only by Earth and environmental scientists but also by social scientists, politicians and economists as well as by the public at large”.

    so geologists can recognize reality. Those arguing for the Anthropocene as a formally recognised geologic unit had a hopeless cause, the time unit was far too short to be recognized as a formal GEOLOGIC unit. But it is a useful concept and won’t disappear. Mankind is a major geologic force, it’s influence is recognisable.

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  45. Ants are a major geological force:

    The biotic enhancement of Ca-Mg silicate weathering has helped maintain Earth’s habitability over geological time scales by assisting in the gradual drawdown of atmospheric CO2. 25 years of in-situ measurements of Ca-Mg silicate mineral dissolution by ants, termites, root mats, bare ground, and a control reveals ants to be one of the most powerful biotic weathering agents yet recognized. Six sites in Arizona and Texas (USA) indicate that eight different ant species enhance mineral dissolution by ∼50×–300× over controls. A comparison of extracted soil at a 50 cm depth in ant colonies and adjacent bare ground shows a gradual accumulation of CaCO3 content for all eight ant species over 25 yr. Ants, thus, have potential to provide clues on how to enhance contemporary carbon sequestration efforts to transform Ca-Mg silicates and CO2 into carbonate. Given that ants underwent a great diversification and biomass expansion over the Cenozoic, a speculative implication of this research is that ant enhancement of Ca-Mg silicate dissolution might have been an influence on Cenozoic cooling.

    https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/42/9/771/131631/Ants-as-a-powerful-biotic-agent-of-olivine-and

    Perhaps we do need to identify and define the ANThropocene!

    Liked by 1 person

  46. Robin,

    I went through that conversation involving yourself, the author, Geoff, Paul and others. Quite astounding. You got accused of ‘mansplaining’ by an author who was basically writing about the Pope ‘godsplaining’ climate change to the masses via his latest encyclical! She furthermore demonstrated her woeful ignorance of science by suggesting that the ‘missing heat’ during the Pause was disappearing into the oceans via the absorption of CO2, thereby conflating heat with CO2, which is an absurd error to make. In defence of her lack of knowledge and intellectual rigour, she resorted to sexist comments targeted at those (men) who were challenging her. Utterly farcical, but sadly illustrative of the ‘debate’ which has been raging for years between climate change sceptics and supporters of consensus science.

    Liked by 1 person

  47. Mark, the Guardian basically confirms that having spectacularly failed to have the Anthropocene formally ratified as as geological epoch, its supporters intend to redouble their efforts to popularise the term and bring it into common usage anyway. I expect the Guardian will soon issue a new editorial ‘style guide’ re. the Anthropocene, just like they did in 2019 with the ‘climate crisis’ which term, though it lacks scientific rigour and an evidential basis, is now widely used by low info climate alarmists claiming to be ‘following the science’.

    Like

  48. Jaime I profoundly disagree with you about the utility of a time unit that could be identified as Anthropocene, just not that it should be a geologic unit. Humans have profoundly modified the Earth’s surface and somewhat changed its atmospheric composition and perhaps modified its climate. Each year we move more sediment than rivers do and commonly in directions against the pull of gravity. We are now arguably the most significant force acting to change the Earth’s surface and our actions have changed the composition of sediments so that they can be identified as having formed during a time when human influence was significant. So the argument for this time unit being recognised was a finely balanced one. Many will use the term, even some geologists.

    Loved ANThropocene.

    Liked by 2 people

  49. Alan, humans of course have a significant impact on the environment. I am starting to wonder though if the human impact upon the environment (global and/or regional) now is truly ‘unprecedented’ in terms of the past impacts of various non-human species and I am also beginning to wonder if, in the grand scheme of things, our impact upon the planet is indeed as assumed, vastly greater right now than certain other species of animal or plant. I don’t think these questions have been looked at in enough detail because there is this assumption that man, being more intelligent and far more industrious and ‘meddlesome’ than any other animal or plant species, of course has a far greater impact on the environment. As far as I can see, the only thing unique about humans is their ability to reflect upon their impact upon the natural world and from reflection, to thereafter proceed rapidly to obsession. I might be wrong. This is something I intend to look deeper into – though I shall try not to be too obsessive about it!

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  50. Jaime. An interesting argument/speculation that is worth pondering (I have already mentioned evolution of turf-forming grasses that must have caused enormous changes to parts of the Earth’s surface and its biota (the grasslands and savannas) in the mid-Tertiary). 

    But any reasoned argument must surely identify humans as being paramount in this capacity. No other organism has converted so much of the biota and land surface as food or killed off other organisms treated as competitors. No other organism has shaped the Earth’s surface to the extent the Man has, nor stripped and separated Earth’s metallic riches. I have swum and scuba-dived off beaches almost world-wide (except the poles) andq found detritus of human origin everywhere. It’s commonly difficult to visualise what many areas would have looked like before humans took over – only the wild and desolate regions (that man doesn’t want) are relatively unaffected, excepting specially preserved areas like National Parks of North America.

    Liked by 1 person

  51. Alan,

    No other organism has converted so much of the biota and land surface as food or killed off other organisms treated as competitors. No other organism has shaped the Earth’s surface to the extent the Man has, nor stripped and separated Earth’s metallic riches. I have swum and scuba-dived off beaches almost world-wide (except the poles) and found detritus of human origin everywhere.

    I want to find hard data backing up those claims. It is without doubt that the changes wrought by humans are very obvious, especially to us. But I do wonder if the obvious unnatural changes we have made to the planet are more significant, qualitatively and quantitatively, than the often less obvious natural changes which other organisms have made or do make. Is the human race truly outside the evolutionary cycle of life that has shaped this planet for billions of years or are we just kidding ourselves that we are somehow truly unique (and uniquely destructive)?

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  52. I have thought long and hard about your view that perhaps some other organism might have a greater impact upon the Earth than humans. I cannot agree but perhaps I can see a way for compromise. In all other respects than intelligence, humans can be outcompeted. As animals we are weak and slow. But it is with our machines that we dominate. We can kill any other animal. With our machines we can move mountains (and have done). We overwhelmingly dominate all of our environments from the polar wastes to tropical jungles. As a species we are supreme. Only organisms that cause disease can bring us low.

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  53. Morning Alan,

    “As a species we are supreme. Only organisms that cause disease can bring us low.”

    Like bacteria, fungi and viruses? Most bacteria exist in the deep subsurface, where human interference is limited, and where they lend critical support to plants. In terms of biomass, humans are puny compared to these organisms. We had better hope that our ‘superior’ intelligence is sufficient to ensure our continued dominance. In the long run I’m not so sure.

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  54. I often remind myself of flying over the Canadian Prairies where hour after hour and a horizon to horizon, the entire land surface is transformed to produce human food.

    Liked by 1 person

  55. Here’s an interesting graphic:

    Although 45% of habitable land is given over to agriculture, 80% of that is dedicated to livestock, i.e. grazing animals, meaning that the main influence humans have exerted upon land use is converting natural forests and grasslands into open grassland for domesticated livestock. Only 16% of the 45% of habitable land dedicated to agriculture is used to grow monoculture crops, which means that just 7.2% of habitable land is used for food crops, which remarkably provide 62% of the globally consumed protein.

    Liked by 1 person

  56. need to examine this diagram more before finally commenting. But first impression is surprise that no land is attributed to housing. When you look at the size of cities worldwide and (locally) the proximity of towns and villages to each other, I wouldn’t be surprised if this constitutes 1 or 2 % of the “habitable land”.

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  57. Well obviously I didn’t read the diagram with the care it deserves because it does suggest that 1% of the ‘habitable land’ is “urban and built up land”. This however I believe must be an underestimate. When you consider the sprawl of cities and other settlements my guess is nearer 2%, especially when the areal coverage of all land given over to transportation between settlements (roads, railways, boat harbours and airports) is considered.

    So by my estimates 2% of habitable land is occupied almost exclusively by one species. Of other habitable land 45% is devoted to feeding that species, either directly by growing crops or indirectly by growing plants for livestock that we consume. Even a small part of non-habitable “shrub” will be used by humans via goats. Also an ever increasing percentage of the land designated “forests”is being utilised by us to produce palm oil, and some of the boreal forests are used for timber and fuel. So in total we are approaching 50% of the habitable land which in turn constitutes 38% of the entire land surface. In my book this diagram only reinforces the claim that Homo sapiens constitutes the overwhelmingly dominant force shaping the Earth’s surface today.

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  58. So by my estimates 2% of habitable land is occupied almost exclusively by one species

    Once again Alan, it should be pointed out that although human settlements are dominated by humans, primarily because they are purposely designed to accommodate humans, even in the densest urban areas, wildlife can survive and even thrive and so can domestic species like cats and dogs. I shouldn’t need to mention rats; not many people like them but they are supreme survivors and number in their millions in towns and cities. The rather more cute urban fox is currently doing a lot better than its rural cousins. We often don’t give nature the credit it deserves for its amazing adaptability in the face of diversity and radical changes to the environment. Could we wipe out the vast majority of species on earth? Possibly, but we would quickly go extinct along with them, I fear. More likely, Nature will find a way to work around us if we don’t bother to find ways to work with nature.

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  60. I concede a minor point. We do purposely share our settlements with other species, either deliberately as with pets and pack animals or by sufferance. If we need to get rid of rodents (as when they introduce disease) we do so, either chemically or by using other animals deliberately engineered to destroy vermin. I share my life with three canines so designed (two Scottie’s and one miniature Schnauzer). We don’t have a rodent problem.

    On land devoted to agriculture again some nature is tolerated. But if species cause significant losses in productivity they are eliminated or at the very least severely reduced in numbers.

    All this doesn’t change the main conclusion that almost all of the most valuable land is now devoted to feeding humans. More is consumed or greatly modified to build our world. There never has been any other species that has caused so much change to the Earth’s land surface. 

    I even half recall some considerable years ago speculation that we could irretrievably damage the oceans by inadvertently spilling some types of pesticide. We have that power.

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  61. There never has been any other species that has caused so much change to the Earth’s land surface. 

    That’s probably not true Alan. The first mass extinction 2.4 billion years ago was caused by cyanobacteria producing oxygen, which, in the atmosphere and the oceans, killed off most of the anaerobic life forms existing at the time. Then, ironically, during the Devonian, the evolution of large trees with deep roots may have caused nutrient runoff into the oceans causing algal blooms which depleted the oxygen, resulting in the series of Devonian mass extinctions. This was on a scale very much larger than the nutrient runoffs today caused by farming and one would hope that if our farming activities do ever threaten a mass anoxia of the oceans, we would use our ingenuity and intelligence to avert such a disaster – not an option available to primitive trees.

    “Our analysis shows that the evolution of tree roots likely flooded past oceans with excess nutrients, causing massive algae growth,” Filippelli said. “These rapid and destructive algae blooms would have depleted most of the oceans’ oxygen, triggering catastrophic mass extinction events.”

    The Devonian Period, which occurred 419 million to 358 million years ago, prior to the evolution of life on land, is known for mass extinction events, during which it’s estimated nearly 70 percent of all life on Earth perished. The process outlined in the study — known scientifically as eutrophication — is remarkably similar to modern, albeit smaller-scale, phenomenon currently fueling broad “dead zones” in the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, as excess nutrients from fertilizers and other agricultural runoff trigger massive algae blooms that consume all of the water’s oxygen.

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221109124317.htm

    What we are finding is that humans are not the only major planetary modifying/destructive species throughout earth’s history and in fact may not be the most significant. Which is not what the Anthropoceenies probably want to hear.

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  62. Jaime, suggest you revise the definition of “species”.

    I do concede that some groups of organisms, as you suggest, may have instituted major changes, but with the exception of Cyanobacteria I consider it debatable whether such changes were greater than what humans have wrought upon the Earth.

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  63. Don’t believe the Devonian tree roots extracting nutrients sufficient to cause eutrophication. I would have expected to see in Devonian sediments abundant evidence of this which I don’t think exists. Also rather odd that deep roots don’t seem to be associated with trees that created the later Carboniferous coals.

    But then this is only an opinion. 

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