Reviews on books, internet and scientific media

Excerpt

In a brief online news article published May 10, 2011 at the BBC News: Science and Environment website, Howard Falcon-Lang (Royal Holloway, University of London) poses the question “Anthropocene: Have humans created a new geological age?” He describes briefly how some geologists now believe that human activity has conclusively changed our planet to the degree that we have entered a new geological age. Falcon-Lang points out that this idea of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, is not new. It was introduced over a decade ago by Nobel Laureate chemist, Paul Crutzen. In 2002, Crutzen wrote an article entitled Geology of Mankind in Nature: “For the past three centuries, the effects of humans on the global environment have escalated. Because of these anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, global climate may depart significantly from natural behaviour for many millennia to come. It seems appropriate to assign the term ‘Anthropocene’ to the present, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the Holocene—the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia.” …