Steve Harris writes:
An article came out on the AIP Physics Today website about a push from some scientists to formally designate today’s human geological epoch as the “Anthropocene”. Editors of the journal Nature argue that the name “provides a powerful framework for considering global change and how to manage it.” Here is a link:
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/10.1063/PT.5.8107
Here is an excerpt, quoted from an article in Nature:
“Some supporters of the Anthropocene idea have even been likened to zealots. “There’s a similarity to certain religious groups who are extremely keen on their religion—to the extent that they think everybody who doesn’t practise their religion is some kind of barbarian,” says one geologist who asked not to be named.”
Another excerpt:
“Official recognition of the concept would invite cross-disciplinary science. And it would encourage a mindset that will be important not only to fully understand the transformation now occurring but to take action to control it.”
There are some interesting comments in the online discussion. One of them from a poster known as Guest is copied below. I thought it well written and worth sharing.
“When a popular foolishness arises in society one may weep for Reason, or laugh at absurdity. Few take notice of the former, and the proponents of the absurdity are greatly offended by the latter. It is clearly embarrassing to be exposed on the wrong side of Reality, and to have your favourite phantom hazard deflated. Consider crop circles. Even after the perpetrators confessed and demonstrated how they created them, true believers refused the explanation and vilified both the sceptics and the self-exposed pranksters.
Phantom hazards are popular with the fundamentally pusillanimous for the ‘threat’ can be confronted with the (perhaps sub-conscious) realization that there is no physical harm for the believer, but provides a cause of great moral superiority – and not infrequently, a generous income. Politically, phantom hazards are ideal tool for manipulating a trusting population. The threat is what the proponents construe it to be, it will never physically materialize, and victory can be declared at any time it loses its persuasive ability and attendant revenue. The true danger lies in real damage done to society through misapplication of effort and funds, and the theft of personal freedom – in this case ‘to fight climate change’ – previously ‘global warming’.
The arrogance of the political manipulators to pretend that they can organize society to prevent ‘climate change’ speaks poorly of those who would be thought of as ‘leaders’, and brings into question not only their intelligence but also their ethics. We must ask who benefits from this particular phantom hazard – and it certainly is not the general population.
One must admit that, from the perspective of manipulating society, global warming (or ‘climate change’) is a clever tool. This phantom hazard is global. It impacts everyone in the world. And they are not only its victims but also its cause. Brilliant! But dishonest. Such perfidy warrants much more than mere scoff.”
Related:
The Anthropocene Myth
Blaming all of humanity for climate change lets capitalism off the hook.
This entire Global Warming thing has been a religion for these people for years now. I refuse to discuss Global Warming with anyone except my closest friends as it seems to be like discussing politics and real religion. No point to discussing lies pitched as truth.
I said this the other day; I think the people who are against industrially produced CO2 are lumping that in with general pollution. Those people are well intentioned, wanting to save the planet from unwarrented pollution of soil, water and that. Industrially produced CO2 ( as a threat to Global survival of species) is targeted as a ruse against the evolved industrial stuff that works because it is an easily digestible scare story. some other thing would probably serve just as well.
It’s good news in a way. As the number of adherents to the religion dwindle as the grown-ups point out that in 40 years, and a half-doubling of the (purported) effects of (purported) anthropogenic CO2 there has been no measurable effect on any climate parameter.
I think it’s a case of “Boss, I think we’re not winning on the science. Why don’t we try the ‘Ooooh look over there a squirrel’ approach and give it a big, long sciency sounding name?”
We should relabel it the Hubrisocene.
A very LUCRATIVE religion.
Follow the money- it leads to corruption.
I stopped talking about sensitive subjects with my progressive friends about a year ago. Also, about 5 years ago a relative voluntarily estranged themselves from me because of my views.
Well, let us agree the Anthropocene began in 1492.
The Windowsocene – another geological era, began in November 1985.
Rather short, a new era was declared in September 1997 – the Googolocene.
Not to be outdone, consider the Neocene, per Zalasiewicz, from2010.
Or does this diminish the Cretaceous – at >60 million years .. . . . . .
Auto
Apologies – umm /SARC.
Sorry – I assume some managed.
Mods – sorry.
Auto
Capitalism is the only hope humanity has of adapting to climate change (which has never been proven to be caused by human activity — never).
In the end, the socialism weakens an economy to the point that people d1e from cold or heat, from starvation, and or from disease. We have much data from horrendously thorough experiments, often called “Plans.”
(Sir Winston Churchill quoted from memory — Note: the rulers in a socialist economy do not share in that misery equally. Some, after all, are “more equal than others.” George Orwell in Animal Farm)
“Animal Farm” was one of my favorite books as a child. I think I need to reread it, in light of the strong resemblance of the pig characters in story to the modern era’s eco/climate-progressives.
It’s no wonder that all left wing ideologies are doomed to collapse sooner or later. The community is drained by the capitalistic political elite respectively …
Dear Sasja, but in a free market, ALL may be capitalists. Some will accumulate more of that capital, but ALL will have more than they will ever have under a socialist, planned, economy where ONLY the ruling elite accumulate wealth in the end.
Unequal blessings are better than shared misery.
Just my point … 😉
The farther to the left politics are, the worse it gets. As it is in Sweden right now, there are indications that the politics is slowly moving towards left. The problem is that too few voters understand the consequences …
How can a community be drained when it is fed by the very system you appear to so despise? Draining of communities can only be achieved by excessive government sucking out the will to work and the need to work by hand feeding everyone in order to gain their obedience. Venezuela??
Simplified, the fall of the Soviet empire was mainly due to capitalism and corruption. Most of the money ended up in the pockets of greedy politicians and the military. Why do you think the Communists in the Russian military of today are so eager to gain power in politics?
Sasja, I think we are talking past each other… . The U.S.S.R. still is, de facto,, it is just called “Russia,” now. Socialism still rules there, confiscating (oh, sure, they didn’t pay their “taxes” lol) the wealth of entrepreneurs like the imprisoned head of Ukos oil, etc… . In a FREE market, capitalist society, citizens keep their profits to with as they please. Socialism (not free market capitalism) taxes away the profits into the pockets of the “elite.”
Holocene has hardly started.
.
The Holocene should be a stage within the Pleistocene Epoch.
I wondered about that, too. Any other geologists here?
+1
This table is from USGS.gov, and I assume they should know
http://pubs.usgs.gov/ha/ha730/ch_g/jpeg/G016.jpeg
http://geomaps.wr.usgs.gov/archive/socal/geology/geologic_history/images/timescale.jpg
The term Holocene seems to be a stretch in the great scheme of things. We are in the upper Pleistocene. In a couple of million years we will have a big pile of dirt laid on top of a layer known as “strata with Homo Sapiens cultural remains”, found within the newly remained middle Pleistocene. Anthropocene is just a propaganda word.
The Holocene AND the Pleistocene are part of the Quaternary; the Quaternary, Pliocene and Miocene are together part of the Neogene; Oligocene, Eocene, and Paleocene are lumped together in the Paleogene. The Pleistocene is now recognized to start at MIS stage 104 at 2.58 my, Holocene at 11.5 k yrs ago. The Tertiary should be removed (primarily kept for old farts like myself who can’t seem to drop old nomenclature), no sense of keeping though anymore (it’s not like we decided to keep Primary and Secondary)….
The charts supplied are a bit dated. The current dates/times/names (and, yes, they are still in some stage of flux) is found at:
https://engineering.purdue.edu/Stratigraphy/gssp/index.php?parentid=all
Note that the names are chronostratigraphic, not geochronologic (radiometric dates are approximate, and for reference only). Equivalencies are:
Stage = Age
Series = Epoch (e.g., Pleistocene Epoch)
System = Period (e.g., Ediacaran Period)
Erathem = Era (e.g. Mesozoic Era)
Eonothem = Eon (e.g., Phanerozoic Eon)
The Pleistocene is now being taken as having started at 2.588 ma (as shown), and the “Holocene” is an Age within the Pleistocene (just being the most recent interglacial).
Hope that helps,
Mark H.
Hi Mr. Hladik
My knowledge of the details of the stages of various epochs/…/eons etc. is extremely limited. I have saved your table link for the future references.
I noticed the first item refers to the NGRIP
About 4 years ago I looked at the NGRIP data and made some observations which cast certain degree of doubt on validity on some aspects of the 10Be data as shown here .
Since then the ‘nap’ data have been further researched, reinforcing the correlation.
Thanks for the link.
The Holocene epoch was proposed in 1885 to cover the past 11,500 years. At the time it was not widely accepted or understood that the present interglacial period differs little from previous interglacials. The Holocene may by definition follow the Pliestocene, but there is no reasonable doubt today, we really do live in the Pliestocene.
One other small clarification:
The name “Holo — cene” means ‘completely recent’, i.e., in reference to the state of [fossils]/[creatures]/[living things] found in the stratigraphic record.
As we learned in my Hysterical Geology class (our “affectionate” name for Historical Geology), the “CENO”-zoic Era means ‘recent life’, and then the progression was as follows:
PALEO – cene “ancient recent” life
EO – cene “dawn recent” life
OLIGO – cene “few recent” life
MIO – cene “less recent” life
PLIO – cene “more recent” life
PLEISTO – cene “most recent” life
As has been commented below, the term “Tertiary” (meaning ‘third’) is falling into disuse, although most of us still call the Chixculub impact the “K/T boundary event” (“K” being the geological map symbol for Cretaceous).
Anthony and mods are free to supply my e-mail to any interested party. I enjoy discussing geochronology, and the evolving terminology.
Regards to all,
Mark H.
Yup.
Exactly, Geologic Epochs and Ages are measured in millions of years. The Holocene by comparison is already perversely short at about 10,000 years. To suggest another geologic division measuring in the 100s of years is simply an act of arrogance, and shows a complete lack of understanding of the concept of time. Nothing that is occurring today is unrepresented in Earth’s history.
As the Hulk would say: “Puny Humans”
The hollowscene never existed. The concept arose when 19th century geologists were gob smacked by evidence of the last glacial maximum. They assumed, not unreasonably from the evidence they had, that there was a giant block of ice for a couple million years that finally relented 10,000 years ago. Hence, the hollowscene.
The Misanthropocene is the desperate scratching of Homo contriticus, having lost its rightful place at the center of the universe to Copernicus, to salvage some sense of significance by way of an important sounding name.
From the above comments about Holocene, I have learned that the geologists’ science is far from settled. Thank you.
Centuries after Copernicus and Galileo removed humans from center of the universe, climate alarmists are maneuvering to have humans “re-claim” the center of all things.
Excellent and it sums up their perverted arrogance
Wait a minute, humans aren’t the center of the universe? Well can’t we be just a little off to the side?
Oh well, maybe we’ll get back to the center after taking control of Earths climate and while we’re at it terraforming Mars. On second thought, probably need to conquer death as well to get to that coveted center position…
well, it might be humans are the center stage of the things on earth in a way that consciousness does not belong to human but is an attribute shared amongst all living things then in human given more freedom of expression by opposing thumb and wotnot. Perhaps when an animal looks at a human it sees itself liberated to travel beyond the stars to go where no thing from life on earth has gone before.
It is not certain that humans are not the centre of the universe.
But the desire to elevate man to that lofty position is a long-standing temptation for the way that human minds work. We look after ourselves or die… and so are tempted to be Narcissistic.
You have correctly identified the “Anthropocene” as being in the same family as a common error.
my cat firmly believes that he is the center of the universe as he knows it
Yes, I have always thought that the Islamo-Christiano-Judeo thing of raising humans to the status of demi God – a separate creation for the purpose of being God’s representative on earth – was being absorbed into the new “secular” science as a new form of religion which again elevates man to the position of custodians of the Earth. Now that we can control the climate, preserve ecosystems, save species at our will. Maybe we can even stop genetic evolution, continental drift …. So much work left to do
I stopped genetic evolution many yrs ago…I had the snip !!
I think the more appropriate renaming of this current epoch would be the “Stultucene,” in honour of the climate scientists.
Or perhaps the Epicene.
Crimescene comes to mind.
+1, Eamon
+100 I reckon!
Still chuckling several minutes after reading this one. Had to come back and +100 it too!
Lots of good alternatives there! It’s hard to choose the best one… 🙂
Well, Annie, I reckon will choose YOURS (at 7:28pm), for affirmation is the best reply of all!
#(:))
I propose Hubriocene.
Absurdopocene?
Alarmistocene?
Nihilicene. Or is that the epoch that follows after we all commit suicide in order to end the Great Warming.
Anthroporcene, (alternative spelling anthroporcine—humans lining up at the trough).
Bulshitocene?
No, Horshitocene. Perhaps to be spelled “Whorshitocene”:. It is a difficult choice, and will take a panel of UN “scientists” a decade or so to arrive at a definitive decision about a defunctional definition..
Asinineopocine
Algoreopocene?
Better
Narcissistocene.
Climeobscene
Preposterousocene?
Mommymommylookatmeocene.
Narcissene?
Oops.. beaten to it 🙂
Stratigraphy has the concept of the golden spike. The problem with the antropocene is that humans entered Africa 100,000 years ago but New Zealand only 1000 years ago. The anthropocene is therefore a diachronous concept by definition.
All geological eras are or were diachronic. The problem in geology is in determining how short the transition is. The Cretaceous-Paleocene (first part of the Paleogene) transition may have required as much as 300,000 years. The transition between the Late Glacial Maximum and the Holocene required about 4,000 to 6,000 years depending on your flavor. That said, “Anthropocene” is still very dubious concept, especially as it is advanced as a political tool for dealing with change caused by humans.
Indeed now 300k years is peanuts on an absolute value of 65 million, but a lot on an absolute value of 10,000, Every golden spike therefore has an uncertainty associated with it; the base of the holocene has an absolute uncertainty of 99 years.
The Cretaceous ended when the Chicxulub bolide impacted. That is hard to make diachronic.
The sheer brilliance of the anthropogenic global warming movement is that people who crave the good opinion of others were guaranteed from the start to embrace it, seeing the chance for virtue on the cheap and and salvation by means of hectoring others to change their behavior–something easily fathomed by a truly cynical divinity-school washout.
Can’t these people just go back to evangelizing the end of earth by the wrathful hand of God with salvation the only remedy instead of evangelizing the end of earth by the wrathful hand of people who drive cars and use air-conditioners with renewables the only remedy?
People have forgotten…. just how very big the system called Earth is…. .
Control this….
(“Circle of Life” from “Lion King” — youtube)
Right.
Unbelievable hubris, indeed, Jim Steele.
Click on the exploded square icon in lower right — great on full screen.
This will be my response to the clips of the doomsdayers showing pollution and industrial stacks belching out plumes of backlit water vapor etc etc.
We live on a very varied and dynamic planet. I’m no fan of pollution, but tossing Co2 into that category is absurd and ignorant.
Thanks Janice.
Eamon.
You’re welcome, O Valiant Eamon, Speaker of Truth about Nuclear Power (and CO2, too)! Good — for — you! Thanks for piping up. 🙂
Beautiful video. Like George Carlin said, the Earth is fine.
Funny thing that this represents, to some, the “Anthropocene” epoch,
I did not see the hand of man anywhere in the video.
Thanks for this, Janice. Beautiful and inspiring.
You are so VERY welcome, schitzree and Chris (in Hervey Bay). My pleasure.
Control this ??
Exactly.
I just flew home, again, from Philadelphia, PA to Hervey Bay, Australia. 35 Hours and Only covered one half of the circumference, and only saw the little I could see from the port of a Boeing 777 at 38,000 feet.
Does any of the clowns that believe CAGW, really know how big this rock is, or more to the point, how small we humans are ?
I saw miles and miles of clouds, all shapes and sizes, and patterns, lined up in rows and sometimes scattered in random chaotic clumps that stretched for a 100 miles. Some were miles below and others towered way above.
When they can model clouds, I’ll believe they can model the climate.
There are some bloody arrogant humans out there believing they are better than God.
Oh, and thanks Janice, truly inspiring.
Beautiful! TY for posting it.
You are so welcome, Mark (hope the cats liked it, too). It brings tears of gratitude to my eyes. Thanks for telling me that you liked it.
I really should credit its author here: Video above by Scoot aloo (youtube) — link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq1lwG_wN0 M (I put a space between the 0 and M so it wouldn’t create a control window here.
Can’t believe it’s had under 5,000 views — it is really a treasure.
Nice! Thanks, Janice.
So glad you enjoyed that, H.R.. Thanks for saying so.
Hi Janice,
really beautiful,video and great sound track to accompany it. Brought tears to my eyes, just the sheer beauty of the earth. Many thanks to you for showing it and, of course, its creator.,
You’re welcome — and, thanks, Rob Roy.
And Harrowsceptic. Hi. Yes, indeed, the creation silently-but-loudly praises its Creator. My tears of gratitude welled up out of the joy in my heart at this thought: “I am loved by the One powerful and intelligent enough to make all of this.” Amazing love. Love makes me cry — go figure.
As a geologist I strongly object to the idea of naming the present time the “Anthropocene Epoch”. It flies in the face of all past definitions of geological ages, eras and epochs which were/are defined by a representative set of fossil assemblage. Can someone please tell me what the representative fossil assemblage is for this purported epoch? Bear in mind that a fossil is a once living organic organism that has been transformed into or buried in rock.
Bureaucrats?
LOL
….. ergo “the Bureaucrocene?”
It will require special stamp duty and an extra million years for them to be converted into fossils.
Redefining part of the Holocene as the Anthropocene will take climate change/global warming dogma to a whole new level. No longer will sceptics be merely ‘climate deniers’ they will, by default, become geology deniers/Earth history deniers. Climate change believers will be afforded another level of refuge from the awkward scientific questioning posed by sceptics: they will just be able to shrug their shoulders and say, “Look, it’s the Anthropocene – that’s what happens.” Clearly, it would be patently absurd to expect natural processes to dominate in a geological era pervaded by human influence. Hence this statement quoted from above.
“Official recognition of the concept would invite cross-disciplinary science. And it would encourage a mindset that will be important not only to fully understand the transformation now occurring but to take action to control it.”
I think it’s essential that this arrogant and perfidious attempt to create a new geological era in man’s image is thwarted. It will do even more damage to earth science and climate science. It is, after all, being mainly heavily promoted by a politically-motivated band of Holocene deniers.
Ah yes, the Anthropocene, let’s talk about that for a moment. If you Google “anthropocene” and “definition” the first definition that pops up is:
“relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.”
Let’s run with that.
What many may not know is that Gaia’s climate is dominated by two states, the warm interglacial state (about 10% of the time since the Mid Pleistocene Transition) and the cold glacial state (the other 90%). We flip between these states astonishingly quickly. For instance half of the warming that brought us out of the last ice age occurred in less than a decade, and the fastest published estimate for glacial inception I have found is about 70 years.
So where are we?
Well, if this is the Anthropocene, then the Holocene is over and this is the Anthropocene extension of it. Meaning, of course, the interglacial state.
So who wants to end the Anthropocene given that the only climate state left is the cold glacial state?
Yeah, reality is a be-ach ain’t it?
Google is also now going to be the arbiter of ‘truth’… Only the ‘true’ results will end up on the first page of a Google search.
I strongly recommend using duckduckgo instead.
I NEVER use Google, it mucks up my computer and fills it with advertisments not to mention remembering everything. . I always use DuckDuckGo.
I looked up “Google” in a NewSpeak dictionary and it said “see Pravda.”
It’s my take that the planet is in just the most recent interglacial of the Pleistocene glacial cycles; thus still in the Pleistocene. Even the Holocene is a wrong-headed name.
Nicely said William.
I invite you to visit my post on the Anthrop-obscene at: http://insuspectterrane.com/2015/03/24/anthop-obscene/
Tom
Thanks for the link. Excellent article, ‘anthropocene’ has absolutely zero geologic significance. I think pretty much all geologists would agree we’re still in the Pleistocene and lucky enough to live during one minimum of the 10% part. I think eventually, the Holocene will be downgraded to what it actually is: just another short interglacial. Enjoy it while it lasts.
To be completely fair, there will be lots of plastic clasts in the sediments of our time. Lots are already embedded. Microbes might easily find them and metamorphose them into peculiar distorted voids, or even oil shale. If we should somehow screw up or suffer bad cosmic luck and fail to pass on our legacy, whatever imponderable creatures of the future that reach our level of understanding may ponder our layer, as we ponder so many layers that preceded us, in disbelief and wonder.
Interesting and informative! I quote from it here to give others an idea of what they will find.
In the end, the Anthropocene concept is only additional proof that hubris and arrogance is pathological to the study of climate.
“To be completely fair, there will be lots of plastic clasts in the sediments of our time. Lots are already embedded. Microbes might easily find them and metamorphose them into peculiar distorted voids, or even oil shale. If we should somehow screw up or suffer bad cosmic luck and fail to pass on our legacy, whatever imponderable creatures of the future that reach our level of understanding may ponder our layer, as we ponder so many layers that preceded us, in disbelief and wonder.”
So then…Shall it be The Plasticene?
You can always think if the Holocene interstadial, which is my take on it. That would not follow standard naming conventions, but the guys that slapped the name on it are long gone. Maybe somebody will suggest the “Anthropian.”
A brilliant piece of prose that describes precisely the current climate change argument. Our current Leaders are leaders only in the sense of being first to the bottom of the cliff.
What’s the original source of the map please?
Also does WUWT have any existing comment on the California drought? I’ve hunted around and looked in the ‘Tips and Notes’ but can’t find anything.
Thanks
Hi, Jeff,
Re: “comment on California drought”
1. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/09/29/claim-cause-of-california-drought-linked-to-climate-change-not-one-mention-of-enso-or-el-nino/
2. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/03/california-drought-a-novel-statistical-analysis-of-unrealistic-climate-models-and-of-a-reanalysis-that-should-not-be-equated-with-reality/
Try typing “drought” into the Search Box (labelledSearch WUWT) near the top of the righthand column of this page.
Hope you find this helpful.
Janice
Jeff? What map? I was going to look into that for you, but (shrug). Hope someone can help you.
Janice – Thanks for the info on the California drought. I just missed spotting the search box … mildly embarrassing. 🙂
The map I was referring to is the one at the top of this article, ‘Anthropocene – The New Pop Religion’, showing the Earth’s continents and the areas inhabited by humans, illustrated (heh!) by the location of human population lighting on those continents.It just looks neat and I don’t recollect seeing it or similar previously.
Jeff
Jeff, that is one of many similar Nasa images. Go to Google images, put in earth night light or some such. You will get a host of those, each traceable back to original NASA sources. Used a similar one in my first ebook. You can also get zooms, like the difference between north and south korea, or how and where the amazon basin is developing.
You’re welcome, Jeff. There is LOT of stuff to distract one from finding it! Don’t be embarrassed… embarrassing is posting a horribly obscene Danish Christmas song before you knew what the lyrics meant (blush). Thank — you — mod for coming to my rescue. And here’s one that happens all the time around here…. posting a reply on (cringe) the wrong thread — pretty fun for the rest of us, though. “What in the world??….. Oh! lolololololo”
And if you look really closely at the map, Jeff, you’ll South Korea looking like a glowing island up against the west coast of Japan. The dark space behind South Korea is, of course, North Korea.
North Korea, the exemplar society of how the Anthropocenists would have us all live in eco-lovely sustain-o-land.
Janice – A Danish Christmas Song that turned out to be obscene. Who could possibly anticipate that. 🙂
Read the drought links. About what I thought. I’d actually skim read them back around their publication date so I knew they were here; just frustrating not to be able to find them again due to my inability to see the obvious and ever helpful search box.
Rud – Thanks for the pointer to Google Images and NASA. I’ll check them out. I’d just never seen a whole Earth map projection with the lights of civilization so comprehensively and compactly displayed.
Pat – Yep, NORK I’d seen before. Rumsfeld’s favorite satellite photo. mebbe at today 1734 has this proposed new era renamed as the Misanthropocene, my favorite and I think that pretty much describes the attitude of the ecologically misguided.
From the article:
“The Anthropocene is defined not just by climate change or extinctions, but by a linked set of effects on Earth and its biosphere, from perturbations in the nitrogen cycle to the dispersal of species around the globe. Official recognition of the concept would invite cross-disciplinary science. And it would encourage a mindset that will be important not only to fully understand the transformation now occurring but to take action to control it”
Take actions to control it? What for?
The earth is greening up from increasing CO2. There is more food for plants and most animals. Life on this planet almost always does much better with modest warming vs cooling.
If humans are responsible for the increase in CO2 from 280ppm to 400ppm,. then we have rescued life on earth from dangerously low levels of this beneficial gas.
Good comment! Your last two paragraphs are exacty what every person who manage to pass mandatory school should have realized and fully understand! No excuses acceptable!
“Whenever I hear of framework… I release the safety catch of my Browning!”
Citori over and under 12 gauge type Browning?
John
I dunno. I think geologists 500,000 years from now will did back and find a layer of plastic bottles, clear plastic salad boxes, and polyester clothes. They’ll call it the “plasticene” era.
Probably find all of the stuff I misplaced too. In which case could also be called the “wherethehelldidiputitcene” era.
I thought about that, too. Then I realized that probably long before then some bacteria will evolve to consume all that nutritious carbohydrate and if anything at all is left, it will be a microscopic layer of fossilized bacteria.
Already exist.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=plastic+bacteria
Will they find porters with looking glass ties? And what if they think we had marmalade skies?
Oh, I can hear it now, it will be the 3030’s Enviroprofiteers’ answer to the science realists of that era…
Science Realists: The sky was orange at sunset in the 1900’s.
AMS (Anthropogenic Marmalade Sky): The sky was orange at sunset in Phoenix, last night. It is getting oranger and oranger all over the planet by the minute. We have exactly 2 months to fix this problem.
SR: You have NO evidence for your wholly unsupported speculation.
AMS: Marmalade consumption increased steadily for 100 years and then — ORANGE in the sky.
SR: Marmalade is perfectly safe and a BENEFIT to humanity and you have NO proof. Correlation is not causation and you, btw, don’t even have an EFFECT. Marmalade eating UP. Orange sky increase zero.
AMS: We have EXCELLENT scientific evide — er…. authority!
SR: (eye roll) here it comes — AGAIN
AMS: Arrhenius Elton John knew his stuff.
Here, let me play you his world famous lecture:
BAN MARMALADE NOW!
(and buy our nifty tofu spread instead; tastes just like marmalade oh…. and, keep those soybean subsidies coming, Big G!.. (mutter, mutter…. only way we can break even…))
SR: (by now, out the door, into the car, and miles down the road) Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Don’t eat either marmalade or vegemite, they both suck.
As with most extreme and radical religions, you seem to recognise the same names cropping up – often in the background – as the proponents stir up their followers and confirm each others bias.
This corruption of the scientific method is embarrassing for other scientists who feel powerless to criticise the offenders as name calling and false accusations of conflict of interest will inevitably follow.
These religious zealots have got away with ridiculous ‘science’ often supported by ‘green’ activists and the media – who can forget “50 million climate refugees”, the “melting of the Himalayan Glaciers”, increase in extreme weather events including extreme droughts, extreme flooding, extreme warmth, extreme cold, no snow, more snow – all blamed on ‘climate change’?
The one outstanding feature of ‘climate religion’ is that it is not members of their ‘brotherhood’ who pay for their own religious order, it is the rest of us, the taxpayer and often the poorest in society with their increased energy bills.
“Phantom hazards are popular with the fundamentally pusillanimous for the ‘threat’ can be confronted with the (perhaps sub-conscious) realization that there is no physical harm for the believer, but provides a cause of great moral superiority……”
And therein lies a significant motivation for climate alarmists: the emotional need to feel morally superior against those who do not embrace the Holy Faith of CAGW and its purpose in life. Without it, the holy fight against the Great Twin Satans of fossil fuels and the free market is emotionally incomplete and less fulfilling. With the powerful weapon of the CAGW phantom hazard in hand, one is better armed to fight the “good fight” against the Great Satans and those who are perceived to be its “evil” defenders. One feels more emotionally fulfilled.
When the billions of $$$ in financial rewards provided government are added in, it is no wonder that any and all contrary scientific evidence to refute CAGW is treated as nothing short of religious heresy. The heresy must be silenced and defeated at all costs. The heretics, in the minds of some, deserve to have their human rights to free speech and thought stripped from them (according to a recent speech by Al Gore). Others demand their death. The heresy and threat to the moral superiority of the holy climate warriors is that serious.
With the abandonment of science in the study of climate, one cannot help but be concerned about the future of other fields of science as well.
P.S. Kudos to whoever wrote the comment from which I quoted above. Extremely well said!
The nature editorial scientific board has been replaced by cult fanatics.
Cult science is different than normal science. In normal science when observations do not support a theory, the theory changes. In normal science the objective is to solve scientific puzzles. In cult science, when observations do not support the group’s theory, the group reaction is to block scientific papers that discussion the observations that disprove ones cult beliefs and to call those who point out the offending analysis and observations, deniers.
Any comment concerning the sudden and unexplained increase in Antarctic sea ice all months of the year, sudden recovery of Arctic sea extent and Arctic multiyear ice, and sudden increase in Greenland snowfall? Gremlins? Magic wand? Anyone notice the sudden change to the sun? Is there anyone from the cult of CAWG that will debate/discuss ‘science’/observations?
http://iopscience.iop.org/1742-6596/440/1/012001/pdf/1742-6596_440_1_012001.pdf
The peculiar solar cycle 24 – where do we stand?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
Does the current global warming signal reflect a natural cycle?
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.antarctic.png
The serial climate changer is the sun. There are cycles of warming and cooling (sometimes abrupt cooling) in the paleo record which correlate with changes in solar activity. We are going to have a front row seat to watch how solar changes cause significant and rapid cooling.
We already have an “anthropocene”… it’s known as the Holocene.
You mean to say …. The Age of Mann.
Mannthropocene? 🙂
Sounds like a barbiturate.
I suppose we could further define more time frames as other “ocenes”. Perhaps beginning in 1957 as the “sputnikocene”. Or maybe define the time since 1942 as the “manhattanocene”. Or maybe the time since 1926 as the “goddardocene”.
Surely these things have just as much impact on modern human lives as anything else.
Hey geologists, What are these significant changes in the rock layers that geologists will utilize in the future to demarcate the end of the Holocene and the beginning of the Anthropocene?
Geological periods are generally marked by changes in biological communities. The larger scale the change is, the more significant the new period is considered. So the three great periods of the Phanerozoic are the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. The transitions are marked by immense extinctions. The Permian extinction at the end of the Paleocene erased roughly 90% of all genera, and was worse in the seas than on land. The KT boundary event was severe, but less so than the Permian. On a far less massive scale the Pleistocene stadial-interstadial transitions are all accompanied by extinctions, though not nearly so extensive as those punctuating more significant geological transitions. So, were geologists to be so foolish as to adopt the Anthropocene, the markers would be extensive occurrence of major engineering works (mines, dams, etc.), a clear trash and wreck layer in marine deposits and occasional entombed cities, the appearance of new materials (plastic, rubber, aluminum cans, glass, ceramics, concrete) etc.. The problem is not whether it could be done, but if it should be done.
I prefer my moniker . ABIOGENESIS.
Anthropocene = Incrediblyobcene
It is not just Climate Change they have tried this ‘population manipulation’ technique with. They also tried it with bird flu and various other supposed ‘pandemics’.
I saw the head of the WHO declare H1N1 a ‘pandemic’ on the basis of ninety people dead in in Mexico – people who were already on death’s door anyway – and I thought ‘who are you trying to kid’. Yes, they were trying to:
Create another ‘global scare’ in order to,
Create a ‘global concern’ which would,
Need ‘global action’ which would,
Require a ‘global government.
And that is what they wanted. But unlike climate, flue outbreaks come and go, and their plans crumbled to dust in a instant. But not before the Blair government gave $500 million to the drug companies for untested tamiflu vaccines, and those vaccines had killed dozens of people. The who thing was a scare-mongering farce.
Politicians only find followers amid people they can convince they need protection. Right now the antics of Putin in Russia are clearly intended to restore the Cold War status quo. If he can do that, there may not be another Russian Revolution. If he can’t, he and many other oligarchs know where they are headed. Climate change and similar concepts act on populations that don’t take Cold War fears seriously. It is no coincidence that AGW arises as a major issue in the west as the Iron Curtain collapsed.
‘Anthropocene’ is another example of Climatism newspeak designed to control thought through vocabulary.
The fact that Humans now dominate the planet means that it is a new epoch.
It has nothing to do with climate change but the life on the planet has now clearly changed. How many human burials will eventually be left in the fossil record for future geologists. Millions? Billions? It will be clear that a new species came to completely dominate the planet and also had advanced technology.
The Earth is a different place. Of course, no species other than us actually knows that.
Excellent point, Bill, We know where the next layer of remains starts. We just don’t know where it will end or how thick it will be,
I suggest we wait until the period ends before we name it
Jim Francisco:
But none of the previous divisions had names until humans gave them names. We’re all caught up. It’s time to name the period going forward and let our Alien Overlords or A.I. Machine Masters call it what they will when all that’s left are our human remains.
OTOH, I do appreciate that an asteroid could nearly wipe out the human race and then there would be a nice fresh boundary layer to mark the end of the current Crimescene (loved that!), assuming there are any geologists left to make the call.
If there is an ‘Anthropocene’, it started when most of the megafauna were hunted to extinction.
Re: the “Anthropocene”:
The ‘Anthropocene’ is not a formally defined geological unit within the Geological Time Scale. [source]
That self-serving alarmist term was only invented in year 2000. The problem with it is the climate Null Hypothesis: there is nothing unusual or unprecedented happening. Nothing is happening that did not happen before the “Anthropocene”.
To be a different geologic time interval, many geologically significant conditions and processes must be identifiable. But none are.
The Holocene is completely adequate for what we’re in. Changing the name only muddies the waters, and it is intended to demonize human activity; nothing more.
The Holocene is good enough for most Geologists, so it’s good enough for me.
Reminds me of an old Isaac Asimov Joke, where he referred to the epochs of the Cenozoic era:
Paleocene
Eocene
Oligocene
Miocene
Pliocene
Pleistocene
Obscene
You could complete the list with” crimescene” as someone above has suggested.
As a geologist, I regularly see breaks in the geologic record that indicate “short” regressions or transgressions of the oceans, meaning that large areas are “suddenly” exposed to the air or submerged. Bad things happen and then unhappen often but are little more than a line in the rocks. The current “Anthropocene”, if it were to last a thousand years, would be a similar line of minor disruption in the rocks.
Call a thing what you want, but do not apply your self-indulgence and self-importance to renaming geological eras, periods, epochs or whatever. Geology is long-time. Man is short-time. In the geologic sense, we don’t even exist yet.
Indeed.
The LAT’s had a piece about this scheme a few weeks back. Apparently there’s a debate as to when to date the beginning of the new era:
“Lewis and his coauthor, University of Leeds geographer Mark Maslin, say the more relevant recent marker came in 1610, when an Antarctic ice core recorded a tiny dip in the amount of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. ”
vs . .
“By 1610, the arrival of Europeans in the Americas had caused about 50 million deaths due to conflict and disease. Agricultural fields were abandoned, allowing forests, savannas and woodlands to regenerate. Fewer people also meant less intentional burning.
Both of these shifts reduced the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by about 7 to 10 parts per million, the ice core from Antarctica’s Law Dome indicates. [..]
Several other scientists who agree that the Anthropocene has arrived have said the boundary should be 1950, when fossil fuel use accelerated. Still others, including Lewis and Maslin, say the 1960s are a strong candidate, due to the radioactive fallout from nuclear bomb testing. [..]
The International Union of Geological Sciences has convened a working group to make a recommendation on whether to call an end to the Holocene and how to define the beginning of the Anthropocene
The group’s chairman, University of Leicester paleobiologist Jan Zalasiewicz, called the proposed 1610 benchmark “intriguing” and worth consideration by the full panel.”
Personally, I’m in favor of labeling the current era, the Anthropoidiotcene era.
It wasn’t “conflict and disease,” it was disease. By 1610, conflict had been endemic in the Americas for thousands of years, already.
The deification of Man.
Needtobecene
http://scribbler.cz/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/3333951-bec6d4d6-525×300.jpg
Is that a little mustache?
The lead post is a very important and timely one. Thank you Steve Harris. It stimulates discussion of an important topic; to differentiate what is religion, mythology and science.
The elaborate non-scientific and pre-scientific claims published widely that claim man must be the cause of significant ‘climate change’ of an entirely negative nature are stories designed to mimic science.
Religions are fundamentally mythologies. But one must also consider that stories that are designed to mimic science are fundamentally mythologies as religions are fundamentally mythologies.
But, are climate change stories that are designed to mimic science are actually forming a religion? I do not think so. But, the stories are potentially becoming the basis for making mythology the most crucial part of our modern culture thereby increasingly displacing the current rational enlightenment basis of our culture.
I think the climate change stories, that are designed to mimic science and which are fundamentally mythologies, are products of subjective deviations in modern philosophy; specifically products of the parts of those philosophies focused on the philosophy of science. Further, I think that the responsibility for those climate change stories, that are designed to mimic science and which are fundamentally mythologies, lies entirely within a certain community of scientists; namely responsibility for those stories belongs to the community of scientists who base their research on certain modern subjective ‘philosophies of science’ that are displacing the more objectively oriented philosophies of science of people like Feynman, Bacon, etc.
John
Even the notion of “The Holocene” is suspect. What makes THIS interglacial any different from all the other Quaternary interglacials? And now, the nerve to purport that not only is THIS interglacial different, but that we humans have managed to wrest control of it and move into something even more unique. But relatively speaking, neither the Holocene nor purported Anthropocene are more than noise on the signal of the Quaternary.
“Anthropocene” sounds like an ingredient in a 1950’s hair oil advertisement, guaranteed to prevent balding.
This “Global Warming” bull has been going on for a quarter century, and it is high time to bring it to a halt. It was not based on a foundation of Truth, and the founders recognized they were disseminating falsehood from the very start. An entire generation of schoolchildren has been brought up spoon-fed this falsehood by teachers who were too docile and robotic to recognize they were disseminating falsehood. The net result is a foundation “built upon sand”. When you build upon sand you are engineering a structure which will topple. Rather than “the end justifying the means” (which was the excuse the founders of “Global Warming” used to justify their dishonesty) you discover “the ends are a heap of rubble.”
The alternative is demand Truth as a foundation. Over and over and over again.
A “quarter century” Caleb ? Try 40 years:
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2007/sci_techs/3423init_warming_hoax.html
…. and still no real scientific evidence for any effect of purported CO2 on any climate parameter.
So 2 X zero by 2095 ?
With regard to your other point, when does brainwashing become brain-damaging, and when does it become willful and criminal brain-damaging ? Child molesters in Britain have been thrown in jail 30 years or more after their crimes. These vile people should bear that in mind.
That would be “purported anthropogenic CO2”
Hanns Johst – Wikipedia
… fälschlich Hermann Göring
zugeschriebene Aussage:
„ Wenn ich Kultur höre …
entsichere ich meinen
Browning “
____
anthropocenic metaphorics. Let god search them out.
____
fascination of futurism and co.isms
and in the end:
wind parks and solar energie plants instead of agriculture.
monopoliced unreliable energie supplie for a surplus people ‘without a clue’. Hans
Indeed, Hans, “without a clue,” doomed to forever scurry about inside the labyrinth of their imaginations about CO2.
We TRY to help them. They aren’t interested. They KNOW.
‘the land of milk and honey’
in the 50ties we had the ‘montan union’.
Then came EWG * ‘europäische Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft’, then EG, now EU.
* in the EG we had ‘milk seas and mountains of butter’ from a post war sustained acriculture – warehouses without consumers.
____
The vision ‘milk and honey’ developed into real surplus.
____
the green agenda changed subsidies to biofuels.
____
‘swords to ploughs’ – revisited. Hans
Well, I think “Hubrisocene” pretty much covers it, the epoch when man knew ALL and it was settled……
Control the climate, sure we can, right after we get finished making life “fair”.
Cheers, KevinK.
I guess that is what CAGW is really all about. Making all life fair especially for the lions tigers and bears oh my. Also we don’t want to hurt no kangeroos.
Okay this strains credulity; no-one has come up with
Misanthropocene.
Adopted.
+1 Now you mention it, it does seem a rather amazing overlook. 🙂
Well Janice, the USSR actually did collapse back in 1992, as we for sure noticed here in Europe, no doubt about it! The main and controlling state within the empire of USSR was indeed Russia and most of the other states that used to belong to USSR, are today members of OSS and some of them are even members of NATO. USA wasn’t the only “United States” back then (and today). I suppose you are refering to existing OSS? There is a big difference between USSR and OSS. In the latter, every state are independed (no controlling Moscow …).
* Russia socialistic? Yes still, but quite different compared to back then and today politically located farther to the right.
* Private business? Well, Moscow is the city in the world that have the highest number of millionairs, since many years back. Before the fall, only the “Elite” and some few that managed to be successful in sports, but the latter had to work for it … (Per capita? No no, try Saudi Arabia or UAE!)
* Infrastructual related business? The Russian government (Duma) like to be apart of this (ex. Gazprom).
* Poverty? Yes, it exist just like before 1992.
* Religion? Yes, it is allowed today. But the “Elite” of the USSR didn’t like this, as they regarded themselves as the most superior ones …
* Political power? Today, Putin is of no/very low consern. Any decision Putin make, has to pass the Duma (government) in a democatic manner. Besides domestic problems and in general, the largest problems Putin have today are USA’s broken agreement of not expanding NATO in Eastern Europe (recruiting OSS members) and associated consequences. (An agreement that was part of the result of the 1989-92 period.) As I implied earlier regarding the Communists, there’s a fight “behind the scene” between the military Communists and the Ortodox Church (aka “the domestic problem”) about who’s going to take control when Putin finally resign. The C’s would like to get back to the “good ol’ days” in full control and the O. Church are more leaning toward like it is today. (Remember, Putin is deeply religious, so it’s not difficult to connect the dots …) Ukraine then? Yes, that’s the next problem, as both Europe and North America has swallowed the false propaganda (“both line, hook and sinker …“) that the Government of U. has generated. Russians have been around far longer than the U’s in the Crimea, despite the U. government claim. (If I remember correctly, even Swedes was there before the U’s during a short period of time …) Remember all the bad rumors related to Putins recent mysterious absence? They all had one and the very same “anti-Putin” source in …
Dear Sasja,
While I disagree on some of the facts cited above (and some not mentioned, like that the governors of each of those OSS states are chosen by the Kremlin…), if there is more freedom today than there was in the former U.S.S.R., then that is good. There are some people sitting in prison who should not be, however….
So! Better is good, but, it could be much better. And I think (even if you cannot say it here) …. you would agree.
Well, I’m just glad you are here and WE AGREE THAT TRUTH IN SCIENCE IS THE WAY TO GO!
#(:))
Your Ally for Science Truth,
Janice
Please disagree! It’s your democratic right to do so! But it doesn’t change that there has been a great improvement for most people over there. Except where (left wing) Nationalistic forces are in control. Bad but different.
Sorry to say, but media in North America and Europe don’t avoid (sensor) the exact same stuff and usually there are paths around that problem, so in the end we get the correct information here anyhow. (Like in the case of Snowden, the US international surveillance [“spying”] was known to the public well before he opened his mouth. The surveillance started in its original shape before the Cold War. One of our “pop” science magazines here published an article in the 1990’s about Echelon and earlier history, so not much news …)
One thing for sure, today the people over in former USSR are allowed to travel abroad. In the past, at best within the empire, usally not at all (except for a long vacations in Siberia or to visit a “Gulag Inn” …).
Regarding prisons, there are several documented cases of people who have been imprisoned on false grounds in western countries too. Some years ago, two Swedish citizens originated from Egypt, who was picked up here by a well known US organization, in violation of International laws. They were accused for terrorism, but nobody could show any kind of evidence at all … One of them got finally back here, well beaten up. (Don’t remember what happen to the other guy) Some cases are known on Cuba.
Well, I’m an agnostic, so science (reality) is my path.
but misanthropocene is okay, read up Karl Kraus ‘last days of mankind’ about WWII or Johann Nestroy.
Never forget – our elites where burnt in Aug, Sep, Oct 1914. Hans
I posted the following on the Geological Society of America’s Connected Community and published it in the February, 2015, AAPG Explorer:
Since proposed in 2000, the concept of the “Anthropocene” has filtered through the geological literature (See Zalasiewicz,, et al, In Press, for a brief summary review). Inevitably, it attracted the attention of the geo-bureaucrats at the IUGS which formed a subcommittee of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) to examine it. Although the base of the “Anthropocene” is diachronous (Edgeworth et al, 2014), the ICS has proposed the “Anthropocene’s” base should be defined now by the isotopic signature of the world’s first nuclear explosion on July 16, 1945, at Alamogorda, NM, (Zalasiewicz,et al, In Press). Other work (Corcoran et al, 2014) shows that the advent of plastic garbage makes an anthropogenic global marker as well.
The real question is, does the “Anthropocene” even have utility? Granted, human reworking is observable at the surface or near surface, but is it geologically regional in scale? How would one map the proposed isotopic marker in the field? Will it mean repeated trips to the field to collect samples, analyze them isotopically in the laboratory, and then go back to the field to place the boundary thus increasing a field geologist’s carbon footprint especially if an SUV or a 4-wheel-drive vehicle is used? Or will geologists now be required to carry a Geiger counter or portable Gamma Ray tool to be sure not to miss the critical basal boundary? (I see a business opportunity here to develop miniaturized versions for field use).
Where will the type section be? Alamogorda, NM, where the original atomic bomb test took place, is a military restricted area requiring extensive security clearances to even visit, much less do field work, if it will even be allowed.
Has the isotopic signature representing the base of the “Anthropocene” ever been identified and correlated in deep sea piston cores recovered by oceanographic institutions? (DSDP, IPOD and ODP cores have disturbed tops so are unusable). Has anyone even checked? Looks like a potential PhD thesis for someone.
What is the long-term preservation potential of any identifying criteria for the so-called “Anthropocene”? Likely it will be small because most of the studies describing evidence of human alterations occur in geomorphic areas that are dominantly erosional. Few examples have been reported from areas of sediment deposition that have larger preservation potential (See references cited above).
A working limestone quarry operates near my residence. Is the changing vertical cut and quarry floor an “excavation surface”? Is the “excavation surface” in a quarry ten miles away and abandoned 50 years ago coeval? Perhaps the IGC should form a subcommittee to evaluate that surface for its utility in “Anthropocene” sequence stratigraphy.
If the reader is offended by my questions and bemusement, please be advised that the following quote,
“A boundary at this time need not have a Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP or ‘golden spike’) but can be defined by a Global Standard Stratigraphic Age (GSSA), i.e. a point in time of the human calendar” (Zalasiewicz et al, In Press),
appears to undermine the standards of the revised Stratigraphic Code that has served us well in various forms since the 1930’s. It also raises substantive questions as to whether geology is well served by “Anthropocene” and whether it has any utility at all. Various isotopes are used to determine rates of surficial, sedimentological, and geomorphic change and a new stratigraphic term really doesn’t improve our understanding of the associated processes. Having completed and published research on modern and ancient sediments, “Anthropocene” adds nothing to my findings and interpretations. However, it may make for longer and “snazzier” titles of these publications. Expressed in another way, Desnoyers, Lyell and Gervais, the founders of Quaternary epochs, must be spinning in their graves.
More than sixty years ago the eminent sedimentary petrologist at Penn State University, Paul D. Krynine, defined stratigraphy as “the triumph of nomenclature over common sense.” Although “Anthropocene” may have utility as a period of human history, using it in geology and the associated ICS pontifications and scholarly papers prove Krynine to be correct.
AUTHOR EXPERTISE: George Devries Klein completed and published research in sedimentology and stratigraphy (including seismic and sequence stratigraphy), taught both topics at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign, and is Professor Emeritus of Geology at the last-named institution. He also taught sedimentology and sequence and seismic stratigraphy short courses to the petroleum industry.
SELECTED REFERENCES
Corcoran, P.L., et al, 2014, An anthropogenic marker horizon in the future record: GSA Today: v. 24, no. 6, doi: 10.1130/GSAT-G198A.1.
Edgeworth, M., et al, 2015, Diachronous beginnings of the Anthropocene: The lower bounding surface of anthropogenic deposits: The Anthropocene Review: DOI:10.1177/2053019614565394
Zalasiewicz, J., et al, In Press. When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal: Quaternary International, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.045
I think it should be called the Egocene, in honor of how powerful and dangerous we think we are …
w.
Thanks, Steve Harris.
Very good article.
It seems like for some, the world revolves not just around The Earth, but around us!
Fantacene
Hollowcene
http://blog.visual.ly/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/socialmediavenndiagramtshirt.gif
We don’t have leaders we have corrupt aholes who rip us off in 140 characters or less and a media and population that falls for it.
The high priests of the Church of Global Warming want the term Anthropocene to be officially recognized because they are envious that the Catholic Church succeeded in reforming our calendar into two eras: Before Christ (BC) and Anno Domini (AD). Later they will establish the Anthropogenic State of America and Europe (ASAE) fashioned after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Then they will call for the execution of all deniers.
If man is in control of climate, why can’t we increase the temperature in past 18 years? Why couldn’t we increase temperature in 1945-1977? And why the lower troposphere isn’t warming since 1958? Assuming we are deliberately pumping CO2 to make the world warmer. If control of climate is a reason to change a geologic era, the last 500 million years should be called Herbacene or Vulcacene. Plants and volcanoes are responsible for changes in atmospheric CO2 long before man.
We are in the interglacial period, the Holocene. A new era will begin once the interglacial ends. That would be the next glacial period. Or maybe the Quaternary ice age will end and polar ice will disappear. Until these events occurred, we are still in the Holocene.
Narcissicene
Just a minor criticism of Guest’s hypothesis ‘consider crop circles.’
The Bower and Chorley demonstration is only one human induced crop circle, there are others of a similar nature, but many more defy rational belief.
The subdivisions of the geological stratigraphic record were debated and carefully evaluated by geologists of distinction covering many different specialisms over many years. They also had all the advantages of the perspective of many millions of years. Now a handful of the relatively undistinguished seek to propose a new geological subdivision from a perspective of a fraction of that time! The derogatory names applied to them here show the vainglory of those self-seeking anthropogenic zealots perfectly. The future will judge them appropriately.
je suis un barbares!
After all, I don’t speak Greek and don’t wear a tunic and sandals.
On the other hand, Human generated Climate Change based upon a mish-mash of interleaved bits of grand and petit theories which from a distance appear to have a unity but which, upon closer inspection fall apart under true scientific scrutiny?
That’s all Greek to me!
We now presume to name our own epoch? Ah, how respected we shall be in a few million years!
Fits perfectly.
http://www.macleans.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/5519745603_e6be133cf8.jpg
But then what?
ChickenLittleocene.
Idiocene.
In 50 years (or even less), people will look back on the roughly quarter-century between the mid-1990’s and around 2020 in puzzled amazement. How, they will ask, could so many fall for and embrace such a misbegotten, anti-human ideology?
One possible explanation (besides seeking meaning for their life in a pseudo-religion) is: control. The strong desire to promote the self-delusion that “I am in control” fuels a lot of error.
As one flea said to another as they explored the bumpy hide of the elephant they were riding on…
The Anthropocene is today
an era that entered the fray
of the climate change freaks.
Blame the humans! It reeks
of hubris. Me guilty? Ixnay.
http://lenbilen.com/2015/03/31/the-anthropocene-era-worship-the-creature-rather-than-the-creator-a-limerick/
They’re pushing the Anthropocene, again?! Never let it be said that these advocates are not into recycling, eh?!
The first time I heard about it was via The Economist, in their May 26, 2011 issue, in which they had featured not one but two stories! My findings at the time can be found at The Economist dives into uncharted waters of “The Anthropocene” These include (but are not limited to) …
Evidently, the Anthopocene was the “baby” of no less than a Nobel Laureate (albeit of the real kind, rather than the IPCC kind), by the name of Paul J Crutzen. Mind you, his area of expertise was Chemistry – not geology. And, as I discovered, he does have a list of honours, almost as long as your arm – including an Honorary Doctoral Degree from (…wait for it!…) the “University of East Anglia, Norwich, England”.
According to The Economist:
As for the International Commission on Stratigraphy, it does have a duly constituted Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy which appears to have begat (circa 2009) the Working Group on the Anthropocene.
This Working Group has long list of members, some of whom might even be geologists. Although to the best of my knowledge, at least four such illustrious members, Crutzen (as noted above), along with Andrew Revkin, Naomi Oreskes and Will Steffen are not.
Revkin’s membership on this working group might explain why – approximately one week prior to The Economist‘s double-bill – the NYT also decided to feature the Anthropocene, albeit in a slightly more cautionary way, via article authored by … Revkin:
It might also be worth noting that among those who have given their blessing to the Anthropocene is Canada’s aging fruit-fly expert, David Suzuki. As for the “concerned Nobel laureates”, I mentioned above, there was a whole slew (OK, only 17, but not one of whom was actually named) who had held a gathering in May, 2011. And (of course!) they issued a “declaration” which began a follows:
Amazing, eh?!
[To save your mouse from having to scroll back to top, links to sources of above quotes … and more … available here]
[Thank you. .mod]