News Brief by Kip Hansen — 5 March 2024 — 600 words/3minutes
BREAKING NEWS: Raymond Zhong, journalist for the NY Times, has a story claiming to have seen “an internal announcement of the voting results” of a subcommission of the International Union of Geological Sciences:
“A committee of roughly two dozen scholars has, by a large majority, voted down a proposal to declare the start of the Anthropocene, a newly created epoch of geologic time, according to an internal announcement of the voting results seen by The New York Times.” [ quotes in this typeface are from the NY Times here ]
The vote is reported by Zhong to have been:
“12 to four, with two abstentions. (Another three committee members neither voted nor formally abstained.)”
This looks to be a fairly substantial majority – even if all five non-voting members had voted to support the declaration of the Anthropocene, that view still would not have carried the day; the vote would have been 12 Against and 9 For. Formally, a vote requires 60%.
Does this mean that the issue is, after more than a decade and a half, finally settled?
No, or at least, only maybe.
“Even so, it was unclear Tuesday morning whether the results stood as a conclusive rejection or whether they might still be challenged or appealed. In an email to The Times, the committee’s chair, Jan A. Zalasiewicz, said there were “some procedural issues to consider” but declined to discuss them further. Dr. Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester, has expressed support for canonizing the Anthropocene.” ….
“Still, to qualify for its own entry on the geologic time scale, the Anthropocene would have to be defined in a very particular way, one that would meet the needs of geologists and not necessarily those of the anthropologists, artists and others who are already using the term.”
When did all this Anthropocene-ism idea get its start?
“The Anthropocene proposal got its start in 2009, when a working group was convened to investigate whether recent planetary changes merited a place on the geologic timeline. After years of deliberation, the group, which came to include Dr. McCarthy, Dr. Ellis and some three dozen others, decided that they did. The group also decided that the best start date for the new period was around 1950.”
“Last fall, the working group submitted its Anthropocene proposal to the first of three governing committees under the International Union of Geological Sciences. …. The members of the first one, the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, submitted their votes starting in early February. [these are the results reported here] …. Even if the subcommission’s vote is upheld and the Anthropocene proposal is rebuffed, the new epoch could still be added to the timeline at some later point. It would, however, have to go through the whole process of discussion and voting all over again.”
It seems that there are two more sub-committees that will have a vote on the mater, as this one, the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, appears to be “the first of three governing committees”.
So, maybe.
At this moment, the Anthropocene is one of the following: 1) Dead, 2) Postponed, or 3) Pending.
Long Live the Anthropocene.
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UPDATE: 0800 6 March 2024.
“This is the commission’s expert group for this interval of geological time and we are bound by its decision. The current proposal will proceed no further according to our statutes,” David Harper, a professor emeritus of paleontology at Durham University and the chair of the International Committee of Stratigraphy, told CNN via email. [ CNN here ]
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Author’s Comment:
The Anthropocene is, at its very best, a propaganda term invented by the environmental movement. It is always used to imply the negative consequences of the rise of Humans and their civilizations.
I am heartened that The Geologists, even if for the wrong reasons, have rejected, so far, enshrining this basically anti-human propaganda term in the Geological History of the planet.
There is no doubt that humans have become a or the major biological force on Earth, altering their environments to their liking and their own purposes. Humans have certainly been successful. Darwin might have said this means humans are “the fittest”.
Philosophers would have different ideas and opinions.
Thanks for reading.
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It’s immaterial whether these eras/epochs are beginning or ending or whether they should be renamed or not. The reality is that human progress or regression will occur on way or another regardless what title is attached to them.
What would be the “golden spike” marking the c. AD 1950 onset of the Anthropocene? Atomic radiation? Won’t last long enough, compared to fossils marking other geological ages, epochs, periods, eras, etc., nor be localized.
The daughter products of such radioactive particles might exist, however the concentrations would be in fractions of a part per quadrillion.
Kip:The climateers were going for such things as plastics but in geological time all plastics are biodegradable. The very best argument for the anthropocene would be “The Great Greening of the Planet”!
Transformation of deserts, doubling up of habitat and migrations of expanding populations of creatures large and small, all courtesy of fossil fuel production and use. We should have spreading fossil records, probably redevelopment of river systems, lakes etc. I would dearly love the exploding heads of of the Dark Side if this became the the choice of the committee.
The Earth is still in a 2.56 million-year ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation with 20 percent of the land either permafrost or covered by glaciers. The ice age won’t officially end until all of the natural ice melts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternary_glaciation
Salute!
Always thot from first time the term “anthro…” whatever came up, my reaction was who has such a high regard for we puny humans that we can take a blame for a percieved change in our environment?
Such arrogance.
Gums sends…
The Cenozoic Ice Age began about 34 million years ago, with the formation of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, thanks to the Southern Ocean. Ice sheets formed in the Northwern Hemisphere after the Isthmus of Panama interrupted tropical oceanic circulation, if not even before.
It’s possible that Earth briefly exited an ice age during the Middle Miocene. However the BIG climatic shift was definitely in the Oligoene (~34 MYA).
I think the Antarctic ice sheet shrank during the mid-Miocene warmth, but didn’t disappear.
Please correct me if wrong, but IMO the warming was caused by passage of the Scotia microplate through Drake Passage.
I tend to agree that Antarctica remained glaciated, particularly the EAIS. The presence of glacio-eustatic seal level cycles throughout the Miocene clearly indicate glacial-interglacial cycles.
The cause of the Mid Miocene Climatic Optimum is a mystery. Many have tried to link it to CO2 emissions associated with the Columbia River Basalt Group flood basalt eruptions, despite a lack of clear evidence.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/03/miocene-volcanism-carbon-dioxide-and-climate/
Pagani et al., 1999
I’m of the Scotia Plate transit school.
Opening deep oceanic channels between Antarctica and South America and Australia caused the ice sheets to form, so it makes sense that shoaling of Drake Passage caused some melt back.
“Cenozoic Ice Age began about 34 million years ago”.
Thanks to Science® we can be precise.
That’s 34,001,950 years before the Athropocene.
David ==> …..and six months ago”
Do cities change the geological landscape ? Maybe
Does mining change the geological landscape ? Maybe
Did the Egyptians, Mayans, Romans change the geological landscape ? Maybe
All these things happened well before 1950.
Does the recent idea of leaving great blobs of concrete and steel (wind turbine foundations) in once wilderness areas, change the geological landscape? Maybe
Does human released CO2 change the geological landscape? NOT ONE BIT !!
Nothing that humans have done compare to the creation of the Great Lakes, the scouring of Yosemite and Hetch Hetchy canyons, and the formation of the Channeled Scablands in Washington.
I always figured this was a means to write papers and get research grants. Nothing to do with reality
Happy to hear that they voted this nonsense down, but let’s face it, everyone knows that we’re already in the Adjustocene.
The unit of time for geological eras is a million years. The idea of a new era starting in 1950 is preposterous.
The unit of time in a typical climate model is 20 seconds. No wonder they are in such a mess.
“The Anthropocene” is supposed to be an epoch, not an era. But even that’s preposterous. The Holocene is already a bogus epoch. It’s just another garden variety interglacial in the Pleistocene Epoch.
A geologic epoch typically lasts millions of years, a period tens of millions, an era hundreds of millions and an eon up to billions.
off topic, but anyway, reading this post it struck me as a bit odd that we use the term “Quaternary” when Primary, Secondary and Tertiary (Paleozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic) were abandoned long ago.
Smart ==> Nothing wrong with being smart and noticing the “left-over” language used…but some sources say “Tertiary and Quaternary are still used today.” [ source ]
Tertiary is supposed to be replaced by Paleogene and Neogene, as in K/Pg boundary mass extinction event rather than K/T. But Quaternary is still useful, as the Pleistocene and Holocene should just be Pleistocene.
It’s the hypocrisene.
tinny ==> Ah, yes.
In July-13 2018, International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) named the present geological periodo as Meghalayan, starting 4200 ago and defined in the east of Indian. Furthermore stated; «the term Anthropocene has not even been submitted for consideration and that the term has only sociological, not scientific relevance. The IPCC should not use this ‘lens’». Nevertheless AR6 and pre 1.5 Report used extensively the term Anthropocene, with no many climatology background in the term as explained the AR6 itself when stated: “The concept of the Anthropocene can be linked to the aspiration of the Paris Agreement… ” (from Masson-Delmotte et al., 2018 p. 54).
The brief history is that it was suggested by N Prize in chemistry Paul Crutzen (†) and biologist Eugene F. Stoermer, being the first time used in Global Change News Letter, a non peer-rev. paper from Bull. International Geo-Biosphere Program, in 2000.
Jose Carlos Gonzalez_Hidalgo ==> Thanks for the fuller history of the term.
Meghalayan isn’t a period, but an age (unit of time) or stage (geologic layer).
I´m sorry. You´r right (bad translation from spanish, but present unit of time or stage is that)
Climate “science”? – It’s never really progressed past THE PLASTOCENE(sic). Very significant era in the development and founding of CAGW hypothesis. It’s like time stood still.
As a formal geologic time period, the Anthropocene is now officially deader than Jimmy Hoffa.
https://www.science.org/content/article/anthropocene-dead-long-live-anthropocene
That said, the phrase will still be commonly used by geologically illiterate morons.
David ==> Yes, as the media catches up,more members of the commission are speaking out and putting a nail in the ideaof the Anthropocene. As should be.
Particularly Stan Finney. He nailed the Anthropocene as a political stunt right from the beginning. Even some of the supporters are now admitting that the Anthropocene is, at most, an informal “event” rather than a formal time period.
‘An informal “event” rather than a formal time period.’ Ah it’s the ‘beer o’clock’ of the Holocene then?
“Starting in the 1950s, it would have marked a time when humanity’s influence on the planet became overwhelming.”
IF humanity’s influence on the plant is so “overwhelming”, why is it so hard to identify and quantify just what is natural variance and man-made?
Josh had a suggestion for naming this era
I like this one…
If they’re going to make schist up, they might as well go BIG… Make the Anthropocene an Era, rather than just an epoch.
The Pleistocene never ended but the Holocene will.
So too eventually will the Pleistocene, but not for millions of years, at least. It has already been lengthened, rightfully, by attachment of what used to be the last age of the short Pliocene.
How about Canutocene – to emphasise the absurdity of claiming Mankind has primacy over and can control the naturel elements?
John ==> Especially when looked at from the view of GEOLOGY. And that’s what they decided. Nah….
So, humans have become the “major biological force on the planet”? Hmm, I wonder how we compare to, for example, termites, or ants, in terms of “adjusting the environment to their liking”?
hiskorr ==> Yes, opinions vary — but “a or the” lessens the blow. Land use change in the shift to agriculture, mega-city-building, channelization of Europe’s rivers, certainly “a” major biological force, in my opinion.
Not disagreeing, but how long will any of that last? If Mankind ceased to exist, how long before no trace, other than fossilized skeletons, can be found at all?
Gotta love that car ==> well, a lot of crumbling concrete and steel building, interstate highways, etc.
Not to mention kingdom Plantae – AKA plants.
Just look at how much damage one tree ring has done?
Plants converted this Earth from primarily anaerobic to predominately aerobic life.
Not plants, but cyanobacteria, some of which eventually became endosymbionts within eukaryotic cells, ie algae, then much later evolved into green plants.
READERS ==> I need to get a copy of a brand new paper from the journal Nature Sustainability. If you have access personally or through your institution, and would be willing to share a copy, please email me at my first name at i4.net Thanks!
Some articles are open access…
https://www.nature.com/natsustain/articles
All of the articles appear to be ridicule-worthy… 😉
David ==> Thanks, alas, but not the one I need…..
If one is inclined (I am not) to designate a geological era/epoc/age/whatever after humans (i.e., anthro – ???) then should it not start 200,000 to 1,000,000 years ago when humans first appeared as a species?
It is obvious that the anthropocene designation was created as proof of anthropogenic global warming sans climate apocalypse.
Sounds like the vote was a secret IQ test that four of them failed.
How do geologists decide on what is to be called an Epoch or Era and so forth?
Denis ==> I gave three links to news stories that cover the process that is used by the IUGS….if you read all three, you’ll get a pretty good idea.
But you may be asking: How does an individual geologist decide? What are his criteria? etc. Some of the news stories give some insight.
We (individual geologists) don’t get to decide. If we all had our own individual geological time scales, communication would be difficult.
That said, there are many informal variations. In the US, the Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene and Miocene are often referred to as the Tertiary Period. In the Gulf of Mexico, the oil industry generally considers the Gelasian Age to be the Upper Pliocene, while it is officially designated as the Lower Pleistocene.
The International Commission on Stratigraphy is the governing body. There’s a very formal process for identifying and approving the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Points (AKA golden spikes), designating the top and/or base of a geologic time period.
https://stratigraphy.org/gssps/
Regarding the hierarchy, the longest time periods are referred to as Eons. The current Eon, the Phanerozoic, began about 540 million years ago. Within the Phanerozoic Eon, there are three Eras: Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. We are currently in the Cenozoic Era, which began about 65 million years ago. The Cenozoic is subdivided into periods and epochs as outlined below:
Pretty much the only impact of man that would still be visible 10’s of thousands of years from now, will be stones that have been moved from where they formed to where men wanted them to be.
There are a lot of such stones, and while the number is growing, the current amount is so trivial that future geologists would have to search long and hard to find conclusive evidence of it.
Beyond that, the start of such an epoch would have to be set back to around 3000 to 5000 BC.
I propose that we are now in “The Anthropocene”….the Anthropocentric Greening World.
I trust the geologists. They tend to have their feet on the ground.
They are arguing over a geologic event, not politics. Geologic timeframes cover hundreds of thousands if not millions of years duration. Even the current arbitrary timeframe, the Holocene, is not valid as it describes only the current interglacial period that is practically identical to dozens of prior interglacial periods of the Pleistocene.
This is a perfect example of “recency bias”, where undue weight is psychologically assigned to recent events that are no more significant than preceding events.