Smithsonian: Climate Change Is Real
In a bold, carefully-worded statement, the Smithsonian Institute has officially recognized that global warming, due to human activities, is real.
You can read the entire article here.
Living in the Anthropocene
Boyan Slat, is a 20-year-old Dutch man on a mission. After dedicating his teenage years to ridding the world of floating plastic in the ocean, he has committed to finding a way of collecting it. (Boyan is also mentioned extensively in our new title, The Anthropocene: The Human Era and How It Shapes Our Planet.
Read the entire October 17, 2014 BBC article here.
A ‘Man-Made’ Wor(l)d
In a March 2011 Economist article criticism of pseudo-scientific terms like “paradigm shift,” argues that the natural sciences have been moving human activity further away from the center of its conception for centuries, and that such a designation, like the one inferred by the term Anthropocene, would mark a truly historical shift in our thinking.
Read the full article here.
Paul Crutzen’s Change of Heart
The man who coined the term Anthropocene may have had a change of heart. Upon further reflection, Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen suggests in this Science article that the Anthropocene may be more accurately measured as beginning with the nuclear explosions over Japan in 1945.
You can read the entire article from September 17, 2012 here.
Holocene’s Golden Spike?
There is a tradition in geology where a golden spike is inserted into a layer of rock, signifying the historical beginning, of different geologic events.
Andrew Revkin, in a October 16, 2014 New York Times Opinion blog, discusses his role in the Anthropocene Working Group, in which he comments on the complexities of defining a geologic era with a roomful of international scientists. Heady stuff.
You can read the entire article here.