Nature --> Extra credit

Nature – The Human Epoch

Human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.  Anthropocene is connected with the greenhouse gas created by human activities. Crutzen, a chemist at the Max Plank Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, discovered how humans can damage the ozone layer.   Crutzen proposed the term Anthropocence and claimed that humans already made a hole in ozone layer, humans had double the amount of methane in the atmosphere, and driven up carbon dioxide 30%.    He chose the Industrial Revolution as the start point.    Other researchers, for example, Finney, a stratigraphic Palaeontologist at California State University in Long Beach,  claimed “ the sediments  of the deep sea for the past 70 years would be thinner than 1 millimetre.”  However, as Simon Lewis defines Anthropocene in four parts which includes human impacts, history of time of when modern human societies live within the debates, when human activity left global markers, importance to the geological epoch, and advantages and disadvantages of global markets that might  define the beginning of Anthropocene.  The first impact of humans on the environment was during the Pleistocene time when humans started to use fire.   Additionally, impacts of agriculture also impacted the environment.  Many researchers, such as Crutzen, conclude that the Industrial Revolution was the beginning of Anthropocene.  As the human population increased, so did the pollutants.  Finally, all this human activities have impacted Earth’s functioning as indicated with fossil megafauna dated back 50,000-10,000 yr BP until the present with the persistent industrial chemicals still present in our society.

            I believe that humans have dramatically changed the face of Earth.  However, humans continue to pollute our soil with pesticides, herbicides, large landfills, and nuclear waste from nuclear reactors.  Humans pollute our water from fertilizer run off and oil spills damage our entire ecosystems.   Humans pollute our air burning of fossil fuels and toxic gases from factories.  But, humans must act to make positive change to help our environment such as using renewable energy sources, use technology to reduce pollution, cleaning waterways, controlling wildfires, etc.  Certainly, all of us need to support positive change individually to help our environment, such as carpooling, take short showers to 5 minutes, saving electricity, recycle, reduce, and reuse.