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Humans have pushed planet into a new geological era, experts say
Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service
The world of geology is about to be rocked by a controversial bid to reclassify the present era in planetary history as one in which human activities — not natural processes — are the definitive force shaping the top layer of Earth.
It will come as a surprise to most non-experts, but just as we are living in the 21st century according to the calendar, we are creatures of what’s called the Holocene in geological time.
And it’s been that way, according to scientists, for about 11,700 years — a discernible boundary in Earth’s history that is marked, among other ways, by evidence of meltwater lakes and gravel ridges left across the Canadian landscape when the glaciers retreated at the end of the last ice age.
All of recorded human history has taken place within the Holocene. But now, a distinguished group of British geologists has provocatively proposed that the Holocene is over and that we have entered a new geological era — the Anthropocene — in which humans have left such a distinctive footprint on the Earth’s surface through carbon pollution, nuclear fallout, urbanization and other traces of our immense technological power that it should be officially recognized by international scientific bodies as “a formal epoch.”
(23 January 2008)
The original report is available online in the journal of the Geological Society of America (GSA Today).
American Geophysical Union: Climate ‘clearly out of balance’
BBC
The world’s climate is “clearly out of balance and is warming”, the world’s largest society of Earth and space scientists has said in a statement.
The American Geophysical Union (AGU) warned that changes to the Earth’s climate system were “not natural”.
Changes in temperature, sea level and rainfall were best explained by the increased concentration of greenhouse gases from human activities, it added.
The union called for carbon emissions to be cut by more than 50% by 2100.
It is the first time the AGU has updated its policy position on climate change since 2003, when it called for a concerted worldwide study to understand how the Earth would change as a result of climate change.
…Although the statement is consistent with previous positions adopted by the AGU, Professor Killeen said it differed in a number of ways.
“There are fewer caveats that might have appeared in previous statements,” he explained.
“It is more of a declarative statement that the climate is changing and those changes are best explained by human effects due to greenhouse gases and aerosols.”
“Secondly, rather than the AGU saying that this is important and should be looked at, I think this is a call that we need to do something about it.”
(24 January 2008)
Related story by LiveScience
Greenhouse Ocean May Downsize Fish, Risking One Of World’s Most Productive Fisheries
Science Daily based on materials from USC
The last fish you ate probably came from the Bering Sea.
But during this century, the sea’s rich food web–stretching from Alaska to Russia–could fray as algae adapt to greenhouse conditions.
“All the fish that ends up in McDonald’s, fish sandwiches–that’s all Bering Sea fish,” said USC marine ecologist Dave Hutchins, whose former student at the University of Delaware, Clinton Hare, led research published Dec. 20 in Marine Ecology Progress Series.
At present, the Bering Sea provides roughly half the fish caught in U.S. waters each year and nearly a third caught worldwide.
“The experiments we did up there definitely suggest that the changing ecosystem may support less of what we’re harvesting–things like pollock and hake,” Hutchins said.
While the study must be interpreted cautiously, its implications are harrowing, Hutchins said, especially since the Bering Sea is already warming.
“It’s kind of a canary in a coal mine because it appears to be showing climate change effects before the rest of the ocean,” he noted.
(14 January 2008)
