Can we create a good Anthropocene?

"Wild fish and forests are nearly gone. We are warming the atmosphere, melting the ice caps, acidifying the ocean, polluting land and sea, driving species to extinction and inducing invasions by species from around the world - and in some areas leaving only a wasteland of monocultures and weeds."

Forget Mother Nature: This is a world of our making

14 June 2011 by Erle C. Ellis
NewScientist

Humans have transformed Earth beyond recovery – but rather than look back in despair we should look ahead to what we can achieve

THE Holocene, with its mild climate so remarkably stable and good for us, is over. We humans have transformed Earth's climate, geology, biology and hydrology so extensively, profoundly and permanently that geologists are proposing the formal designation of a new geological epoch: the Anthropocene.

International scientific panels will ultimately decide whether to recognise the new epoch, and it could be a decade or longer before we get a final ruling. Nevertheless, it's high time that we - and I do mean all of us - take stock of the new Earth we have created. One reason to do this is to help answer a basic geological question: will the Anthropocene last long enough to justify its designation as a new epoch, or will it remain a mere geological event akin to the impact of an asteroid? It will also help us answer a more profound question: what do we do now?

The first lesson of history is simple: the Anthropocene was a long time in the making. Significant human alteration of the biosphere began more than 15,000 years ago as Palaeolithic tribes evolved social learning, advanced hunting and foraging technologies, and the use of fire, and used them to open up forested landscapes and kill off megafauna.

(Continued here.)