Science and Environment: Vision.org Investigates Change in Geologic Timescale

New Name Recognizes Epoch of Stable Climate May Be Giving Way to Human-Driven Change

• Press Release
• Source: Vision Media
• On 3:02 am EST, Tuesday January 13, 2009

PASADENA, CA--(MARKET WIRE)--Jan 13, 2009 -- As the United States gears up for a change of Presidential Administrations, geologists are also anticipating a change in the Geologic Timescale. While not yet formally inaugurated, the Anthropocene, or age of human influence, may soon usurp the current post-ice age epoch, the Holocene. In a Vision.org article titled, "A Change in the Air," science and environment editor Dan Cloer discusses the on-going debate concerning the formal recognition of humankind's potential for planetary influence.

science and environment A Change in the Air ...

"We have entered a distinctive phase in Earth's evolution that satisfies geologists' criteria for its recognition as a distinctive stratigraphic unit," Jan A. Zalasiewicz told Vision. Zalasiewicz is Chair of the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London.

Nevertheless, Cloer notes, "the Geologic Timescale is not constructed arbitrarily." The Anthropocene is not yet official. "Stratigraphers are cautious by nature," says Zalasiewicz, "especially when it comes to amending the Geological Time Scale."

The Holocene Epoch is our current post-ice age time that spans back 10,000 years. It has been a time of unusual climate stability, according to Zalasiewicz, "the longest interval of stability of climate and sea level in at least the last 400,000 years."

According to Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, Cloer reports, "We have the wherewithal to originate such change that we have become a kind of geologic force." Crutzen, an atmospheric chemist lauded for his work concerning the ozone layer, coined the term Anthropocene. "[I]t seems to us more than appropriate to emphasize the central role of mankind in geology and ecology by proposing to use the term 'anthropocene' for the current geological epoch," he suggested in 2000.

The Vision.org article, "A Change in the Air," follows the path of that suggestion through current efforts to formalize the new designation. "Global changes that are of sufficient scale to leave a distinct imprint in geological strata are commonly the kind of phenomena that, if happening today, are likely to also greatly affect human society," Zalasiewicz says.

In the 1970s climatologists were not discussing climate warming but climate cooling and the potential return to an ice age. This error enlivens much of the public skepticism concerning global change and human effect. But there is diminishing doubt in the scientific community that the activity of human beings is having global impact both climatologically as well as geologically.

About Vision:

Vision.org is an online magazine with quarterly print issues that feature in-depth coverage of current social issues, religion and the Bible, history, family relationship topics and insights into philosophical, moral and ethical issues in society today. For a free subscription to the Vision quarterly magazine, visit their web site at http://www.vision.org.

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