Researchers say they’ve found the year humans ‘started to ruin the world’

A growing number of scientists say that humanity is the most powerful force on the planet, shaping the environment more than water, wind, or plate tectonics, and suggest renaming the present geologic epoch to reflect that human influence: the Anthropocene. The idea has been gaining steam in both the scientific and mainstream press for several years after two prominent researchers suggested that the earth has formally entered a phase of human domination. In a new report published in the journal Nature, Simon Lewis of University College London and Mark Maslin of the University of Leeds, evaluate when the Anthropocene Epoch officially began.

Formally defining the Anthropocene would state that humans are a force of nature at a geological scale…It changes almost 500 years of scientific understanding, which has pushed humans to become more and more insignificant.

Simon Lewis, an ecologist at University College in London

Fifteen years ago, two prominent researchers suggested that the earth has formally entered a phase of human domination. Unless there’s some unforeseen calamity caused by volcanic activity or a meteor, they argued, “mankind will remain a major geological force for many millennia, maybe millions of years, to come.” Nobel prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen and University of Michigan biologist Eugene Stoermer called this new episode in planetary history the Anthropocene Epoch. The idea has been gaining steam in both the scientific and mainstream press for several years. However, it’s unknown if study’s findings will persuade the official gatekeepers for naming new geologic time periods.

World Anthropocene