The Anthropocene: A New Geologic Age?

Vincent J. Curtis

22 Aug 2018

RE: The Dawning of a New Age. (The Hamilton Spectator Aug 22, 2018)

Count me skeptical about the dawning of a new geologic age.

Geologic ages are shorthand for referring to periods of time in the remote past that demonstrated characteristics of the planet of importance to geologists.  The current age, the Holocene, refers to the period of time from the “end” of the last ice age to the present – about 12,000 years in length.  There is no uncontroversial way to designate which particular year or moment in time 12,000 years ago that marks the precise moment that the last ice age ended.  The boundaries are not that sharp.  The ice sheets began to retreat over several thousand years, and they are still retreating.

So, what is so special about the creation of a new geologic age beginning in the year 1950?  A glance at the Global Warming hockey stick graph shows 1950 as the year that the shaft turns into the blade.

There is a strong smell of “New Age” politics in the push to declare a new geologic age.  What is the name that paleontologists want to call the new age?  Why, the Anthropocene, even though man has existed for over 400,000 years.

We won’t know for several thousand years hence whether a new geologic age should be proclaimed or not, because it will take that long for the new enduring characteristics of the planet to become observable and significant to the scientists of that era.

The stench of post-modernist politics is too strong to ignore that we should tamely accept as holy writ the alleged dawning of a new geologic age – one characterized by western civilization messing up the planet.

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