GEOG 3020 Lecture 2: Unit 2-(Re)Thinking Anthropocene
Document Summary
By the end of this unit, you will be able to: Identify the primary indicators of human-induced global environmental change. Identify the primary drivers of human-induced global environmental change: articulate the broad strokes of the debate underpinning anthropocene. Paul crutzen - an environmental scientists that is widely credited with coining the term anthropocene. "whenever you go somewhere in the world and make measurements, you cannot avoid having to deal with humankind that is the idea of the anthropocene. " This represents consensus among scientists all over the world about how we organize and distinguish fundamental changes to earth"s physical systems through time. Changes are usually characterized by a major event - i. e. mass extinction, tectonic shifts. The cenozoic era is marked by mammalian dominance: most recent time period - cenozoic era --> quaternary period --> holocene epoch, within the quaternary period - marked by cyclical glaciations and inter-glacial periods.