It's books like this that makes me want search deeper into environmental issues. I have always argued that the World would not change environmentally if we do not educate our people. I say this because the new innovations bought to us by humanity has really left a big impact. If we were to educate more people on these growing problems, we may be able to see a slight change.
For instance, if we were to take a look of Earth's statistics before the industrial revolution, massive pollution, radioactive testings etc, we would see such a drastic change. However, one would expect this. Economies were in early development so most people didn't know the impact it would have in the future. We didn't have the technology or knowledge to know how it was destroy earth's atmosphere day by day.
As for the Anthropocene, I feel as if it's going to be never-ending because there are always new developments leading to more catastrophes. This epoch has a already left a major dent on Earth. For example, the Chernobyl Disaster. This left an entire town isolated because of a very dangerous nuclear accident. This caused updraft, over 100 deaths, many adults and children developed cancer because of the radiation and so much more. Also, because of the updrafts, the radioactive material were within the contents of clouds and this precipitated over countries in Europe. This fascinated me because this catastrophe took place in the 19th Century. There have been many more events that had happened before this. This simply means that we have been in Anthropocene from centuries ago.
Ellis gives his thoughts on this new epoch and how we can be affected in the near future. Anthropocene is an on-going epoch that is gaining so much more attention today. We see this by the many activist, environmental scientists and geologists spreading the world of environmental issues, and thinking on new innovative ways for humans to not affect Earth in a negative way. Anthropocene, in my opinion, can be ended if we were to educate more people on adverse effects, and I will continue to stress this because its my belief.
This book gave me so much more knowledge on earth's history and it gave be in sight of earthly conditions before time. I hadn't known about Anthropocene until reading this book. It's definitely something I won't forget and would want to learn more about.
There's a potential upside to the Anthropocene: if we really are impactful enough as a species to damage the environment, perhaps it's not out of the question that we may be able to reverse that impact and (first of all) STOP damaging it, then start restoring it and generally living more mindful of the fact that our presence makes a difference. There's probably no way, short of self-destructive annihilation, we're going to cease having an impact of one form or another. I vote against annihilation, and for mindfulness in the Anthropocene.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. We would also be able to learn from our mistakes and lead to live better and treat the environment better as well
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