This book is about the multiple complexities implied by those two (and dozens of other) stories, and about the new epoch we have entered: the Anthropocene. The term was invented in the 1980s and has not yet been formally ratified, but it really should be. The previous epoch — the Holocene — began with human settlements about 13,000 years ago and is defined by the rise to worldwide ascendancy of our species. The new epoch began with the Industrial Revolution in the early 18th century and marks a period in which humans have begun to re-engineer the entire world.
Reading (and writing about) E. Kirsten Peters's The Whole Story of Climate Change awhile back, Led me to suspect that the Holocene might just be another of those warm interruptions that punctuated the Pleistocene every 100,000 years or so. The Holocene has been a bit longer than those, which mostly lasted about 10,000 years, but maybe human activity (Peters notes that humans have been exerting an influence on climate since the dawn of agriculture) has extended its life. Other factors — solar activity, for instance — may eventually counter that.
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