The history of planet Earth is long: about 4.5 billion years. Let's take a look at the geological meaning of the word Anthropocene. Scientists all over the world are still debating. Not everyone agrees that these changes represent enough evidence to declare a new formal geological epoch, the Anthropocene. Carbon dioxide emissions, global warming, ocean acidification, habitat destruction, extinction and widescale natural resource extraction are all signs that we have significantly modified our planet. This period is sometimes known as the Great Acceleration.
In the past 60 years in particular, these human impacts have unfolded at an unprecedented rate and scale. Yet in that time we have fundamentally altered the physical, chemical and biological systems of the planet on which we and all other organisms depend. The Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and modern humans have been around for around a mere 200,000 years. It is widely accepted that our species, Homo sapiens, has had such a significant impact on Earth and its inhabitants that we will have a lasting - and potentially irreversible - influence on its systems, environment, processes and biodiversity. The duo suggested that we are living in a new geological epoch. It was coined in the 1980s, then popularised in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J Crutzen and diatom researcher Eugene F Stoermer.
The word Anthropocene comes from the Greek terms for human ('anthropo') and new ('cene'), but its definition is controversial.
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