Man's effect on the geology of the planet is so minuscule as to be laughable. The worst we could do is nuclear war, which would be no more than a tiny blip in the geologic record.

Hi Guys,

Here you go read the good Dr's own words.

http://www.mpch-mainz.mpg.de/~air/anthropocene/

WOW, that is a dramatic announcement. Imagine, while we were all just sitting here discussing changes in the climate in the Holocene, POW, we're in the Anthropocene.

So, since this has been apparently decided by a several distinguished professors, and probably peer-reviewed and accepted, since it has been published, can we now end discussion about warming and accept the new epoch for what it is?

Interesting article and I personally lean to accepting the basic premise. However, I remain sceptical about the doom related attitudes to this. The Institute of Oceanography in San Diego recently published findings relating to ice caps in Antarctica 91 million years ago and the ocean temperature was estimated around 36/97, or close to body heat. It was a long time before dinosaur extinction and prior to the evolution of most modern species, so global warming has a helleva long way to go before we hit life extinction threats.
Expecting politicians to look beyond the next election may be naive, but it's time for a measured look at what steps may be necessary long term to mitigate problems, and what opportunities may come our way when the world warms up a bit more. 91 million years ago, the ocean temperture was close to body heat, life on earth did not go extinct. 50,000 years ago, at the height of the last ice age, there was very little in the way of Brazilian rain forest, but the world did not run out of oxygen. Let's work on the assumtion that we'll survive. After all, the alternative means we don't need to do anything.

Good Grief,

Is the University of Leicester trying to make people skeptical?

Anyway, I was always a little skeptical of the Holocene anyway. It seemed a little sketchy to assign a new geological epoch one particular interglacial, simply because of the rise of human civilization. Perhaps I'm just ignorant.
Any geologists out there, what exactly are the criteria for sectioning off epochs, abd how does the holocene meet those criteria?

If NH ice continues as is, it already has surpassed last years extent and thickness?
http://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/seaice/nh.html
NH ice/snow is way above normal AGW can you even start to explain: answer = oneoff
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/snow/
many will be embarrassed in the future because there will be a record of everything printed and said on the Internet at this time re AGW. A 100% certainty is to see a shift from "is" to "may" to "could" (AGW happening) or "we did not say that" to silence. Good luck anyway LOL

thats the stupidest thing i have ever heard. lots of assumptions

Please ignore all of these recent stories. Just keep repeating - "The Earth has a fever" - that is all that good citizens of the planet need to understand.

Rare snowfall blankets Jerusalem
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7217429.stm

Snow causes many deaths in Asia
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7184030.stm

Dozens killed in Iran blizzards
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7178192.stm

China has called out half a million soldiers in a desperate attempt to bring an end to days of transport chaos caused by the worst weather conditions for 50 years.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/30/wchina130.xml

Patrick Henry: Might I suggest that you read Timothy Egans new book about the American dust bowl, "The Worst Hard Times" before you pass judgement on how little affect on geology humans are capable of performing. Or study deforestation (human caused) in the Mediterranian basin and North Africa in ancient times. Perhaps you personally don't move mountains but 6.6 billion humans are very capable of combined action to change our planet in any number of ways.

Hi Guys,

Gee it really is the sun. Amazing what you can find on NASA's websites.

http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov/education/Ulysses_Wallsheet.pdf
http://gammaray.nsstc.nasa.gov/colloquia/abstracts_summer06/presentations/Hathaway.pdf
http://lwsscience.gsfc.nasa.gov/TRT_SunClimate.pdf

it should be called SCAMocene...just another attempt by the Al Gore Welfarer's to label, therefore, bypass debate to forward an agenda...since resistance is futile, i have began to practice my hyperspace code talk in preparation for censorhip so when us deniers have to go underground we can still pass secret messages voicing our descent...

Those of you hoping to watch the annual Antarctic ice sheet meltdown in person may have missed your chance again this year. Vostok, which earlier in the month made it up to a dangerously hot -25C, has now retreated back to -46C as the brilliant Antarctic sunshine retreats.
http://www.wunderground.com/history/station/89606/2008/1/31/MonthlyHistory.html

Antarctica has cooled down about -0.5 degrees since the last pending ice age scare, no doubt due to the evil activities of the human race. At that rate, the Antarctic ice sheet will be gone in about infinity years. Thank you Al Gore for making massive amounts of money through propagating mindless fear.

Patrick Henri'
Your great great great great great great grandfather would be turning over in his grave, if he could see you now. This is more than a debate over Global Warming! Or just a new term for bad human activity. It is about the Sixth extinction,and can we man-up to the issues we are now facing. "The worlds ecosystems have been plunged into chaos,and conservation biologists think that no system,not even the vast oceans, remains untouched by human presence. Conservation measures,sustainable development, and,ultimately, stabilization of human population numbers seem to offer some hope that the Sixth Extinction will not develop to the extent of the third global extinction, some 245mya, when 90% of the world's species were lost.
Kipp Alpert

what a load

More propaganda, what they think we need is some world government with them in charge.
So they can tell us how many babies we can have, what we can eat, what we can and can not do...

They wish they could put everyone in a cage, with them on the outside.

A climate scientist with the federal government's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Gavin Schmidt, said the lack of snowfall this month cannot be attributed to global warming.

http://www.nysun.com/article/70437

kevinag,

Ten million years from now, the geological record left behind by mankind will be close to nil. It may be exactly nil. They may not ever find out that we existed.

"NH ice/snow is way above normal AGW can you even start to explain: answer = oneoff"

Vincent, where's the way above normal snowfall? Just a few blue dots in China, but the rest is near normal, except from Central Europe, which is below average...

Hi Guys,

No Sammy its called the Screamocene. The loudest era to date. LOL

What a bunch of worthless hoo-haa from these scientists. I'll bet they're all paid off by Al Gore! I'm still trying to figure out why Al isn't making more money then some of the oil company CEO's. Oh well, I'll gladly pay my $3/gallon with the comfortable feeling that the use of petroleum is the only viable way society can continue to exist.

I agree with Patrick Henry, in ten million years this all may be a blip during earth's history; however, I'm slightly more concerned about the next 1000 years and the increasing effects of "human progress" on the earth. During the settlement of North America, it was widely known that there was no way human beings could impact the vast buffalo herds, passenger pigeon flocks, etc. Anyone seen a passenger pigeon lately?

LONG LIVE BIG BUSINESS AND UNBRIDLED CAPITALISM.

hmmmmm, Kipp, it appears that you have been reading "The Sixth Extinction" by Niles Eldredge. Even though he is an Paleontologist, he detests humans and would like it if most humans cease to exist. Humans are the cause of everything bad on this planet, right? I am just wondering what your thoughts are on SPECIFIC conservation measures, a PRECISE DEFINITION of sustainable development, and EXACTLY HOW to achieve "stabilization of human population numbers", and specifically what are the steps to accomplishing that goal.

Basically in order to stabilize the global human population someone or some Global Group (?) needs to decide who can have children and who can't, who lives and who doesn't. Perhaps those who are deathly serious about AGW and hate humans the most should consider making the ultimate sacrifice for the good of the planet?

I'm guessing we will need at least 50-75% of the current total human population to make the ultimate sacrifice NOW in order to stop AGW to the satisfaction of those who are telling us we are reaching the tipping point, 90% of the species will die, etc.

I find it somewhat strange that the AGW alarmists in order to "motivate" the public, use the excuse that AGW is going to cause all these human deaths due to starvation, rising sea levels, catastropic weather events, etc. YET at the same time, they actually appear to hate humans, blame humans for ruining the earth, attempt to make humans feel guilty for living on the planet, call humans deniers, and pretty much don't seem to want many of us to continue to exist. Somewhat of a paradox.

I guess some of us are more equal than others.

According to the ScienceDaily report, human impact has created - ocean acidification.(?)

Really? Wow! Sounds like our oceans are turning into an acid bath. Give me a break. Ocean(surface) pH is approximately 8.15. The ocean(surface) has decreased in alkalinity by approximately .08 in 250 years (not that man is entirely to blame). The surface is 1.15 above neutral (alkaline) and our oceans will not turn acidic because of man. Nice try.

Next.

One word: "farms."

Y'all need to settle down with your satellite images and geology textbooks and just admit that human beings have altered the planet. Besides, these epochs are just human constructs anyway. You act like they're written in stone.

We might ascribe great geological significance to the sediment at the bottom of an ancient lake bed. Then we must consider that farmers have overturned topsoil worldwide and reconstructed enormous swaths of ecosystems. We have changed flood patterns on just about every river in the world for the sake of irrigation. Anyone remember the Caspian Sea? The American Prairie never looked the way it does today.

If we can find some dust from a meteor in a layer 65MYA and suspect it of an extinction event, chances are good that 65 million years from now, someone will find some overturned topsoil and call it a geological event.

More likely, they'll find the layer of plastic from that floating trash heap in the Pacific. Now there's a geological event. If the carboniferous period is named for organic carbon deposits, maybe we should call this the plastickiferous period.

Consider how different the world of the Neanderthals was. Much of Europe and North America was buried under a mile of ice. All of the top soil in Canada and New England was scraped bare by glaciers. Mammoths and Sabre Tooth Tigers were being hunted. Sea level was hundreds of feet lower.

Now consider the Jurassic. CO2 levels varied between 7000ppm and 1000ppm. Our changes have been in the noise by comparison. The ego of some scientists and the human race seemingly knows no bounds to think we have the power to change significantly alter the geologic record. How long would it take humans to dig out the Grand Canyon?

And one more thing - the nonsense about human tolerance of CO2 someone posted earlier.

Seven normal volunteers were exposed to an environment of 21 mm. Hg CO2 (3%) for a 5-day experimental period bracketed by two 5-day control periods. Measurements included daily serum and urine electrolytes, blood gas studies, and net acid excretion studies. Also included were detailed investigations of respiratory physiology, exercise response, and psychomotor performance. All subjects tolerated the experimental atmosphere with no undue problems. Arterial and alveolar PCO2's increased 3 to 4 mm. Hg with a mild reduction in arterial pH from 7.40 to 7.37. Arterial pH values returned to near control values by the fourth day. No increases were noted in net acid excretion. Exercise was tolerated remarkably well.

http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=AD0664899

Emiliano

once again
http://moe.met.fsu.edu/snow/ you have to scroll down to see graphs

Well now, lift us up on that global warming bandwagon of funding and scientific prominence. Finally a vehicle has come along to get our university advertised and our professors recognized. The IPCC will surely back up our claims and maybe peer review our findings, because it adds to their "human caused" agenda, so keep shovelling out the crap, lads, some of the folks are falling for it.

What a meal ticket this has become. Boy, if there's an ice age it'll be a real 180 degree sideshow then.

Paul Revere,

"During the settlement of North America, it was widely known that there was no way human beings could impact the vast buffalo herds, passenger pigeon flocks, etc. Anyone seen a passenger pigeon lately?"

North America also had dinosaurs, wooly rhinoceros and the very large short-faced bear, that went extinct before man ever showed up.

Whether we are here or not, species go the way of extinction.

All very interesting, but I think it's a few million years premature.

Mary,

You said it right.

Kipp,

Whatever doom scenarios and cataclysmic soothsayer websites your obviously into, your being needlessly consumed by them. They love to dwell on peoples fears.

"If your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather followed those same ideas, he would be rolling over in his grave" knowing that his future generations of Alperts are still around and doing fine.

If your grandfather dwelled on stabalizing human population numbers, you and one of your parents might not exist today.

Don't look at a website, a newscast or read a book or magazine about that sort of thing for a while. It'll do you good.

Ranger Chris, you're dead right. You don't even need satellite images. Anyone who has ever flown across the 49th parallel at 30,000 ft on a clear day sees a dead straight line of human activity. Fly over europe, and it's huge areas of farm, nice neat fields like you never get in nature. Farms are a savagely restricted ecology, which have a greater effect than burning fossil fuels on the atmospheric balance. Also on deforestation, we seem to conveniently forget here in the UK that we deforested our country a few hundred years back - now we moan at the third world for doing the same.

We have entered a "new epoch" of scientific disconnection from the real world.

There is an article from NASA today explaining that last winter must have been wet in the southwest due to El Nino, and t