Goodbye, Holocene?

The cover story of last week’s Economist suggests we may have seen the last of the Holocene. (The most recent geological epoch) It’s a little concerning to be among those actively participating in this transition. The article suggests that 90% of all plant activity in the world is reliant in some way upon people. The advances to worldwide food production have pretty much forced the issue upon our earth. It’s just not possible to expect the world to remain a similar place supporting ten times its population of three centuries ago.

Can the Robocene be far behind?

That responsible forestry has become a more acceptable practice worldwide is encouraging. Since we are already pretty much in the middle of an “Anthropocene Era,” we should do our best to not cause some sort of mass extinction, I suppose. Population swells will have to be managed with the available resources.

Meanwhile, people are certainly living longer. So the strains on the system increase incrementally with each generation, even if there were an effective zero population growth. This has been established already in much of Western Europe, but not so elsewhere in the world. China is already questioning its one-child policy as it is experiencing its most remarkable economic growth period in its modern history.

Again, we’ll see if we make responsible decisions home and abroad. International mandates have certainly become more common, and rogue nations are experiencing just a little bit of difficulty worldwide…in case anyone hadn’t noticed quite yet. Now we can root for a simple little epoch change instead of the end/beginning of a new era.