In February 2000, Paul Crutzen rose to speak at the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme in Mexico. And when he spoke, people took notice. He was then one of the world’s most cited scientists, a Nobel laureate working on huge-scale problems – the ozone hole, the effects of a nuclear winter.
So little wonder that a word he improvised took hold and spread widely: this was the Anthropocene, a proposed new geological epoch, representing an Earth transformed by the effects of industrialised humanity.
The idea of an entirely new and human-created geological epoch is a sobering scenario as context for the current UN climate summit, COP28. The impact of decisions made at these and other similar conferences will be felt not just beyond our own lives and those of our children, but perhaps beyond the life of human society as we know it.
Okay so why do anything if future people won’t care?
Um, becuse we care? Because we would rather the rate of it getting worse go down than up?
Why do we care if they won’t?
Even if they won’t care, it’s normal to want a better future for the people who come after you.
Right, I know and agree. I wanted to pick apart this idea that “they’ll adapt and not try,” but it’s not really going anywhere useful.
Ah, gotcha. I do understand the anxiety about that though, it’s hard to care when climate change feels so permanent and inevitable.