You've made an excellent and entertaining case, though it feels like a better case for identifying the likely future signature than for naming the epoch. Even if we can't know what, a million years hence, the sedimentary/fossil record will look like, it seems a fair bet that human activity will have marked it. Hence the Anthropocene. I'm not crazy about the word - awkward and hinting at hubris - despite having built my writing around it. But it still seems the most appropriate, even if only as an editorial attempt to wake us up to the fate we're making. I like the sound and sense of Plasticene, as I like Stephen Pyne's Pyrocene (https://www.stephenpyne.com/disc.htm), but they seem only to capture a facet of the larger transformation.
Hi Jason, Thanks for your comment. Of course I had my tongue firmly planted in cheek during that essay, and don't expect anyone to take me seriously. I just used it to emphasize the destructive imprint of plastics. Stephen makes a good case, especially since soot and radiocarbon are both the results of fire. But I think Anthropocene will win, so your column is appropriately named.
https://geologyscience.com/geology-branches/paleontology/geologic-time-scale/
Better link to the time scale
You've made an excellent and entertaining case, though it feels like a better case for identifying the likely future signature than for naming the epoch. Even if we can't know what, a million years hence, the sedimentary/fossil record will look like, it seems a fair bet that human activity will have marked it. Hence the Anthropocene. I'm not crazy about the word - awkward and hinting at hubris - despite having built my writing around it. But it still seems the most appropriate, even if only as an editorial attempt to wake us up to the fate we're making. I like the sound and sense of Plasticene, as I like Stephen Pyne's Pyrocene (https://www.stephenpyne.com/disc.htm), but they seem only to capture a facet of the larger transformation.
Hi Jason, Thanks for your comment. Of course I had my tongue firmly planted in cheek during that essay, and don't expect anyone to take me seriously. I just used it to emphasize the destructive imprint of plastics. Stephen makes a good case, especially since soot and radiocarbon are both the results of fire. But I think Anthropocene will win, so your column is appropriately named.