The climate change we caused is here for at least 50,000 years – and probably far longer

theconversation.com The climate change we caused is here for at least 50,000 years – and probably far longer

The Anthropocene began quickly, but will last deep into the geological future.

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.

20 comments

I've been saying this for a while, but once you extract and burn fossil carbon, it stays non-fossil for a very long time

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It's here for 50,000 years if we do nothing, but we're likely going to do something. 200 years. Generations one and two will set up the carbon free energy infrastructure, generations three and four will manage the return to acceptable CO2 levels and environmental restoration.

Edit: y'all need to lay off the defeatism. It's really pathetic to read.

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- Are these "generations" in the room with us right now?
  
  22
  
  Yes. Millennials are gen 1
  
  4
  
  Maybe if we get cheap automated lunar manufacturing we could set up some solar shades?
  
  That’s all i’ve got, no one is going to put massive effort into restoring a diffrent climate for the hell of it. By that point they’ve already adapted to the new normal. I mean you might see some efforts over time in a effort to cut forest fires and hurricanes, but given that emissions are still accelerating over fifty years after the UN found we need to get rid of them entirely i doubt there’s going to be much effort to undo that.
  
  1
- even if we stopped emissions tomorrow, at a dead stop, it would be hundreds of years before we got back to baseline pre industry levels.
  
  there is simply no way to turn the ship around this point.
  
  Also greed is never going to allow it.
  
  9
  
  Did you not read anything I wrote?
  
  1
- We should nuke some stuff too, later generations will clean it up anyways
  
  -1

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