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How much human activity can earth handle?

Posted by: Maven on September 24, 2009 at 8:03 am

timeFrom Time Magazine:

“The scientific name is the Holocene Age, but climatologists like to call our current climatic phase the Long Summer. The history of Earth’s climate has rarely been smooth. From the moment life began on the planet billions of years ago, the climate has swung drastically and often abruptly from one state to another — from tropical swamp to frozen ice age. Over the past 10,000 years, however, the climate has remained remarkably stable by historical standards: not too warm and not too cold, or Goldilocks weather. That stability has allowed Homo sapiens, numbering perhaps just a few million at the dawn of the Holocene, to thrive; farming has taken hold and civilizations have arisen. Without the Long Summer, that never would have been possible.

But as human population has exploded over the past few thousand years, the delicate ecological balance that kept the Long Summer going has become threatened. The rise of industrialized agriculture has thrown off Earth’s natural nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, leading to pollution on land and water, while our fossil-fuel addiction has moved billions of tons of carbon from the land into the atmosphere, heating the climate ever more. …”

Read more from Time Magazine by clicking here.

September 24, 2009 · Filed Under Uncategorized

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One Response to “How much human activity can earth handle?”

  1. Obama to UN: “We understand the gravity.” | Chance of Rain on September 24th, 2009 10:33 am

    [...] For Time Magazine on our current climate cycle, “The Long Summer,” click here, via Aquafornia. [...]

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