Our planet, the only one we have, has been around for 4.54 billion years (4,540,000,000,000 years). The very first proto-humans emerged around 2,000,000 years ago, and human civilisation (such as it is) has been around for under 6,000 years. Only for 0.00001% of the history of the Earth have modern humans been around. And look what we’ve achieved in that tiny, infinitesimal moment of our existence.
Nature, modified by extra-planetary events including the varying power of the Sun, collisions with asteroids both large and small, and other extra-planetary forces, has managed to create a sustainable world on which we have thrived. Until now.
Humans are the only known life form that has managed to negatively alter the environment in which we, and all other life, currently exist.
This book examines, in forensic detail, the history of our world. The author explains what changes have occurred during the formation and gradual settlement of our home to bring it to its current state of relative equilibrium. We, however, during the very short period since we began to industrialize our planet, have introduced such a state of instability that we now occupy a space that may very soon become impossible to live in for some plants and animals, and where large portions of our world may soon be uninhabitable for the human race.
Michael Mann explains how we have come to this, how our influence has created what…
