Humans, We’ve Entered a New Geological Epoch / Climate Change is Real

Visnja Milidragovic
Future Travel
Published in
5 min readOct 7, 2016

[Disclaimer: This topic is majorly outside my comfort zone and I know very little about physics, geology and engineering; however I am fascinated and the best way I learn is by trying to explain it. Please correct or elucidate my points/misunderstandings in the comments below!]

I recently visited Stavanger, which unbeknownst to me is home to Norway’s Petroleum Museum. In 2011, the country was ranked 8th in the world for crude oil exports and has been drilling in the North Sea since the 60s. Below is a photo of a miniature version of the Troll field, which produces about 40% of Norway’s natural gas. It’s taller than the Eiffel Tower, and considerably larger than the Stavanger Cathedral :)

In reality, this thing is capital M Massive — something to the degree of more than half a million tonnes (which I can’t really even imagine). After I visited the museum, walking through its very engaging exhibits (which include real oil rig parts like evacuation capsules that you can climb into), I can’t say I can still confidently visualize the size of this thing.

However, having just stood in the vicinity of a couple of a rig’s components and read that Troll alone produces 400,000 barrels of oil a day, I’ve come away with a bigger appreciation of the scale of the industry as a whole. Once you just barely grasp the size of one of these things, it all totally blows your mind.

energy (n.) 1590s, “force of expression,” from Greek energeia “activity, action, operation,” from ergon “work; business”. Used by Aristotle with a sense of “actuality, reality, existence” (opposed to “potential”) but this was misunderstood in Late Latin and afterward as “force of expression,” as the power which calls up realistic mental pictures. Broader meaning of “power” in English is first recorded 1660s. Scientific use is from 1807. Energy crisis first attested 1970.

Yah, the idea of “energy crisis” came about when OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, an intergovernmental oil cartel) embargoed the US and other supporters of Israel in the Yom Kippur War leading to an energy shortage. (Also worthy of note: Norway has never been a member of OPEC.)

Interestingly, around the same time of the energy crisis, the scientific discovery of climate change and global warming (which has evolved into “climate crisis”) really began to take hold. Early in the 19th century, scientists first identified the greenhouse effect when ice ages and other natural changes in paleoclimate were first suspected.

Really, all this, made possible by man?

Funnily enough, scientists also had similar thoughts about the massiveness of things as they mapped the course of Earth’s history at scale. Except, they qualified their awe with methodical observations and conclusions — far more sound than my own poetics here, so forgive me — with a geological timeline, which offers an interesting message that I wanted to share with you: The idea of tracing the influence of human beings on the planet.

While standing in one of the exhibits at the museum, a geological timeline, I learned that we’ve entered a new epoch, called the Anthropocene.

(Did you also miss the declaration 16 years ago…?)

Perhaps it’s fitting that I learned this news while standing in a museum dedicated to oil and natural gas. Because I also learned while there, that our planet’s state — and human evolution as we know it — is intricately linked to our species’ potential and capacity to harvest energy from the earth. It may seem obvious, but something about this idea really struck me and felt new, enlightening even.

Our ‘mastery’ of refining this skill — and developing more reasons for needing more energy to further drive consumption — has significantly impacted the planet. So much so that there is currently a proposal underway to formalize a reevaluation of the current period we live in (the Halocene period). This is all due to a unique characteristic of our time that has been observed by scientists:

“The Anthropocene defines Earth’s most recent geologic time period as being human-influenced, or anthropogenic, based on overwhelming global evidence that atmospheric, geologic, hydrologic, biospheric and other earth system processes are now altered by humans.

The word combines the root “anthropo”, meaning “human” with the root “-cene”, the standard suffix for “epoch” in geologic time.

Source: anthropocene.info

The Holocene, the current epoch, is more commonly known as ‘The Age of Man’ though many stratigraphists also refer to as the ‘Garden of Eden’ period. Its etymology comes from the Greek holo (“whole”) + kainos/cene (“new”). It began approximately 10,000 years ago (~8000 BC) with the end of the last glacial period when, one could say, the planet came out of a pretty rough period, and emerged green and complete, so to speak.

This recent demarcation of the Anthropocene period is characterized by the observation of not just the existance of the genus Homo, but our incredible influence on our environment.

And to its detriment.

In context of the controversial (often frustrating) debate on whether ‘climate change is real’, I think this speaks lengths.

Were we fated as a species to discover and harvest energy?

Until we evolved to the degree that we were so significantly influencing the state of our planet during the Halocene, the earth had gone through an unprecedentedly stable climate, which definitely helped humans become what we are today.

It seems the planet’s own evolution through the epochs primed it for us to be able to finally discover and exploit the consumption of fossil fuels. They weren’t there all along, but rather, took millions of years to pressurize and cook before we could extract them from the earth and consume them. And without them, we likely wouldn’t have reached the advanced stages we have thus far that have enabled us to harvest other — renewable — types of energy. Thus far, our consumption of fossil fuels has arguably helped us advance technologically. But what’s the next phase?

Turning inward? Time to extend some influence unto ourselves and reflect on this repositioning of our role on the planet, I think, and see how we can change the quality of our influence on it, towards something more sustainable and positive.

There’s also talk of fusion power but I don’t know enough about it, only that it’s still “not energetically viable”. I’ve also heard there’s plans to go to Mars.

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Visnja Milidragovic
Visnja Milidragovic

Written by Visnja Milidragovic

Digital consultant plagued by recurring dreams of analog times. Current muse: childhood memories.

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