
Anthropocene began in 1965, according to signs left in world’s ‘loneliest tree’ - sohkamyung
https://theconversation.com/anthropocene-began-in-1965-according-to-signs-left-in-the-worlds-loneliest-tree-91993
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lkrubner
I am angry that some people want to use 1965 as a starting point for the
Anthropocene, as that date is clearly a political choice.

A less political choice is to simply ask, when did the extinction rate, for
all animals, rise above the long term trend? And that is about 12,000 years
ago, give or take a few thousand.

~~~
xorfish
Why not around 50'000 years ago when sapiens drove most megafauna of Australia
into extinction?

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Retric
In 20 million years it's going to be hard to get something dated to within
100,000 years. So, the fact the die-offs started slightly before this layer of
radioactive elements is probably not going to be noticeable.

Similarly the dinosaurs did not die of exactly 65,000,000 years ago it was
65,170,000 plus or minus ~640,000 years.

On top of that humans have probably killed of more species after 1965 than
before 1965.

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lkrubner
This is exactly why choosing a specific year, such as 1965, is political. It
would be intellectually honest if they posted a range, with a large error
margin.

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tritium
Well, consider that one way or another, we've written ourselves into the
geological record, as much as we've written our own history about ourselves.
History, often airbrushed, is a sociological exercise, and so, it's always
been a soft science.

Geological and cosmological history is filled with hypothesized events and
broad revisions in the face of emergent (if subtle) proof against common views
and norms. Lots of hypothetical place holders aren't apolitical at all. The
big bang is pretty political, despite the background radiation that serves as
"reasonable evidence" that something _like_ the big bang _might_ have
occurred. The truth being that we don't honestly know why a universe would be
created through a big-bang-like process, even though it's the best
interpretation of the evidence we have access to, lately.

Large error margins are artifacts of incomplete information, and that doesn't
mean incomplete information is truly preferable. We have pretty good
information about 20th century events, even if the particulars of the social
landscape are hotly debated.

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lkrubner
" _We have pretty good information about 20th century events_ "

We don't have specific dates for when the vast majority of extinctions have
happened. We have a rough idea of what the base line extinction rate was for
the last million years, and we have good data suggesting that the trend has
been up for maybe 10-20,000 years, give or take several thousand years.
Picking a specific year, such 9,874 BC, or 434 AD, or 1965 AD, is arbitrary,
and a political act.

~~~
tritium
Is presence of species and biological diversity more relevant than transient
geological evidence, asteroid impacts and tectonic activity? Without
geological evidence (fossils) we would have no benchmark for non-living
species.

Arguably, all geological timescales and frames of reference (as named by
humans, and thus innately political) are based, not on biological taxonomy and
known degrees of species diversity, but rather, on geological records, for
which radioactive markers from weapons testing carried out by humans, remains
a relevant and valid point of reference that may outlast us.

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klez
I still don't understand what geological record this would set. Wouldn't the
tree eventually die and have its remains scattered around the globe? How would
this preserve the radioactive elements in that spot?

Am I understanding geology and radioactivity wrong?

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maze-le
Lets assume you are a geologist 100000 years from now. When you look at a
drilling core you most certainly will be able to identify a strata, that is
enriched with radionuclides (or fission products of radionuclides), that
cannot be found deeper (earlier) in the core.

>> Wouldn't the tree eventually die and have its remains scattered around the
globe?

Yes, thats exactly the thing, a lot of trees (and other biomatter) will die,
and all of them will scatter their slightly more radioactive remains around
the globe to create a layer as an imprint of the history of our planet.

~~~
gypsy_boots
This is a fantastic ELI5. Thank you

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gph
I still feel like our mass burning/cutting down of forests for use in
agriculture is the real start of the Anthropocene, which arguably began on a
global scale thousands of years ago. It certainly made a large impact on the
environment and climate, undoubtedly more than any other single species during
that time.

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wiz21c
What you write seems so obvious. We definitely cut & burnt a lot of wood, but
we were not that many earthlings... So have you any source for what you say ?
I'm genuinely interested.

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Naga
There's some research that has been done into the Little Ice Age being caused
by the reforestation of the Americas after disease wiped out the populations:
[https://phys.org/news/2011-10-team-european-ice-age-
due.html](https://phys.org/news/2011-10-team-european-ice-age-due.html).

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chmaynard
That's around the same time that single-use plastic packaging was introduced
to the mass consumer market. Coincidence?

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refurb
Probably? I don't see the connection between plastic and mass extinction.

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zcid
Can anybody explain why this tree hasn't reproduced in the last hundred years?
The tree does appear to reproduce asexually. Even with a very thin soil level,
I would have expected at least one seed to take root in that time frame.

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api
If I had to peg a date on it I'd use the date of the first atomic detonation
at Trinity testing ground. That would leave a radioactive trace band around
the world and definitely marks the emergence of hominids as a geological
force.

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theandrewbailey
I agree. It seems strange to mark the beginning of the age as a peak of some
activity that had been going on for a bit. If it's defined by a change in the
earth's composition, the ramp up to the peak is absolutely a change.

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pvaldes
Atomic bomb is not a good mark for starting the anthropocene, the car had
transformed deeply the planet a lot of years before.

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jp555
I’d think coal fueled central heating changed the planet much much more than
cars did in the first half of the 20th. Id think a relatively small percentage
of the world drove cars before 1965.

~~~
Reason077
Indeed. And not just heating - by the end of the 19th century, _billions_ of
tons of coal had already been burned in industrialised nations just to power
steam engines. Very few motor cars existed at that time and it was many
decades until transport emissions started to catch up with coal.

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gypsy_boots
Those last two sentences are pretty depressing: > Should we define the
Anthropocene by when humanity invented the technology to make themselves
extinct? If so, then the nuclear bomb spike recorded in the loneliest tree on
the planet suggests it began in 1965.

I hope we do better than being remembered for this.

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racer-v
What makes you think we'll be remembered?

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hisforehead
The steam engine should mark the beginning of the antropocene. Nuclear
generators still use steam power to produce electricity. Car pistons are not
different than pistons for trains.

~~~
dogma1138
I think the antropocene is meant as a permanent change to the composition of
the earth such as through changing the naturally occurring rate of carbon
isotopes through fission.

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HenryBemis
Anthropocene (Ανρωποσύνη in Greek) means Humanity.

And now I want to travel over there to hug this tree! (and no I am not a
regular tree hugger) :)

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tremon
It is not derived from Ανρωποσύνη. It is derived from ἄνθρωπο-καινός and in
this context, it means human age.

[https://www.etymonline.com/word/anthropo-](https://www.etymonline.com/word/anthropo-)
"of man";
[https://www.etymonline.com/word/-cene](https://www.etymonline.com/word/-cene)
"new"

The wiki article on
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene#Etymology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliocene#Etymology)
has a better description of how this naming scheme came to be.

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maxxxxx
Why do we care what the exact date is?

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Reason077
So who planted a spruce tree on Campbell Island? These are only native to the
northern hemisphere. "Wild" pines and spruces are considered an invasive
species elsewhere in New Zealand.

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Jaruzel
Literally the _second_ sentence in the article says:

"Planted in the early 20th century by Lord Ranfurly, governor of New Zealand"

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mmirate
In other words, nobody watches the watchers. What a surprise.

