In 2000, the Dutch chemist Paul Crutzen popularized the concept of the Anthropocene. From the Greek anthropos, which means human, and kainos, which means new, the word has come to designate the new geological epoch that is characterized by the impact of man on Earth.
Orfeu Bertolami, a physicist and professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, explains to TSF that “the main force of the planet is the activity of man”, that is, it is no longer nature that controls the destinies of the earth.
“The Anthropocene is a transition between a phase of great climatic stability, the Holocene, for a phase in which the earth is much warmer,” he adds.
Among scientists, the existence of the Anthropocene is agreed, when it began it is not so much. There are those who defend that it was with the beginning of agricultural exploration or later with the industrial revolution.
The Portuguese physicist leans towards the second half of the 20th century, due to the growth of human activity: “If we look at the population, the economic growth, the growth of tourism, the large infrastructures in society, engineering… dramatically beginning in the 1950s.” .”
The beginning of this new era leaves marks and Orfeu Bertolami leaves a suggestion to find them: “If we dig a hole anywhere we will find construction materials, plastics, construction waste, radioactive material that was dispersed during the great nuclear weapons tests in the second half of the 20th century”.
All items found in Largo Crawford, which is near Toronto in Canada. This was one of seven sites that experts had pointed to as representative of the Anthropocene, but it was the lake that gained consensus. “It is the one that contains the most elements of the transformation that took place in the second half of the 20th century”, explains Orfeu Bertolami.
With this agreement, the scientists want “geologists of the future, when they look at the planet today, to be able to unequivocally distinguish the era in which we live from previous ones.”
And what results does the Anthropocene have on Earth and human life? “We can fall into a hellish cycle where temperatures rise, Earth’s natural systems lose the ability to regulate the weather, temperatures rise even higher. While this happens, the natural systems stop being efficient and we enter a situation of lack of control. global warming”.
The professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto warns that the most dramatic consequence would be the end of life on Earth, but Orfeu Bertolami believes in the resilience of human beings: “They will not disappear, but what we are talking about it is the capacity to sustain nine billion people on this planet. We are already eight billion, we will be nine billion in 2050. It is not impossible to think that we will no longer have sustainability conditions for such a large population.”
The physicist says that it is necessary to implement measures to emit less and less carbon dioxide, among other things because “those that have been taken are in vain” and he gives the example of Portugal: “We hear that the country is not growing as it should. Portugal is not it can grow bigger. There are no more forests to sustain the carbon you put into the atmosphere. We live off the resources of future generations.”
“We have to decarbonise now. Cut 20% to 30% of our consumption if we want to have some control”, warns Orfeu Bertolami.
Source: TSF
