How Mankind Remade Nature

Maps: How Mankind Remade Nature
By Brandon Keim August 27, 2010 | 1:30 pm | Categories: Environment

It's always nice to see an illustration of concepts to put something into perspective.
This article could serve as a reminder of our impact on the planet. As biological entities( stewards imo)we are physically contributing to biological changes and thus really need to consider the big picture. This is not news to most of us here, but it is nice to see some perspective on the situation.
I like the idea of an "anthrome"(short for anthropocene) map, to show the impact of developing societies.
Wouldn't it be nice if we could collectively up our efforts to restore/renew our natural resources, making them swing back towards it's original state, or even better? Hopefully this serves as a reminder of managing our resources beyond immediate value, as in thinking of the future.



"As scientists get used to the idea that Earth is in a new geological age, that the Holocene — the last geological age — has been replaced by Anthropocene, they’re figuring out how it got to be that way."

Two years ago, ecologists Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, released a map of the world’s biological areas, traditionally known as biomes. Similar maps were found on science classroom walls across the land, but theirs was different in one very fundamental way: They updated the definition of biome to reflect how human beings used the land.

Ellis and Ramankutty said this was much more relevant to the 21st century, with more than six billion people using more of Earth’s water, energy and matter than any other species, than classical biomes that didn’t account for humanity’s influence. They called their newly-defined areas “anthromes,” short for anthropological biomes. It was a map for the anthropocene.

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[edit on 29/8/2010 by ArMaP]

reply to post by speculativeoptimist

Alright, I will close this one out, I can understand that no one really needs to see how exactly we have screwed things up!
Tis a thread of nothing new.....mybad