There have been other space stations since. A notable example is Mir, which hosted several long-duration missions of a year or more — including the longest single spaceflight duration of any human to date, days, by Valeri Polyakov in The International Space Station launched its first piece Nov. The first humans to start the continuous occupation included Expedition 1 members Bill Shepard U. Then it has doubled again, in 50 years to the present 7 billion. Quadrupling in a little over years.
Just doubling of human population had taken one thousand year periods up until the 20th Century. Industrialization including the Haber process — creating the Green Revolution — is the cause. Today, industrialization and advanced technology is now idling millions of young humans leading to the violence we see.
The sudden connectivity — bringing all humans into close cultural contact has stressed many cultures not prepared to adjust and tolerate diversity. Looking further back, into the valleys now inundated with the Black Sea we can logically surmise that man, in his present societal state has been here much longer than years. The volatility of past climates does not diminish the effects of human activity in the Anthropocene.
The types of changes that we have seen in the last two hundred years are far outside the range of variability we see in the past. Examining the Anthropocene through the lens of our evolutionary history shows us that the themes of resilience and adaptability are critical to the history of our species in the past and in the Anthropocene.
These distinctive traits of our lineage have created a human species that is defined by its ability to alter its behavior and environment as a mode of survival. These themes are critical to understanding how the Anthropocene has come to be, and how we will survive into the future.
We can never return the environment to how it was in the past. The conditions of the past have been so varied that there is no stable baseline on which to base what "the past" looked like. Stories of mass extinctions and the destruction of our major cities are useful tools to put the urgency of our situation in perspective. None of this is inaccurate, and it is critical that the public, and especially those in positions of power, understand the scope of influence our species has had on the planet.
But oftentimes this dialogue leaves out a critical perspective: what we can do to change our behavior and environment to create a positive future. The story of human evolution features a unique ability to adapt in the face of changing climates, and this will be no different for human-shaped climates of today and the future. With our own growing awareness of how our actions impact the natural world, the question is how best we can shape our actions so that the consequences of our activities are purposeful and positive.
Altering our surroundings is fundamental to human survival. In this light, how may we come to alter the world that we've created in a conscious and productive way? Community and global collaboration, along with innovation, will be the keys to creating a new path for the future of our species and our environment. By looking at the Anthropocene from a human origins viewpoint, the narrative of our collective humanity and the qualities that unite us as a species with a common origin can give us a sense of communal purpose in developing solutions for the problems of the Anthropocene.
These are some of the many questions that we must answer as we begin to craft the future of the Anthropocene:. Contemplating these questions will help us begin to determine the future of the Anthropocene. The themes of self-determination, community, and action will all be parts of the human-driven innovation for the future of the planet. As we look to the future, we will see not only the planet change, but we may even see changes in ourselves as a species.
We invite you to contemplate: What will it mean to be human in the future of the Anthropocene? Smithsonian Statement on Climate Change.
What is the Anthropocene and Are We in It? Living in the Anthropocene: The Age of Humans. About the Image of Earth at Night. Images of the Present-Day Anthropocene. Skip to main content.
What is the Anthropocene? As of , humans had built so many dams that nearly six times as much water was held in storage as flowed freely in rivers. A visual representation of the breakdown of geological time. The Anthropocene would come after the Holocene. The sharp upward spike in all of the trends displayed on this graph show how human activity has increased since the Great Acceleration.
Human pollution shows the impact of the Anthropocene on many issues. It destroys natural landscapes and poses a critical danger to many animals who may consume or become entangled. Smog in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons. Access to cell phones and the internet have allowed humans to connect to and communicate with people around the globe nearly instantaneously. Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons. Between 2 million and 4 million years ago, the Australopithecus group appeared.
This group was more advanced than the Ardipithecus: they could walk upright, create advanced tools, and climb trees. The Paranthropus group appeared between 2 million and 3 million years ago.
This group had a broader diet, larger teeth, and a more advanced brain. Between 1 and 2. This is what is known as the Out-of-Africa theory, which states all humans evolved from the same ancestors. As archaeologists continue to discover new evidence, the understanding of the evolution process of humans becomes complex.
New evidence has led scientists to suggest that the Homo species might have developed independently within and outside Africa, since Homo erectus, a precursor to Homo sapiens, is known to have left Africa and migrated to other continents. Homo habilis was the first of the modern humans. Homo habilis had a slightly larger skull signifying a bigger brain, smaller teeth and a smaller face than the Australopithecus.
Homo erectus is the earliest human species to possess the body proportions of the modern human.
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