According to Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, the geological period know as the Holocene Era that began 11,500 years ago is now ended. He proposes that in its place, we are now in the Anthropocene Era, one defined by the human (anthropos = man, in Greek) effect on the earth. The British Royal Society is considering the change in terminology, so great is humanity’s effect on the environment. The changes in the earth over time have been the result of natural phenomena. Today, the changes in the earth are due mainly to human activity. Human beings are invested with great power to change. As poet Carl Sandburg once wrote: “God must have wanted man to be a changer. Else God wouldn’t have put that awful unrest to him.” But the more appropriate changes for people to make are in their character, rather than in their environment.
