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Age of Man

It’s a new name for a new geologic epoch—one defined by our own massive impact on the planet. That mark will endure in the geologic record long after our cities have crumbled.

/2011/03/anthropocene/img/01-dubai-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-01.jpg Photograph by Jens Neumann/Edgar Rodtmann /2011/03/anthropocene/img/02-unnatural-tuscan-beach-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-02.jpg Photograph by Massimo Vitali Changing Seas Rosignano Solvay, Italy A Tuscan beach captures the textured drama of humans and the sea. The "tropical" sands aren't natural; they're whitened by carbonates from the chemical plant, which also discharged mercury until recently. The plant converts salt extracted from the sea into chlorine and other essential products. Fossil fuels power such transformations; worldwide, the

CO₂ from smokestacks and tailpipes is slowly acidifying the ocean, threatening marine life.]]> /2011/03/anthropocene/img/03-oil-fields-california-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-03.jpg Photograph by Edward Burtynsky The Oil Century South Belridge, California Discovered in 1911, this field pumped on as cities were rebuilt for cars and as ancient petroleum molecules were spun into household products such as plastics, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. South Belridge today produces 32 million barrels a year—enough for nine hours of world demand. In this century the world's supply may plummet.]]> /2011/03/anthropocene/img/04-coal-excavation-wva-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-04.jpg Photograph by J Henry Fair Moving Mountains Kayford Mountain, West Virginia As oil companies drill deeper for offshore oil, mining companies work 24/7 to level Appalachian peaks for coal, which supplies half of U.S. electricity. This summit vanished in a day. Some 470 have been erased since the 1980s; the waste often buries streams. Mountaintop removal recovers just 6 percent of a coal deposit.]]> /2011/03/anthropocene/img/05-ship-sturgeon-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-05.jpg Photograph by Carolyn Drake The Sixth Mass Extinction Museum of History, Aralsk, Kazakhstan The ship sturgeon is near extinction, and it's already gone from the Aral Sea; water diversion for cotton farming reduced what was once the world's fourth largest lake to a dust bowl. In the past half billion years asteroid impacts and other natural events have caused five catastrophic mass extinctions of plants and animals. Humans may be causing a sixth.]]> /2011/03/anthropocene/img/06-arid-plains-spain-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-06.jpg Photograph by Edward Burtynsky Industrial Farming Almería Province, Spain On the arid plains of southern Spain, produce is grown under the world's largest array of greenhouses and trucked north. Greenhouses use water and nutrients efficiently and produce all year—tomatoes in winter, for instance. But globally the challenge is grain and meat, not tomatoes. It takes 38 percent of Earth's ice-free surface to feed seven billion people today, and two billion more are expected by 2050.]]> /2011/03/anthropocene/img/07-fertilized-foods-ad-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-07.jpg Photograph by Reinaldo Loureiro Food Chemistry El Ejido, Spain Fertilizers and pesticides make possible the high yields and flawless produce celebrated by this Spanish billboard. The side effects are far-reaching—nitrogen runoff from fertilized land, for example, causes dead zones at the mouths of rivers worldwide.]]> /2011/03/anthropocene/img/08-hoover-dam-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-08.jpg Photograph by Mitch Epstein A Dammed World Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, Nevada Dams tame floods, water crops (and people), and generate 16 percent of the world's electricity, carbon free. They have also displaced 40 to 80 million people and destroyed river ecosystems. More than half the world's large rivers are now dammed. Some, like the Colorado, are tapped out. Persistent drought has left a "bathtub ring" in Lake Mead, which supplies water to much of the Southwest.]]> /2011/03/anthropocene/img/09-kudzu-alien-vine-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-09.jpg Photograph by William Christenberry Alien Invaders Akron, Alabama Kudzu, a fast-growing Asian vine, has smothered millions of acres in the United States since it was planted in the 1930s to control erosion. Exotics spread by humans are a global threat to biodiversity. Most of the species on the U.S. threatened and endangered lists are there in part because of foreign invaders.]]> /2011/03/anthropocene/img/10-ship-breaking-bangladesh-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-10.jpg Photograph by Edward Burtynsky A Tide of Waste Chittagong, Bangladesh Ship breaking delivers jobs to Bangladesh and a wealth of scrap metal—but also asbestos, PCBs, and other toxics. Though waste recycling generally is booming, so is waste production. In American cities in recent decades, the two trends have just about offset each other.]]> /2011/03/anthropocene/img/11-mexico-city-supersprawl-714.jpg /2011/03/anthropocene/img/anthropocene-60-11.jpg Urban Supersprawl Mexico City, Mexico Some 20 million people live in Mexico City, the world's fifth largest metropolitan area. In 1800 the urban fraction of the global population was 3 percent. Today it is 50 percent and rising. In crowded shantytowns, the need for clean water and sanitation is urgent. But urbanization has an upside: Per capita, cities use less energy and pollute less than rural areas.]]>