The Anthropocene Biosphere

Humans are transforming Earth in absolutely unprecedented ways.

A study shows how homo sapiens has radically changed their natural home, planet Earth and has "caused shifts in world ecosystems unprecedented in the last 500 million years." (source)

• Similar to the Great Oxygenation Events 2.3 billion years ago, human impact has produced a new kind of biosphere.
• Intervention in the diversity of life has been the greatest for the past half billion years.
• Our only home, planet Earth is entering a new kind of planetary state

Some of the key changes are:

•         "The homogenisation of species around the world through mass, human-instigated species invasions – nothing on this global scale has happened before

•         One species, Homo sapiens, is now in effect the top predator on land and in the sea, and has commandeered for its use over a quarter of global biological productivity.  There has never been a single species of such reach and power previously

There is growing direction of evolution of other species by Homo sapiens

•         There is growing interaction of the biosphere with the ‘technosphere’ – a concept pioneered by one of the team members, Professor Peter Haff of Duke University - the sum total of all human-made manufactured machines and objects, and the systems that control them" (source)

 M. Williams, J. Zalasiewicz, P. Haff, C. Schwagerl, A. D. Barnosky, E. C. Ellis. The Anthropocene biosphere. The Anthropocene Review, 2015; DOI: 10.1177/2053019615591020

Afterthoughts:
The global homogenisation of flora and fauna is obvious. People support a world full of poodles and horticultural weeds. They do not appreciate the endemic biodiversity of the place they dwell in. The eradication of bio-diversity is replaced with a monoculture.

Only one species (Homo sapiens) grabs 40% of net primary production

Burning fossil fuels and biomass seems an unstoppable addictive behaviour. We would rather burn to death, than modify our way of life.

Humans dictate the evolution of all other species, also having a go at their own imperfections.

We are constructing a gestell/ artifact that "could persist over geological timescales, an interaction of the biosphere with the technosphere (the global emergent system that includes humans, technological artefacts, and associated social and technological networks)." (source)

This noosphere (mind sphere) or a distributed agency seeks to expand the domination of space as well as planet Earth.

Spaceship Earth is fully in the hands and the code of the human helmsman. While vandalising the cradle of humanity and depriving the rest of life of a habitable planet, man steers for the goal of more and more.

Images:
The face of man, graffiti EU


Update:
Clive Hamilton, The Banality of Ethics in the Anthropocene, Part 1, Part 2, 

2014 Earth's warmest year on record - but we are air conditioned

"The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2014 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880." The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA

Coal powered air conditioners rattle through suburbia, shops and malls. All doors are wide open to invite possible customers in. People and pets are advised to stay indoors in the land of the great outdoors.  Livestock are precooked on treeless paddocks. Wildlife will have to manage somehow. The media disseminates images of beaches with jolly beach bodies cooling down before racing back to their ac suv to carry them to the next cool location.

Houses seem to be built for another geographical region, but not Australia.  After 100s of years they have not come to terms with the climate, let alone unhinged catastrophic climate change.

" ..You see the same housing design from Hobart to Emerald to even Darwin, and that's madness... Australia's houses are poorly adapted to extremes of temperature. Houses with little shade, green space or surrounding trees, and with dark roofs and low ceilings, mean that the only way to cool them is to turn on the air-conditioning", Dr Hanna, Ecomagazine

Whatever the seemingly temporary dwelling is, just bang a legionnaires disease dripping air conditioner on it and 'she'll be right'. Should there be a blackout it is always handy to blame possum for dark malls and melting businesses where nothing goes without electronic gadgets.

Stay cool Bellingen

"Historically in Australia, more people die from heatwaves than they do from any other type of natural disaster," Professor Steffen

Leaving the habitable planet option behind, out of control fires rage over the country. While the climate is "getting out of control", Australia chooses to stick its head into the hot beach sand and tolerate the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases.

 "About 10 per cent of fires are lit by children." Dr Janet Stanley, Monash University, abc

Images:
'Stay cool' Bellingen CBD, where local motorists turn the park into a car park
Blackout, eu

Heatwaves, blackouts and infrastructure breakdown, CSIRO
Hot and bothered: our health under climate change, ECOS
Urban areas see more heat waves, environmental research web


More readings on the 'life style' of bankruptcy
Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 1945

Bellingen

This iconic dwelling in Bellingen could stand for our only habitable home that is being vandalised by the addiction to burning fossil fuels and deforestation.