Earth in the Era of Humans The Anthropecene

GEOGRAPHY 354

The Anthropecene: Earth in the Era of Humans

Human beings have in the past been termed the greatest forces of nature. Essentially, human activities have significantly impacted the anthropocene epoch with humans dominating the overall environment (Tong et al., 2022). The increased domination of humans in as far as the anthropocene is concerned has led to loss of biodiversity and climate change. For instance, various ecosystems have been affected, and atmospheric carbon dioxide and ocean acidification concentrations have increased (Tong et al, 2022). Various assessments indicate that greenhouse gas emissions have significantly increased over the last few decades. Anthropogenic changes threaten the resilience and viability of ecosystems as well as humans who depend on the said ecosystems. According to Chu and Karr (2017), there are three ways through which human activities that can impact the biosphere. Essentially, humans can impact the biosphere indirectly (in which case they deplete living systems by altering the chemical or physical environments), or directly by depleting human life, or indirectly by depleting non-human life. Therefore, to be able to develop effective ways of managing the impact of human activities, it would be prudent to first understand human activities that pose greatest risk to the biosphere.

There are various human activities that affect the biosphere directly or indirectly. Humans could impact biosphere indirectly through water degradation whereby they control the availability and movement of water (Chu and Karr, 2017). In addition to physical control of water channels, humans engage in activities such as residential and agricultural pollution which also leads to degradation of water. For instance, humans engage in activities which are inclusive of, but they are not limited to; excessive use of pesticides, animal wastes, and fertilizers. As a consequence, the combined soil pollution and physical alterations of natural sources of earth water could have harmful impacts, i.e. death of aquatic animals owing to lack of oxygen.

The second human activity that causes anthropogenic changes is overharvesting of natural and renewable resources. This has been associated with overpopulation whereby as the human population increases, use of natural resources also increases. According to Tong et al. (2022), human population today happens to be approximately 7.8 billion with an expected increase by 2.1 billion by 2050. The author suggest that the said increased population leads to degradation of the biosphere through activities such as overfishing (Chu and Karr, 2017). According to the authors, overfishing leads to depletion of both fish and other marine mammals which are inclusive of sea otters, manatees, sea lions, seals, and whales. As a consequence, most of the said mammals are almost extinct. Another human activity that has been associated with increased population is the burning of fossil fuels. According to Ramirez-Llodra et al. (2011), humans also destroy marine life through activities such as waste disposal over ships, poor mining waste disposal, sewage pollution, disposal of dead animals in oceans, careless disposal of pharmaceuticals, and radioactive waste. For instance, waste from pharmaceuticals can be highly toxic, leading to loss of marine life.

Apart from overfishing and pollution activities, humans have also been linked to excessive timber harvesting. According to Chu and Karr (2017), timber harvesting strips vegetation from the land which leads to worse floods, soil erosion, increased carbon dioxide emissions, and diminished stream and forest organisms owing to lack of habitats. The authors further suggest that soil erosion leads to depletion of organic micro-organisms. The support of plants and organisms becomes difficult owing to loss of permeability to air and water. In addition, humans cut trees so as to create space for cultivation as well as domestication of their animals - eliminating most wild animals that depend on the said vegetation as their habitat (Chu and Karr, 2017).