The Anthropocene does not exist. At least, that's what the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), a sort of arbiter responsible for ensuring global consistency in the classification of the Earth's history, declared this Friday, March 22. Resolving a decades-long debate.
The impact of human activities on our planet is in fact increasingly evident and visible through greenhouse gas emissions, the spread of microplastics and other forms of pollution. Scientists are therefore campaigning for this period, which began in the 19th century with the Industrial Revolution, to be recognized as an era in its own right, succeeding the Holocene, an interglacial period marked by favorable climatic conditions which stimulated the flourishing of human societies, and which spanned more than 10,000 years.
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