Antropocene choices

Before I get to today's topic, I must mention that on our 6pm news from Asheville, which covers most of Western North Carolina and a bit of South Carolina's upstate...the announcement was made that tRump had just landed in Asheville and was traveling south, with his secret service brigade. Nobody knew where he was going. There were a few shots of the big black SUVs traveling on the road. They did mention that the judge had ruled that the court would be held in May of 2024 in FL for his charges of keeping secret documents etc.

So why is he in NC? His plane said "TRUMP" on the side.

Now to consider climate change...

Canada's Crawford Lake selected as the spot to watch for the developing Anthropocene. Article HERE in Science News.

The mud of Craford Lake holds an extremely precise record of human influence, Photo by Sarah Roberts

"Out of 12 locations around the world, Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada, has been selected as the site that would mark the official beginning of the Anthropocene, a proposed geologic epoch starting in the 1950s, researchers announced at a July 11 news conference during the Max Planck Society Conference for a Sustainable Anthropocene in Berlin...

 

Among the locations, Crawford Lake’s muddy layers have trapped one of the most precise histories of human activity. Each summer, the water’s pH and warm temperatures cause mineral crystals to form near the top of the water. The crystals fall to the lake’s bottom like snow, where they lay undisturbed. “You get these lovely stripes,” Turner says. “And you can resolve what year [they’re from] pretty much by counting backwards from the surface layer, like a tree ring.”The layers capture a sharp rise in radioactivity and other evidence of human activity starting in the early 1950s (SN: 9/25/16).

 But not all scientists agree that the Anthropocene began merely 70 years ago, or that it should be defined as a geologic term at all. “Any time you draw a hard line in the geologic record or in any other system, you’re creating a binary — there’s a before and there’s an after,” says paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill of the University of Maine in Orono. “We know human impacts began well before 1950.”

Written by McKensie Prillaman 

Today's quote:

“Children [...] need both windows and mirrors in their lives: mirrors through which you can see yourself and windows through which you can see the world,” she explained. “And minority children have not had mirrors. That has placed them at a disadvantage. If you want to call white children majority children — [they] have had only mirrors. That has placed them at a disadvantage also.”  Lucille Clifton 

This is such an important concept when considering education, or racism, or privileges.