From Forest to Farmland and Moraine to Meadow: When did the Anthropocene Begin?
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The start date for what scientists call the Anthropocene – the era in which human activities begin to have a significant global impact on Earth’s ecosystems – varies widely. Some researchers point to the industrial revolution, others look much further back. In this podcast Jed Kaplan, of the Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, discusses his research, focused on the role of the Earth’s land surface in the climate system — and what it reveals about how humans were transforming ecosystem more than 3,000 years ago.