The Age We Made - Part 2

About this episode

<p>Humanity’s impact on the atmosphere with fossil fuel burning is so profound that we’re creating a new geological time period, say geologists. They’ve named it, the Anthropocene.</p><p>In this part of her journey into the Anthropocene, Gaia Vince explores how fossil fuel burning will leave enduring marks in geological record forming on the Earth in current times. </p><p>Climate change and ocean acidification are in the process of transforming the planet on such a scale that humanity has shifted Earth history into a new geological epoch. Millions of years from now, scientists will be able to read the rocks forming now and see that something profound and unprecedently rapid – from sea level rise to dissolving coral reefs. </p><p>Drawing from similar episodes in Earth history, leading geoscientists warn of a global blanket of oxygen-starved muds, extinctions of much marine life and a sea level 20 metres higher than today’s.</p>