Geologists don’t tend to make the headlines. Rocks are something of a hard sell, you might say, when it comes to being newsworthy. But a recent debate among geologists has gotten some attention, and merits some consideration even by those for whom rocks are, well, boring.
At issue is when to date the start of a new geologic era that is going by the name of Anthropocene. The name itself – with a root meaning “human” – is somewhat controversial but has been gaining traction since being popularized by a Nobel laureate early in this century. Whether you date this recent era to the Industrial Revolution around the end of the 18th century, or more recently with the detonation of the atomic bomb (both of which seem to have left traces in our soil), the implications are clear: human beings are impacting the planet with so much force that they are changing and shaping ecosystems, global climate, and the future – and extinction – of species. No other organism currently on the planet possesses anything like this world-making power.
Of course, this new designation comes as much as a warning as it does an artifact of intellectual curiosity. Where does this power to shape our planet lead us? Some prognosticators are sounding dire alarms. Current trends seem to indicate that the kind of power we’re exerting right now may not lead the planet in, shall we say, a healthy direction, either for our mother Earth or for us as a species.
Rather than adding to the doomsayers, though, let me propose that the Anthropocene does offer us something new: an opportunity to finally invest in those with the power to move our world in the direction of positive, sustainable change – you and me. Our friends and family. Our coworkers, employees, and neighbors. Human beings we know and love, or have yet to befriend. This could be the age of human capital, where we take ourselves, our communities, our organizations, and our institutions seriously as worthy of our most thoughtful and serious investments of resources.
We all know that the things we give the most attention to are the things most likely to thrive under our care and watchful eye. What if we were to turn our gaze to the people with whom we share the planet, and direct our power toward shaping each other into wise, joyful caretakers of our planet? Is that impossible to imagine?
It’s certainly not impossible to strive for such an outcome. It just takes the right investments in the human beings right in front of us.