We humans have a strong tendency to anthropomorphize things. Witness all the stupid talking-pet commercials. But when scientists tread into this arena, expect reaction.

Regarding my story yesterday about a proposal to label the past 200 years as the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch in geologic time, what with all the changes to this planet humans have wrought, some tidbits from the mailbag:

Shari writes: It seems so….hmmm, “anthrocentric” and shortsighted of us to name an epoch after ourselves while it is (allegedly) occurring. “Scientists of the future will have no trouble deciding if the proposal was timely.” Maybe not, but that doesn’t make it logical for scientists of the present to decide that in advance, does it?

Don writes: The arrogance of humanity in general, and the “scientific” community in particular amazes me. First, that we think the planet needs saving, and second that we think we are capable of doing so. My guess is that if we could see 100,000 years into the future, the planet would be doing just fine. We may not be here, like thousands of other “dominate” species before us. But there will still be life on this planet. So get over it!

[Will we survive?]

John, the most acerbic of all, writes: Endangered dirt??? Oh please, spare us. … Get a life and find some real research, like how to fix something for once. And quit whining for government grants.

Erik has a totally different take on human arrogance. He writes: Somebody writes a story about the earth and what we are doing to cause such damage. Nobody ever suggest how to change human behavior, raping the earth. The French statesman and thinker Chateaubriand once said:

“The forests preceded civilizations, after their demise only deserts and wasteland were left.”

What has changed? The forests left today are being cut as we speak, eventually leaving the whole earth totally denuded.

The people of this earth are too lazy to do the obvious: to replace every tree that has been cut. Some countries actually have laws that require cut trees to be replaced with seedlings within three months after cutting.

The US government gives the lumber companies about ten years to do that. Have you ever seen the soil that has been washed off the mountains of Washington State? After ten years there is no soil left to plant trees in (after clearcutting).

The Sahara desert once was green with trees, bushes, and grass. Did you ever see the resorts in Egypt? The desert there was changed back into little paradises there.

It can be done if the will is there. For that these stories by scientists of new ecological epochs are pure hogwash.