34752even if we leave aside these future prospects

AND ONLY LOOK BACK ON THE LAST 70,000 YEARS, IT IS EVIDENT
THAT THE ANTHROPOCENE HAS ALTERED THE WORLD IN UNPRECEDENTED WAYS:
asteroids, plate tectonics & climate change may have impacted organisms all over the globe,
bùt their influence differed from one area to another. The planet never constituted a single eco-
system; rather, it was a collection of many loosely connected ecosystems. When tectonic move-
ments joined North America with South America it led to an extinction of most South American
marsupials, but had no detrimental effect on Australian kangaroos. When the last ice-age reached
its peak 20,000 years ago, jellyfish in the Persian Gulf & jellyfish in Tokyo Bay both had to adept
to the new climate! Yet since there was no connection between the two populations, each reacted
in a different way, evolving in distinct directions?! In contrast, Sapiens broke the barriers that had
separated the globe into independent ecological zones! In the Anthropocene, the planet became for
the very first time a single ecological unit: Australia, Europe & America continued to have different cli-
mates & topographies, yet humans caused organisms from throughout the world to mingle on regular bases,
irrespective of distance & topography. What began as a trickle of wooden boats with cut-throats has turned
into a torrent of aeroplanes, giant oil tankers & still greater cargo ships that criss-cross every ocean & bind
every island ànd continent! Consequently the ecology of, say, Australia can no longer e understood without
taking into account the European mammals or American microorganisms that flood it's shores and deserts...
Sheep, wheat, rats & flu viruses that humans brought to Australia during the last 300 years are today far
more important to its ecology than any native kangaroos and koalas. But the Anthropocene isn't a novel
phenomenon of the last few centuries. Already many tens of thousands of years ago, when our Stone Age
ancestors spread from East Africa to the 4 corners of the earth, they changed the flora and fauna of every
continent & island on which they settled. They drove to extinction all the other human species
of the world, 90% of the large animals of Australia, 75% of the large mammals of America
& about 50% of àll large land mammals of the planet -
and all before they planted the first
wheatfields, shaped the first metal
tool, wrote the first
texts or struck
the first
coins
......