According to an article¹ in The Independent, we have left the 12,000 year period know as the Holocene age and entered a new epoch @ 1950 primarily due to the mass on exploitation during and subsequent the great wars of the 20th century.

It is being named the Anthropocene age, as man is now the mover of ten times more land mass than volcanoes and earthquakes; this and other effects are stratified in the geological structure of the earth. There is a radio active marker that will leave an indelible print of the beginning of this age, but it is not the radio activity that is a problem.

• CO2 and sea levels are rising.
• There is a collection of plastic rubbish caught in the pacific twice the size of the USA
• areas of a Cornish beach are 30% micro-plastic.²
• Animal biomass is almost all of human design; some 40% human and 55% of animals bred for humans. Only 4 to 5 percent of animal biomass is now formed by wild life.

We are unfettered consumers and transformers of the earth, and although individuals have know they are and have practised restraint. And whereas co-operation has been used to further exploitation of physical resources, this co-operation is being touted to manage the same resources. Still the few that do practice restraint for co-operative reasons must surely see that the only outcome will be to leave the resource to another to consume.

Restraint is only good for the soul and only if it's fun.

1. The Independent 4th may 2014, by Ian Johnston
2. Plymouth Uni