Later this year it will be official. Geologists at the International Commission on Stratigraphy are likely to rule that we have left the Holocene and entered the Anthropocene - an era in which humans are a major geological force, putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere that will persist for millennia, eating the ozone layer, re-engineering the nitrogen cycle and more. Precisely when the era began is still up for grabs. Some, including Paul Crutzen, the Nobel-winning atmospheric chemist who coined the term "Anthropocene", say it started when coal-burning steam engines launched the industrial age. Others point to the dawn of agriculture. But the smart money is on 16 July 1945, when the first atom bomb was exploded in New Mexico.
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