「人類誇大一切:英雄、敵人、 重要性。」—查理·布考斯基
Imagine aliens land on the planet a million years from now and look into the geologic record. What will these curious searchers find of us?
想像外星人在一百萬年後登陸地球 並仔細觀察地球的地質紀錄 這些好奇的探詢者會 找到關於我們的什麼呢?
They will find what geologists, scientists, and other experts are increasingly calling the Anthropocene, or new age of mankind. The impacts that we humans make have become so pervasive, profound, and permanent that some geologists argue we merit our own epoch. That would be a new unit in the geologic time scale that stretches back more than 4.5 billion years, or ever since the Earth took shape. Modern humans may be on par with the glaciers behind various ice ages or the asteroid that doomed most of the dinosaurs.
他們會找到地質學家、科學家 和其他專家日益稱呼的「人類世」 或是「人類的新世紀」 我們人類所造成的影響 是那麼無所不在 深遠 而且永久 讓有些地質學家認為 我們創造了自己的「世」 這會是個地質時代表上的新單位 可以回溯到超過四十五億年前 或說從地球成形以來 現代人可能和各種冰河時期的冰川 或造成恐龍滅絕的小行星同等重要
What is an epoch? Most simply, it's a unit of geologic time. There's the Pleistocene, an icy epoch that saw the evolution of modern humans. Or there's the Eocene, more than 34 million years ago, a hothouse time during which the continents drifted into their present configuration. Changes in climate or fossils found in the rock record help distinguish these epochs and help geologists tell deep time.
到底什麼是「世」呢? 簡單來說,它是地質年代的一個單位 有「更新世」 是個現代人類進化的冰冷時代 也有超過三千四百萬年前的「始新世」 一個較溫暖、溫室效應較強的時期 也是各大陸漂移到現今位置的時期 岩石記錄中發現的氣候或化石變化 有助於區分這些「世」 也幫助地質學家瞭解過去發生的事
So what will be the record of modern people's impact on the planet? It doesn't rely on the things that may seem most obvious to us today, like sprawling cities. Even New York or Shanghai may prove hard to find buried in the rocks a million years from now. But humans have put new things into the world that never existed on Earth before, like plutonium and plastics. In fact, the geologists known as stratigraphers who determine the geologic timescale, have proposed a start date for the Anthropocene around 1950. That’s when people started blowing up nuclear bombs all around the world and scattering novel elements to the winds. Those elements will last in the rock record, even in our bones and teeth for millions of years. And in just 50 years, we've made enough plastic, at least 8 billion metric tons, to cover the whole world in a thin film.
所以什麼會成為現代人 對地球影響的紀錄呢? 這不一定是現在看起來最明顯的事物 像是不斷向外擴展的城市 就算是紐約或是上海也可能很難 在一百萬年後從石堆中被發掘 但是人類創造了從來沒有 在地球上存在過的新東西 像是鈽和塑膠 事實上,地層學家 也就是決定地質年代的地質學家 已經提出「人類世」 約從西元 1950 年開始的說法 那就是人類開始在全世界試爆核彈 並且讓新元素四處擴散在空氣中 這些元素會被保存在岩石地層中 甚至保存在我們的骨頭 和牙齒中數百萬年之久 而且我們在短短五十年 就已經製造出極大量的塑膠 至少八十億噸 讓全世界被一層薄膜給包覆住
People's farming, fishing, and forestry will also show up as a before and after in any such strata because it's those kinds of activities that are causing unique species of plants and animals to die out. This die-off started perhaps more than 40,000 years ago as humanity spread out of Africa and reached places like Australia, kicking off the disappearance of big, likable, and edible animals. This is true of Europe and Asia, think woolly mammoth, as well as North and South America, too. For a species that has only roamed the planet for a few hundred thousand years, Homo sapiens has had a big impact on the future fossil record.
人們的農耕、捕魚以及伐木活動 也將在這地層中留下不可磨滅的痕跡 因為這些活動 造成許多獨特的動植物走向滅絕 這場大滅絕或許在四萬年前 人類從非洲向外遷徙時就已經開始了 人類遷徙到澳洲等地 導致許多大型、可愛 可食用的動物消失了 曾生活在歐洲和亞洲的 猛瑪象就是如此 我們也在北美洲和南美洲 造成這種情況 人類這數十萬年來 唯一可以在全球漫遊的物種 已經對於未來的化石紀錄 造成極大的影響
That also means that even if people were to disappear tomorrow, evolution would be driven by our choices to date. We're making a new homogenous world of certain favored plants and animals, like corn and rats. But it's a world that's not as resilient as the one it replaces. As the fossil record shows, it's a diversity of plants and animals that allows unique pairings of flora and fauna to respond to environmental challenges, and even thrive after an apocalypse. That goes for people, too. If the microscopic plants of the ocean suffer as a result of too much carbon dioxide, say, we'll lose the source of as much as half of the oxygen we need to breathe.
這也代表就算人類明天就全部消失 我們截至目前為止所做的選擇 也會決定了演化的方向 我們正創造一個新的同質世界 由我們偏愛的動植物所組成 像是玉米和老鼠 但這個新世界沒有像過去那一個 擁有那麼強的適應力或彈性 如同化石紀錄所顯示的 是動植物的多樣性 使得獨特的動植物群 可以面對環境的挑戰 甚至在末日劫難後重新茁壯、繁衍 對人類來說也是同樣的道理 如果海洋裡的微小植物 因為過多的二氧化碳而無法生存 我們將會失去一半可供呼吸的氧氣
Then there's the smudge in future rocks. People's penchant for burning coal, oil, and natural gas has spread tiny bits of soot all over the planet. That smudge corresponds with a meteoric rise in the amount of carbon dioxide in the air, now beyond 400 parts per million, or higher than any other Homo sapiens has ever breathed.
再來是對未來岩層的污染 人類對於燃煤、石油和天然氣的偏好 已向全世界散播無數微小的煤灰粒子 這汙染和空氣中二氧化碳濃度的 急速上升有相同的惡化趨勢 現在懸浮微粒濃度已超過 400ppm 或者說比任何其他時代的人類 所呼吸的還要髒
Similar soot can still be found in ancient rocks from volcanic fires of 66 million years ago, a record of the cataclysm touched off by an asteroid at the end of the late Cretaceous epoch. So odds are our soot will still be here 66 million years from now, easy enough to find for any aliens who care to look.
相似的微粒仍可以在六千六百萬年前 火山噴發時代的古代岩層中找到 那是一場大劫難的印記: 一顆小行星的撞擊結束了「白堊紀」 所以很可能我們製造的微粒 在六千六百萬年後依然存在 讓任何好奇的外星人都可以輕易發現
Of course, there's an important difference between us and an asteroid. A space rock has no choice but to follow gravity. We can choose to do differently. And if we do, there might still be some kind of human civilization thousands or even millions of years from now. Not a bad record to hope for.
當然,我們和小行星有個重要差別 太空隕石只能順從重力的牽引 但我們可以選擇做出改變 如果我們改變,距離現在 幾千年、甚至數百萬年後 或許人類文明還存在著 這並不是一個壞結果