WYOMING – THE LAST WILD WEST

“Welcome to the Anthropocene.” This is how Nobel laureate in Chemistry Paul Crutzen began his book in 2000, discussing the effects of human activities on climate and the planet.

The term “Anthropocene” refers to that part of our planet’s history that bears profound signs of human activity at the atmospheric, geological, and climatic levels. In short, the Anthropocene is the geological era we are currently living in: the Age of Man.

Our species has been one of the few in Earth’s history to possess the power to influence and change seemingly immutable structural and environmental aspects of the planet, such as geomorphology, climate, and atmospheric composition.

In fact, traces of our presence and evidence of our existence can be found almost everywhere. There are even particles of plastic material found in some rock sediments.

Activities such as agriculture, livestock farming, industries, transportation, infrastructure, lighting, and waste have shaped the surrounding environment in often radical and sometimes irreversible ways. We have excavated entire mountains, altered the course of rivers, created materials that do not exist in nature, made inhospitable areas habitable, and invented machines and tools to simplify our lives.

We have created civilization, a parallel universe to the natural and wild world from which we originated, which has become our only reality.

The transformation of the environment has consequently had repercussions on other inhabitants of the planet. Our presence has altered behaviors and habitats of numerous living species, and their encounter with human civilization has not always resulted in integration. Hundreds of species have become extinct due to activities such as hunting, livestock farming, and land transformation carried out by us.