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This short video beautifully illustrates how expansive human engineering is over the face of the earth.
The video is by anthropologist and illustrator Felix Pharand-Deschenes. His website Globalia contains many still images showing the extent of human influence on earth. Here is an excerpt from the site that explains what the Anthropocene is:
So, might you ask, what is the Anthropocene?
First, the etymology. The Ancient Greek [anthropos] means "human being" while [kainos] means "new, current." The Anthropocene would thus be best defined as the new human-dominated period of the Earth's history.
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Technically, the Anthropocene is the most recent period of the Quaternary, succeding to the Holocene. The Quaternary is a period of the Earth's history characterized by numerous and cyclical glaciations, starting 2,588,000 years ago (2.588 Ma). The Quaternary is divided into three epochs: the Pleistocene, the Holocene, and now the Anthropocene....
Here is the definition more or less impressionistic we propose for the Anthropocene:
"A period marked by a regime change in the activity of industrial societies which began at the turn of the nineteenth century and which has caused global disruptions in the Earth System on a scale unprecedented in human history: climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution of the sea, land and air, resources depredation, land cover denudation, radical transformation of the ecumene, among others. These changes command a major realignment of our consciousness and worldviews, and call for different ways to inhabit the Earth."Mapping the Anthropocene: first few steps.
Behind the name lie the challenges of our time. This concept illustrates and groups together the main agents that shape our planet, who literally engrave its surface—it is the anthroposphere, the human layer that grows inside the biosphere. This page is dedicated to the impressionist mapping of the artifacts from this singular moment in Earth's history. Impressionist because these maps are unlabelled and silent, giving free rein to contemplation and imagination; impressionist also because they do not follow the canons of cartography, where scales and legend are mandatory.By locating the structures and hotspots of human activity, by acknowledging the extent of our footprints and our facilities, perhaps we will glimpse the limits of our world and the importance of redefining what it means to live in and on it.
More information appears in a Daily Mail article, Incredible diagrams show how human technology has taken over the planet:
Canadian anthropolgist Felix Pharand has devoted 13 years to creating diagrams of how human technologies such as data cables, aeroplanes and roads are colonising the surface of our planet.
Using an ordinary home PC, Pharand input data from agencies such as the Geospatial Intelligence Agency and Atmospheric Administration to create accurate illustrations of how humans have 'domesticated' our planet - superimposing the data on images of the earth's cities lit up at night.
Pharand claims three per cent of the planet's land surface is under tarmac - an area the size of India.
...Felix taught himself design to communicate his ideas more effectively - and wanted to create the sort of visions of planets seen in sci-fi movies, but using real data from our world.
