It seems appropriate to assign the term “Anthropocene” to the current, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the Holocene – the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia. The Anthropocene Period could be said to have started in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when analyses of air trapped in polar ice showed the beginning of growing global concentrations of CO2 and methane.
看来，引入“人类世”的概念来描述现在的人类主宰的时代比较合适，作为一个地质时代，它是“全新世”的下一代。“全新世”是一个温暖的时期，时间跨度大约为1万-1万2千年之间。全新世的概念是在18世纪后期开始出现的，科学家在分析了极地冰川的气候后发现，全球二氧化碳和甲烷的含量开始上升。与此不谋而合的是，同时代的詹姆斯·瓦特在1784年设计出第一台蒸汽机。