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The Age of Humans The Age of Humans

While arriving only recently in Earth's timeline, humans are driving major changes to the planet's ecosystems. Even now, the basic requirements for human life—air, water, shelter, food, nature and culture—are being rapidly transformed by the billions of people on the planet.

These changes have become so noticeable on a global scale that scientists believe we are living in a new chapter in Earth's story:
the Anthropocene.

Featured story

Where in the World is the Anthropocene?

Some geologists believe we’ve entered a new era. Now they have to search for the rocks that prove it
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Air

How America Stacks Up When It Comes to Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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Human Pollution May Be Fertilizing The Oceans. That’s Not a Good Thing

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Twelve Years Ago, the Kyoto Protocol Set the Stage for Global Climate Change Policy

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Your Guide to All Things Anthropocene

Thanks to Fossil Fuels, Carbon Dating Is in Jeopardy. One Scientist May Have an Easy Fix

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Health

Yes, Sperm Counts Have Been Steadily Declining—But Don’t Freeze Your Sperm Yet

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Video: Why Should Humans Care About Preserving the Diversity of Life on Earth?

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Why Public Health Researchers Are Looking to Urban Trees

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Water

Stinking Rich: Swiss Sewage Contains $1.8 Million in Gold

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A Mysteriously Massive Hole in Antarctic Ice Has Returned

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Thousands of Snow Geese Die at Abandoned Pit Mine

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High-Resolution Satellite Images Capture Stunning View of Earth's Changing Waters

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Streams Around Baltimore Are Flush With Amphetamines

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More From Water »

Education

How India Is Teaching 300 Million Kids to Be Environmentalists
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Ask Smithsonian

What Is Wind?
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Podcasts

How Geography Shaped Societies, From Neanderthals to iPhones
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Culture

How Polar Bears Became the Dragons of the North

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Which of Your Favorite Superheroes Is Destroying the Earth?

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Appalled by the Illegal Trade in Elephant Ivory, a Biologist Decided to Make His Own

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Your Guide to All Things Anthropocene

Humans Have Bogged Down the Earth with 30 Trillion Metric Tons of Stuff, Study Finds

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More From Culture »

Food

Just a Few Species Make Up Most of Earth's Food Supply. And That's a Problem

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America's Fancy Pet Food Addiction Is a Big Problem for the Environment

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Trace Amounts of Pesticide Found in Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream

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Fish Industry On the Hook for Rampant Mislabeling of Species

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Garbage Can Teach Us a Lot About Food Waste

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Shelter

Move Over, Steel: The High Rises of Tomorrow Are ‘Plyscrapers’

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Five Things to Know About Megacities

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How Climate Change Could Make Office Work Even Unhealthier

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Coastal Cities Need to Radically Rethink How They Deal With Rising Waters

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DIY Cartographers Are Putting Slums on the Literal Map

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Economics

Is Sustainable Trash-Burning a Load of Rubbish?

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Americans Think National Parks Are Worth Way More Than We Spend On Them

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New Schemes Pay You to Save Species—But Will They Work?

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Human Impact Atlas

See How Humans Have Reshaped the Globe With This Interactive Atlas
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Rise of Megacities

Make Cities Explode in Size With These Interactive Maps
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Deep Time Globe

Travel Through Deep Time With This Interactive Earth
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Nature

Is Light Pollution Really Pollution?

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How Thousand-Year-Old Trees Became the New Ivory

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Study Shows 84% of Wildfires Caused by Humans

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This Music Was Composed by Climate Change

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Ancient Oyster Shells Are Windows to the Past

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More From Nature »

Latest Anthropocene Stories

Inventing a Vocabulary to Help Inuit People Talk About Climate Change

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Yes, Sperm Counts Have Been Steadily Declining—But Don’t Freeze Your Sperm Yet

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Humans Have Produced Nine Billion Tons of Plastic and Counting

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How Human Noise Ruins Parks for Animals and People

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How Fear of Humans Can Ripple Through Food Webs and Reshape Landscapes

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Coral Reefs Sound Like Popcorn, and That’s a Good Thing

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What Are All The Ways That Land Can Disappear Beneath Your Feet?

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Climate Change, and Cod, Are Causing One Heck of a Lobster Boom in Maine

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Three Things to Know About the Coral Triangle, the Ocean's Biodiversity Hot Spot

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How America Stacks Up When It Comes to Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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More From Latest Anthropocene Stories »

Inventions for Good

Tweaking the Tiny Electrical Charges Inside Cells Can Fight Infection

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Move Over, Steel: The High Rises of Tomorrow Are ‘Plyscrapers’

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Here's a Food Wrapper You Can Eat

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Tags

Key Resources

The Smithsonian's Official Climate Change Statement

The bold assessment acknowledges that the global climate is warming because of human activities
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What Is the Anthropocene?

We are living in the Anthropocene. But no one can agree when it started or how human activity will be preserved
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Secretary Skorton Q&A: Genomics in the Age of Humans

Video

The Past, Present and Future of Agriculture

An Evening with E.O. Wilson

What Is the Anthropocene?

This animation explains why scientists think we've entered a new chapter in Earth's history
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Climate Change 101 With Bill Nye the Science Guy

The Future of Climate Change Is in the Past

At the Smithsonian

Dig Into the Nuclear Era's Homegrown Fallout Shelters

For the World’s Wetlands, It May Be Sink or Swim. Here’s Why It Matters

How Canoes Are Saving Lives and Restoring Spirit

Did John Deere's Best Invention Spark a Revolution or an Environmental Disaster?

Humans Caused a Major Shift in Earth's Ecosystems 6,000 Years Ago

Podcasts

Creating an Equation for Cities May Solve Ecological Conundrums

In this Generation Anthropocene podcast, scientists explore the ways urbanization might lead to a greener future
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Are There Any Places on Earth Left Untouched by Noise Pollution?

In this Generation Anthropocene podcast, an acoustic ecologist tours the planet in search of pristine soundscapes
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How a Farming Project in Brazil Turned Into an Ecological Tragedy

This week's Generation Anthropocene podcast looks at Rondônia, a textbook tale of how not to set up sustainable land use
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