If I had the ability to vote on whether a new epoch should be added to the geological calendar, I would vote yes one hundred percent of the time. In the past few hundred years our planet has seen a major change in its greenhouse gas emissions and its temperature. In my opinion, I would say that this new epoch should begin around the time of the industrial revolution meaning some time between 1760 and 1840. During this time the use of fossil fuels exploded, meaning coal, oil, and gas were being used in just about every aspect of human life. The pollution from these resources is immense and until recently the effects weren’t really well known. During the time of the industrial revolution, industrialized societies used around 5-8 times more energy as non industrialized societies did. It should be very clear to everyone that are planet is significantly different because of humans then it ever was. So it seems strange that people are against the addition of a new epoch.
I think Kahan’s article is one of the more accurate articles i’ve read in a while especially with today’s extremely noticeable divide in politics. Although I haven’t been around long enough to confidently say this, I believe that the divide among conservatives and liberals has never been greater, at least not for a long time. So unfortunately, peoples true views about climate science are often sheltered by there political side. Kahan explains this by saying “the impact of taking a position that conflicts with their cultural group could be disastrous.” Take this past election, someone who is very pro Trump would be shunned if they heavily supported climate change science and someone who was very pro Hillary or Bernie would be shunned if they were completely against climate change science. Dr. Whitlock talked about how hard it is to persuade Montanans about the dangers of climate change because they are so set in their roots and they don’t really see how climate change is affecting their state. The hardest part of bringing people together to talk about climate change is trying to put aside their cultural and political views. I’m not really sure how to do this because as of right now no one wants to agree on anything.