Goodbye, Anthropocene? Scientists vote against new epoch [Video]

For the past two decades, geologists have wrestled with whether humans have changed the planet enough to kick off a completely new epoch in geological time called the Anthropocene. Now, a subcommittee of Earth scientists has reportedly made a decision: No, we haven’t.

The results mean we’re still living in the Holocene, an epoch that started with the end of the last ice age 11,700 years ago.

The Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) voted on the proposed Anthropocene epoch over the past month, and the results were released to subcommittee members on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. The newspaper saw the internal document listing the votes: 12 against, four in favour and two abstentions.

The SQS is a constituent body of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), which decides what divisions are included on the official geologic time scale, and when they begin and end.