Chirping Machine

Since the appearance of modern humans some 250,000 years ago, our species has substantially altered the Earth. In the Pleistocene, Homo sapiens was a successful hunter and managed to hunt several species to extinction. In the post-Ice Age Holocene, farming, animal husbandry, trade, and increasing mobility enabled humans to become a major force in the Earth’s system. The spread of industry and technology since the eighteenth century is affecting ever larger areas of the planet, and continue to unfold in new and ever-changing ways. Instead of living in biomes, or natural habitats, today we are living in “anthromes,” human-made cultural landscapes that are characterized by intensive agriculture, buildings, and exploitation of natural resources. We are even able to artificially recreate nature, such as a machine that can imitate the movement and sound of birds. We have to decide what role we will allow nature to play and the degree to which we will shape it in the future.