“An action which potentially eliminates or at least greatly reduces the availability of a particular plant — here, nonengineered alfalfa — has a significant effect on the human environment,” he wrote.

They hoped to reach an amicable agreement.

The thought-police were onto my plans of world domination.

Considering these and many other major and still growing impacts of human activities on earth and atmosphere, and at all, including global, scales, it seems to us more than appropriate to emphasize the central role of mankind in geology and ecology by proposing to use the term anthropocene for the current geological epoch.