譯/陳韋廷
地球或已處於全新地質年代：人類世
The official timeline of Earth's history could soon include the age of nuclear weapons, human-caused climate change and the proliferation of plastics, garbage and concrete across the planet.
地球歷史的正式時間表可能很快就會包括核武時代、人為造成的氣候變遷以及塑膠、垃圾和混凝土在地球上的擴散。
In short, the present.
簡言之，就在現在。
Ten thousand years after our species began forming primitive agrarian societies, a panel of scientists on Saturday took a big step toward declaring a new interval of geologic time: the Anthropocene, the age of humans.
在人類開始形成原始農業社會一萬年後，一個科學家小組周六朝著宣布一個新的地質年代區間邁出一大步：人類世，即人類的年代。
Our current geologic epoch, the Holocene, began 11,700 years ago with the end of the last big ice age. The panel's roughly three dozen scholars appear close to recommending that, actually, we have spent the past few decades in a brand-new time unit, one characterized by human-induced, planetary-scale changes that are unfinished but very much underway.
我們目前的地質年代，也就是全新世，始於1萬1700年前最後一個大冰河時代的結束。該小組大約36位學者顯然即將建議，事實上過去幾十年我們一直處在一個全新的時間單位中，其特徵為人類所引起、尚未完成但正在進行的行星尺度變化。
"If you were around in 1920, your attitude would have been, 'Nature's too big for humans to influence,'" said Colin N. Waters, a geologist and chair of the Anthropocene Working Group, the panel that has been deliberating on the issue since 2009. The past century has upended that thinking, Waters said. "It's been a shock event, a bit like an asteroid hitting the planet."
地質學家兼人類世工作小組主席沃特斯說：「若你身處1920年左右，你的態度會是『大自然太大了，人類無法影響』」。該小組自2009年來一直在思考這個問題。沃特斯表示，過去一個世紀顛覆了這種想法，「這是個令人震驚的事件，有點像小行星撞擊地球。」
The working group's members on Saturday completed the first in a series of internal votes on details including when exactly they believe the Anthropocene began. Once these votes are finished, which could be by spring, the panel will submit its final proposal to three other committees of geologists whose votes will either make the Anthropocene official or reject it.
工作小組成員周六完成關於細節的一系列內部投票中的第一場，其中包括他們認為人類世的確切開始時間。這些投票完成後，可能是在春季，該小組將向其他三個地質學家委員會提交最終提案，他們的投票不是讓人類世變為正式名稱，就是予以否決。
Sixty percent of each committee will need to approve the group's proposal for it to advance to the next. If it fails in any of them, the Anthropocene might not have another chance to be ratified for years.
該小組提案在每個委員會都需要有60%的人批准，才能進入下一個委員會。若在其中任何一個闖關失敗，人類世可能在數年內都沒機會獲得批准。
If it makes it all the way, though, geology's amended timeline would officially recognize that humankind's effects on the planet had been so consequential as to bring the previous chapter of Earth's history to a close. It would acknowledge that these effects will be discernible in the rocks for millenniums.
不過，如果一切順利，經過修訂的地質年代表將正式承認，人類對地球影響是如此重大，導致地球歷史的上一章遭到終結。它將承認，這些影響將在幾千年的岩石中明顯可見。
"I teach the history of science — you know, Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo," said Francine McCarthy, an earth scientist at Brock University in Canada and member of the working group. "We're actually doing it," she said. "We're living the history of science."
加拿大布魯克大學地球科學家、工作小組成員法蘭欣．麥卡錫說：「我教科學史，也就是我們聽過的哥白尼、克卜勒、伽利略。」她說：「我們實際上正在寫歷史。我們活在科學史中。」
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