Hello and welcome to the Anthropocene Reviewed, a podcast where we review different facets

of the Human-Centered Planet on a 5-star scale.

I'm John Green, and today I'll be reviewing Hawaiian pizza and viral meningitis, neither

of which I can totally recommend.

Okay, let's begin with Hawaiian pizza, which is typically a pizza topped with pineapple

and some sort of ham.

So humans often measure time in relationship to important events.

The Christian calendar dates from before and after the birth of Christ.

The Islamic calendar dates from before and after the Muslim community's journey from

Mecca to Medina.

The Buddhist calendar dates from the day the Buddha attained enlightenment.

My friend Philip of the brilliant YouTube channel Kurtz Kuzat has said that we shouldn't

think of ourselves as being in the year 2018 of the Christian era, but instead in the

year 2018 of the human era, as dated from the approximate year the first known megalithic

temple was constructed.

All of this points to one of the big questions about the Anthropocene.

When exactly did this current age begin?

When did humans become not just the most important species on earth, but a geologically

significant phenomenon?

Philip might say it was when we began intervening in the landscape in lasting ways with our

temples.

Others say it was the agricultural revolution when we started reshaping the biosphere to

...