Thus The Guardian today. “Geologists, climate scientists, ecologists, and a lawyer gather in Berlin for talks on whether to rename age of human life,” elaborates the newspaper. But, of course! The word came into common usage after Paul Crutzen, a Dutch chemist and Nobel prize winner, used the term in 2000. He argued in an academic newsletter that the new term is justified, for the impact of the human species is no less than geological. And many have immediately accepted the idea without any fuss. The Berlin meeting is yet another example of scientific quagmire we are into. Who cares about the opinion of so many academics, most of whom have their own petty battles to fight? Crutzen is right. The Holocene is over and the Anthropocene is the geological age we actually live in. Period. The fact that Crutzen is not a geologist is irrelevant in this context. Anyhow, I wish the Berlin gathering all the luck in their proceedings. Let them believe they are up to something worthwhile. While the earth is burning, they are arguing about the name of the calamity of geological import. As though it is not perfectly clear that the culprit is the human species…