‘Earth Day: Are We at the Beginning of a New Geological Era?’: Peter Engelke and John McNeill in the Washington Post

Peter Engelke (PhD 2011) is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and John McNeill is a University Professor of history at Georgetown University.

The first Earth Day, held April 22, 1970, was designed to draw popular attention to environmental causes and the need to protect nature. It succeeded. At age 46, Earth Day continues to focus our minds on preserving the natural world, if only for a brief moment each year.

But what if a basic assumption about our planet, one that we all make on Earth Day and every other day, is wrong? What if, in 2016, we no longer inhabit the Earth we once did? What if the nature we seek to protect has already been profoundly altered — by us? Would that undercut the logic of Earth Day?

Read the rest of this article at The Washington Post.