Deep Time and Extinctions
human agency behind increases in atmospheric carbon, as registered in ice cores, is manifestly different from the agency of the Greek sculptor but still cannot be readily imagined without the figures of inscription, including the ‘‘rock record’’ itself. Taken together, the various senses of ‘‘inscription’’ also register a kind of distributed agency that is appropriate to environmental history.’
Conceptually, Deep time forces us to consider in what way human-caused extinction will effect an eco-system. Of course there are immediate impacts, however Extinctions can be considered one of our ecological inscription on the earth in the sense that ecosystems will progressively adapt and evolve purely in consequence to human agency. How do we reconcile this idea when dealing with evolutionary time-frames?
Heringman Noah. "Deep Time at the Dawn of the Athropocene." Representations 129, no. 1 (2015)
