āThe Anthropocene is usually said to have begun with the industrial revolution, or perhaps even later, with the explosive growth in population that followed World War II. By this account, itās with the introduction of modern technologies - turbines, railroads, chainsaws - that humans become a world-altering force. But the megafauna extinction suggests otherwise. Before humans emerged on the scene, being large and slow to reproduce was a highly successful strategy, and outsized creatures dominated the planet. Then, in what amounts to a geologic instant, this strategy became a loserās game. And so it remains today, which is why elephants and bears and big cats are in so much trouble... meanwhile, eliminating the megafauna didnāt just eliminate the megafauna; in Australia at least it set it set off an ecological cascade that transformed the landscape. Though it might be nice to imagine there once was a time when man lived in harmony with nature, itās not clear he ever really didā (Kolbert, 234 -235).
How can we better coexist with the rest of nature? Our cognitive function causes us to identify as superior, as dominant over the rest of creation. Undeniably, we have an upper hand - but what is our gesture?