Are we living in an ‘Age of Humans’? Geologists say no.

The official timekeepers of Earth history are in an uproar after a key scientific panel decided this week that the planet’s geologic timeline should not include a radical new chapter defined by human impacts: the Anthropocene.

In a vote that concluded Monday night, the group of scholars responsible for delineating the past 2.6 million years of geologic history rejected a proposal that would mark the start of the Anthropocene epoch in the mid-20th century, when global trade, nuclear weapons tests and rampant fossil fuel consumption radically altered the Earth.