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The period since 1950 has brought "the most rapid transformation of the human relationship with the natural world in the history of humankind". [106] Through 2018, humans have reduced forest area by ~30% and grasslands/shrubs by ~68%, to make way for livestock grazing and crops for humans. [107]
Human history is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present. Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers.They migrated out of Africa during the Last Ice Age and had spread across Earth's continental land except Antarctica by the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago.
Environmental history is the study of human interaction with the natural world over time, emphasising the active role nature plays in influencing human affairs and vice versa. Environmental history first emerged in the United States out of the environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and much of its impetus still stems from present-day ...
From climate change to species loss and pollution, humans have etched their impact on the Earth with such strength and permanence since the middle of the 20th century that a special team of ...
Today, about 80% of the world's energy consumption is sustained by the extraction of fossil fuels, which consists of oil, coal and natural gas. [4] Another non-renewable resource humans exploit is subsoil minerals, such as precious metals, mainly used to produce industrial commodities.
The concern about overexploitation, while relatively recent in the annals of modern environmental awareness, traces back to ancient practices embedded in human history. Contrary to the notion that overexploitation is an exclusively contemporary issue, the phenomenon has been documented for millennia and is not limited to human activities alone.
Human happiness, living well, friendship, and the avoidance of excesses were the key ingredients of Epicurean philosophy that flourished in and beyond the post-Hellenic world. [27] It is a repeated view among scholars that the humanistic features of ancient Greek thought are the roots of humanism 2,000 years later.
Some were global, but were not as severe—e.g. the 1918 influenza pandemic killed an estimated 3–6% of the world's population. [13] Most global catastrophic risks would not be so intense as to kill the majority of life on earth, but even if one did, the ecosystem and humanity would eventually recover (in contrast to existential risks ).