article_snippet: Humans started dominating the planet causing irreversible damage around the year 1610, scientists claim.
article_snippet: The Anthropocene is the name of a proposed geological epoch that may soon enter the official Geologic Time Scale.
article_snippet: The Anthropocene refers to a time in which human permanently changed the planet.
article_snippet: Some experts argue we should now change the name to The Anthropocene.
article_snippet: Researchers at UCL said that 1610 - when William Shakespeare's Cymbeline was first performed - marked the start of the human-dominated geological epoch known as The Anthropocene.
article_snippet: The study, published in Nature, said human actions are now changing the planet producing a new geological epoch.
article_snippet: Humans started dominating the planet causing irreversible changes during the reign of King James I (right) and the era of Shakespeare (left), scientists claim .
article_snippet: Dr Simon Lewis said: 'In a hundred thousand years scientists will look at the environmental record and know something remarkable happened in the second half of the second millennium. '
article_snippet: The Anthropocene probably began when species jumped continents, starting when the Old World met the New. '
article_snippet: We humans are now a geological power in We own right - as Earth-changing as a meteorite strike. '
article_snippet: Geologically, this boundary also marks Earth's last globally synchronous cool moment before the onset of the long-term global warmth of The Anthropocene.'
article_snippet: An official decision on whether to formally recognise the Anthropocene, including when it began, will be triggered by a recommendation of the Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission of Quaternary Stratigraphy, due in 2016.
highlights_snippet: Scientists argue this should now be regarded as start of Anthropocene .
  
highlights_snippet: 'We humans are now a geological power in We own right - as Earth-changing as a meteorite strike,' the researchers said .