“This is the age of humans. At least, that’s the argument a number of scientists and scholars are making. They say that the impact of humans on the earth since the early 19th century has been so great, and so irreversible, that it has created a new era similar to the Pleistocene or Holocene. (...) We have been, for the last thousand of years or so, the main geomorphic agent on Earth. It might be hard to believe but, nowadays, human activities shift about ten times as much material on continents’ surface as all geological processes combined. Though our technologies and extensive land-use, we have become a land-shaping force of nature, similar to rivers, rain, wind and glaciers. (...) Mapping the extent of our infrastructures and the energy flows of our activities is, I believe, a good starting point to increase awareness of the peculiarities of the present era. (...)" - Amira

"My goal was to create something new where we could essentially see the main channels through which human exchanges (transport, energy, resources, information) are occurring. Roads and railways are high-impacts human features for obvious reasons. Pipelines and transmission lines are feeding our global civilization, for better or for worse. Submarine cables are physically linking continents together and contributing to this “age of information.” (...) The ecosphere — our world, the Earth. It is quite an old world where many dramatic events took place and where billion of innovations happened through evolution. It is a world fed by our mighty Sun. It is a world where humans appeared only recently. Now, indeed, our species and its 7 billion people is still growing inside it, converting ever more wilderness areas into human-influenced landscapes. This world is however finite, unique and fragile. Now is a good time to start thinking of it this way. I believe we are still, in our heads, living in a pre-Copernician world. It’s time to upgrade our worldview.” - Amira