wetlands have been drained, dredged, or filled. More than 3,000 dams block Connecticut's streams and rivers.¹ Blacktop and rooftops armor much of the ground from rainwater, preventing rain from soaking into the ground and instead causing it to race downhill and increase flood levels. People have also changed the rate of erosion in Connecticut. In specific areas, for example the cut blasted through the Metacomet Ridge in Plainville for 1-84, bulldozers and blasting powder have accomplished a million years of erosion in just a few months. Overall, the rate of erosion on Connecticut's cropland, construction sites, and residential areas is more than ten times the "natural" geologic rate.² Worldwide, human activities move as much soil as all geologic erosion processes put together, doubling the global rate of erosion.³ In addition, modern industry uses 20 billion tons of raw minerals annually, which is comparable to the amount of new rock created each year by volcanos.⁴ For better or for worse, humanity has developed into one of the major natural forces at work on the surface of this planet.

Human alterations of the environment do not (yet) compare with such feats of nature as the moving of a continent or even the creation of a world. But we have been at it for a very short while. To help place human history in perspective, the span of geologic time is often likened to the passage of a year, beginning with the world's formation on January 1. The Precambrian ends sometime in late November, and the continents assemble into Pangaea around December It. Pangaea breaks up about December 15 and Ice Ages begin on the 31st. The last ice sheet recedes from Connecticut two minutes before midnight, the industrial revolution takes place two seconds before midnight, and all of us alive today were born during the last half second of the year. All told, the human species has witnessed an hour of the geologic year, yet in that time (and especially the last few seconds) we have radically transformed the surface of the planet. Were we to last the next couple of weeks (about 200 million years), our eventual effect might indeed rival plate movements.

But we often let ourselves get too caught up in the human ability to do. We must not forget the two-way relationship between land and people, for the land will remember even if we do not. We must learn to see and appreciate the beauty and function of all land, be it under a city,

173