Welcome to the Anthropocene is an incredibly revealing short movie detailing humanity’s spread across the globe since the Industrial Revolution began. The video, created by Globaia.org, is essentially a visualization of man’s migratory patters in a post-industrial world, and after watching the educational, moving, and, to a degree, frightening short film, it’s hard not be a little shaken at how much one species can do in less than 300 years.

From the movie’s description:

A 3-minute journey through the last 250 years of our history, from the start of the Industrial Revolution to the Rio+20 Summit. The film charts the growth of humanity into a global force on an equivalent scale to major geological processes.
The film was commissioned by the Planet Under Pressure conference, London 26-29 March, a major international conference focusing on solutions.

As for the video, it’s an impressive simulation, a time-lapse if you will, beyond that, however, there’s a definite sense of foreboding. It’s almost like a story of extinction is being told. Perhaps that’s the zombie movie lover in me, but if that doesn’t look like a simulation of how rapidly a virus can spread, and/or, how quickly the zombie scourge spread as the outbreak went global, then you’ll have to excuse my overactive imagination.

The video in question, beginning with the non-narrated version. I recommend watching this one first:

If, however, you’re not too sure about what’s going on, here’s a narrated version:

a recent and informal geologic chronological term that serves to mark the evidence and extent of human activities that have had a significant global impact on the Earth’s ecosystems.

Perhaps that explains the apocalyptic feel the video has.