Anthropocene.

One factor that affects environmental degradation in the late Anthropocene is the loss of generational experience.  Many today may think it quite normal that one has to use a pick-axe to get through the understorey of concrete to plant a single tulip bulb, but the older generation will remember that this was not always so.  There are many images from space showing mankind mining and burrowing out huge areas then depositing the detritus of 'civilisation' in great piles and plumes across the planet.  In this case, the runway concrete from an airfield was taken for use as hardcore for a motorway, but not before some had been symphoned (sic) off to fill an unwanted farm pond (latterly chosen, unwisely, as the site for a flower bed).