Humans have always altered their environment. The advent of agriculture around 10,000 years ago led to a radical change in land use that still continues. But, the relatively small human population had little impact on a global scale until the start of the industrial revolution in 1750. This event, followed by the invention of the Haber-Bosch process in 1909, which allowed large-scale manufacture of fertilizers, led directly to rapid changes to many of the planet's most important physical, chemical and biological processes.