The three minute video below is an interesting animation that presents the history of our earth via a metaphor of a trip from Los Angeles to NJ showing important evolutionary events in earth’s history and where along that journey they would have occurred. As you will note, modern man has been around for a relatively insignificant period of time (only 5.6 feet of the journey) however we have had a huge impact on the earth.
You can read more explanations about my source for the video at the link below: