Anthropocene
The Anthropocene (/ænˈθrɒp.əˌsiːn, -ˈθrɒp.oʊ-/ ann-THROP-ə-seen, -THROP-oh-)[1] is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change.[2][3][4][5][6]
Part of a series on | |||
Human history Human Era | |||
---|---|---|---|
↑ Prehistory (Pleistocene epoch) | |||
Holocene | |||
|
|||
Ancient | |||
|
|||
Postclassical | |||
|
|||
Modern | |||
|
|||
↓ Future | |||
As of July 2020, neither the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) nor the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) has officially approved the term as a recognised subdivision of geologic time,[4][7][8] although the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) of the ICS voted in April 2016 to proceed towards a formal golden spike (GSSP) proposal to define the Anthropocene epoch in the geologic time scale and presented the recommendation to the International Geological Congress in August 2016.[9] In May 2019, the AWG voted in favour of submitting a formal proposal to the ICS by 2021,[10] locating potential stratigraphic markers to the mid-twentieth century of the common era.[11][10][12] This time period coincides with the start of the Great Acceleration, a post-WWII time period during which socioeconomic and Earth system trends increase at a dramatic rate,[13] and the Atomic Age.
Various start dates for the Anthropocene have been proposed, ranging from the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution 12,000–15,000 years ago, to as recent as the 1960s. The ratification process is still ongoing, and thus a date remains to be decided definitively, but the peak in radionuclides fallout consequential to atomic bomb testing during the 1950s has been more favoured than others, locating a possible beginning of the Anthropocene to the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945, or the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963.[10]
General
An early concept for the Anthropocene was the Noosphere by Vladimir Vernadsky, who in 1938 wrote of "scientific thought as a geological force".[14] Scientists in the Soviet Union appear to have used the term "anthropocene" as early as the 1960s to refer to the Quaternary, the most recent geological period.[15] Ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer subsequently used "anthropocene" with a different sense in the 1980s[16] and the term was widely popularised in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen,[17] who regards the influence of human behavior on Earth's atmosphere in recent centuries as so significant as to constitute a new geological epoch.
In 2008, the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London considered a proposal to make the Anthropocene a formal unit of geological epoch divisions.[4][18] A majority of the commission decided the proposal had merit and should be examined further. Independent working groups of scientists from various geological societies have begun to determine whether the Anthropocene will be formally accepted into the Geological Time Scale.[19]
—Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator[20]
The term "anthropocene" is informally used in scientific contexts.[21] The Geological Society of America entitled its 2011 annual meeting: Archean to Anthropocene: The past is the key to the future.[22] The new epoch has no agreed start-date, but one proposal, based on atmospheric evidence, is to fix the start with the Industrial Revolution c. 1780, with the invention of the steam engine.[18][23] Other scientists link the new term to earlier events, such as the rise of agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution (around 12,000 years BP). Evidence of relative human impact – such as the growing human influence on land use, ecosystems, biodiversity, and species extinction – is substantial; scientists think that human impact has significantly changed (or halted) the growth of biodiversity.[24][25][26][27][28] Those arguing for earlier dates posit that the proposed Anthropocene may have begun as early as 14,000–15,000 years BP, based on geologic evidence; this has led other scientists to suggest that "the onset of the Anthropocene should be extended back many thousand years";[29]:1 this would make the Anthropocene essentially synonymous with the current term, Holocene.
In January 2015, 26 of the 38 members of the International Anthropocene Working Group published a paper suggesting the Trinity test on 16 July 1945 as the starting point of the proposed new epoch.[30] However, a significant minority supports one of several alternative dates.[30] A March 2015 report suggested either 1610 or 1964 as the beginning of the Anthropocene.[31] Other scholars point to the diachronous character of the physical strata of the Anthropocene, arguing that onset and impact are spread out over time, not reducible to a single instant or date of start.[32]
A January 2016 report on the climatic, biological, and geochemical signatures of human activity in sediments and ice cores suggested the era since the mid-20th century should be recognised as a geological epoch distinct from the Holocene.[33]
The Anthropocene Working Group met in Oslo in April 2016 to consolidate evidence supporting the argument for the Anthropocene as a true geologic epoch.[34] Evidence was evaluated and the group voted to recommend "Anthropocene" as the new geological age in August 2016.[9] Should the International Commission on Stratigraphy approve the recommendation, the proposal to adopt the term will have to be ratified by the IUGS before its formal adoption as part of the geologic time scale.[8]
In April 2019, the Anthropocene Working Group announced that they would vote on a formal proposal to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, to continue the process started at the 2016 meeting.[12] On 21 May 2019, 29 members of the 34 person AWG panel voted in favour of an official proposal to be made by 2021. The AWG also voted with 29 votes in favour of a starting date in the mid 20th century. Ten candidate sites for a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point have been identified, one of which will be chosen to be included in the final proposal.[10][11] Possible markers include microplastics, heavy metals, or the radioactive nuclei left by tests from thermonuclear weapons.[35]
Etymology
The name Anthropocene is a combination of anthropo- from anthropos (Ancient Greek: ἄνθρωπος) meaning "human" and -cene from kainos (Ancient Greek: καινός) meaning "new" or "recent."[36][37]
As early as 1873, the Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani acknowledged the increasing power and effect of humanity on the Earth's systems and referred to an 'anthropozoic era'.[38]
Although the biologist Eugene F. Stoermer is often credited with coining the term "anthropocene", it was in informal use in the mid-1970s. Paul J. Crutzen is credited with independently re-inventing and popularising it. Stoermer wrote, "I began using the term 'anthropocene' in the 1980s, but never formalised it until Paul contacted me."[39] Crutzen has explained, "I was at a conference where someone said something about the Holocene. I suddenly thought this was wrong. The world has changed too much. So I said: 'No, we are in the Anthropocene.' I just made up the word on the spur of the moment. Everyone was shocked. But it seems to have stuck."[40]:21 In 2008, Zalasiewicz suggested in GSA Today that an anthropocene epoch is now appropriate.[18]
Nature of human effects
Homogenocene
Homogenocene (from old Greek: homo-, same; geno-, kind; kainos-, new;) is a more specific term used to define our current geological epoch, in which biodiversity is diminishing and biogeography and ecosystems around the globe seem more and more similar to one another mainly due to invasive species that have been introduced around the globe either on purpose (crops, livestock) or inadvertently.
The term Homogenocene was first used by Michael Samways in his editorial article in the Journal of Insect Conservation from 1999 titled "Translocating fauna to foreign lands: Here comes the Homogenocene."[41]
The term was used again by John L. Curnutt in the year 2000 in Ecology, in a short list titled "A Guide to the Homogenocene",[42] which reviewed Alien species in North America and Hawaii: impacts on natural ecosystems by George Cox. Charles C. Mann, in his acclaimed book 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, gives a bird's-eye view of the mechanisms and ongoing implications of the homogenocene.[43]
Biodiversity
The human impact on biodiversity forms one of the primary attributes of the Anthropocene.[45] Humankind has entered what is sometimes called the Earth's sixth major extinction.[46][47][48][49][50] Most experts agree that human activities have accelerated the rate of species extinction.[26][51] The exact rate remains controversial – perhaps 100 to 1000 times the normal background rate of extinction.[52][53] A 2010 study found that
marine phytoplankton – the vast range of tiny algae species accounting for roughly half of Earth's total photosynthetic biomass – has declined substantially in the world's oceans over the past century. From 1950 alone, algal biomass decreased by around 40%, probably in response to ocean warming[54]
– and that the decline had gathered pace in recent years.[54] Some authors have postulated that without human impacts the biodiversity of the planet would continue to grow at an exponential rate.[24]
Increases in global rates of extinction have been elevated above background rates since at least 1500, and appear to have accelerated in the 19th century and further since.[3] A New York Times op-ed on 13 July 2012 by ecologist Roger Bradbury predicted the end of biodiversity for the oceans, labelling coral reefs doomed: "Coral reefs will be the first, but certainly not the last, major ecosystem to succumb to the Anthropocene."[55] This op-ed quickly generated much discussion among conservationists; The Nature Conservancy rebutted Bradbury on its website, defending its position of protecting coral reefs despite continued human impacts causing reef declines.[56]
In a pair of studies published in 2015, extrapolation from observed extinction of Hawaiian snails of the family Amastridae, led to the conclusion that "the biodiversity crisis is real", and that 7% of all species on Earth may have disappeared already.[57][58] Human predation was noted as being unique in the history of life on Earth as being a globally distributed 'superpredator', with predation of the adults of other apex predators and with widespread impact on food webs worldwide.[59] A study published in May 2017 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences noted that a "biological annihilation" akin to a sixth mass extinction event is underway as a result of anthropogenic causes. The study suggested that as much as 50% of animal individuals that once lived on Earth are already extinct.[60][61] A different study published in PNAS in May 2018 says that since the dawn of human civilization, 83% of wild mammals have disappeared. Today, livestock makes up 60% of the biomass of all mammals on earth, followed by humans (36%) and wild mammals (4%).[62][63] According to the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by IPBES, 25% of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction.[64][65][66] According to the World Wildlife Fund's 2020 Living Planet Report, 68% of wildlife populations have declined between 1970 and 2016 as a result of overconsumption, population growth and intensive farming, and the report asserts that "the findings are clear. Our relationship with nature is broken."[67][68]
Biogeography and nocturnality
Permanent changes in the distribution of organisms from human influence will become identifiable in the geologic record. Researchers have documented the movement of many species into regions formerly too cold for them, often at rates faster than initially expected.[69] This has occurred in part as a result of changing climate, but also in response to farming and fishing, and to the accidental introduction of non-native species to new areas through global travel.[3] The ecosystem of the entire Black Sea may have changed during the last 2000 years as a result of nutrient and silica input from eroding deforested lands along the Danube River.[70][71]
Researchers have found that the growth of the human population and expansion of human activity has resulted in many species of animals that are normally active during the day, such as elephants, tigers and boars, becoming nocturnal to avoid contact with humans.[72][71]
Climate
One geological symptom resulting from human activity is increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO
2) content. During the glacial–interglacial cycles of the past million years, natural processes have varied CO
2 by approximately 100 ppm (from 180 ppm to 280 ppm)[73] As of 2013, anthropogenic net emissions of CO
2 have increased atmospheric concentration by a comparable amount: From 280 ppm (Holocene or pre-industrial "equilibrium") to approximately 400 ppm,[74] with 2015–2016 monthly monitoring data of CO
2 displaying a rising trend above 400 ppm.[73] This signal in the Earth's climate system is especially significant because it is occurring much faster,[75] and to a greater extent, than previous, similar changes. Most of this increase is due to the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas, although smaller fractions result from cement production and from land-use changes (such as deforestation).
Geomorphology
Changes in drainage patterns traceable to human activity will persist over geologic time in large parts of the continents where the geologic regime is erosional. This involves, for example, the paths of roads and highways defined by their grading and drainage control. Direct changes to the form of the Earth's surface by human activities (quarrying and landscaping, for example) also record human impacts.
It has been suggested that the deposition of calthemite formations exemplify a natural process which has not previously occurred prior to the human modification of the Earth's surface, and which therefore represents a unique process of the Anthropocene.[76] Calthemite is a secondary deposit, derived from concrete, lime, mortar or other calcareous material outside the cave environment.[77] Calthemites grow on or under man-made structures (including mines and tunnels) and mimic the shapes and forms of cave speleothems, such as stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone etc.
Sedimentological record
Human activities like deforestation and road construction are believed to have elevated average total sediment fluxes across the Earth's surface.[3] However, construction of dams on many rivers around the world means the rates of sediment deposition in any given place do not always appear to increase in the Anthropocene. For instance, many river deltas around the world are actually currently starved of sediment by such dams, and are subsiding and failing to keep up with sea level rise, rather than growing.[3][78]
Fossil record
Increases in erosion due to farming and other operations will be reflected by changes in sediment composition and increases in deposition rates elsewhere. In land areas with a depositional regime, engineered structures will tend to be buried and preserved, along with litter and debris. Litter and debris thrown from boats or carried by rivers and creeks will accumulate in the marine environment, particularly in coastal areas. Such man-made artifacts preserved in stratigraphy are known as "technofossils".[3][79]
Changes in biodiversity will also be reflected in the fossil record, as will species introductions. An example cited is the domestic chicken, originally the red junglefowl Gallus gallus, native to south-east Asia but has since become the world's most common bird through human breeding and consumption, with over 60 billion consumed annually and whose bones would become fossilised in landfill sites.[80] Hence, landfills are important resources to find "technofossils".[81]
Trace elements
In terms of trace elements, there are distinct signatures left by modern societies. For example, in the Upper Fremont Glacier in Wyoming, there is a layer of chlorine present in ice cores from 1960's atomic weapon testing programs, as well as a layer of mercury associated with coal plants in the 1980s. From 1945 to 1951, nuclear fallout is found locally around atomic device test sites, whereas from 1952 to 1980, tests of thermonuclear devices have left a clear, global signal of excess 14
C
, 239
Pu
, and other artificial radionuclides. The highest global concentration of radionuclides was in 1965, one of the dates which has been proposed as a possible benchmark for the start of the formally defined Anthropocene.[82]
Human burning of fossil fuels has also left distinctly elevated concentrations of black carbon, inorganic ash, and spherical carbonaceous particles in recent sediments across the world. Concentrations of these components increases markedly and almost simultaneously around the world beginning around 1950.[3]
Temporal limit
"Early anthropocene" model
William Ruddiman has argued that the Anthropocene began approximately 8,000 years ago with the development of farming and sedentary cultures.[83] At this point, humans were dispersed across all of the continents (except Antarctica), and the Neolithic Revolution was ongoing. During this period, humans developed agriculture and animal husbandry to supplement or replace hunter-gatherer subsistence.[84] Such innovations were followed by a wave of extinctions, beginning with large mammals and land birds. This wave was driven by both the direct activity of humans (e.g. hunting) and the indirect consequences of land-use change for agriculture. Landscape-scale burning by prehistoric hunter-gathers may have been an additional early source of anthropogenic atmospheric carbon.[85]
Ruddiman also claims that the greenhouse gas emissions in-part responsible for the Anthropocene began 8,000 years ago when ancient farmers cleared forests to grow crops.[86][87][88] Ruddiman's work has, in turn, been challenged with data from an earlier interglaciation ("Stage 11", approximately 400,000 years ago) which suggests that 16,000 more years must elapse before the current Holocene interglaciation comes to an end, and thus the early anthropogenic hypothesis is invalid.[89] Furthermore, the argument that "something" is needed to explain the differences in the Holocene is challenged by more recent research showing that all interglacials differ.[90]
Although 8,000 years ago the planet sustained a few million people, it was still fundamentally pristine.[91] This claim is the basis for an assertion that an early date for the proposed Anthropocene term does account for a substantial human footprint on Earth.[92]
Antiquity
One plausible starting point of the Anthropocene could be at c. 2,000 years ago, which roughly coincides with the start of the final phase of Holocene, the Sub Atlantic.[93]
At this time, the Roman Empire encompassed large portions of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. In China the classical dynasties were flowering. The Middle kingdoms of India had already the largest economy of the ancient and medieval world. The Napata/Meroitic kingdom extended over the current Sudan and Ethiopia. The Olmecs controlled central Mexico and Guatemala, and the pre-Incan Chavín people managed areas of northern Peru.[94] Although often apart from each other and intermixed with buffering ecosystems, the areas directly impacted by these civilisations and others were large. Additionally, some activities, such as mining, implied much more widespread perturbation of natural conditions.[95][96] Over the last 11,500 years or so humans have spread around Earth, increased in number, and profoundly altered the material world. They have taken advantage of global environmental conditions not of their own making. The end of the last glacial period – when as much as 30% of Earth's surface was ice-bound – led to a warmer world with more water (H
2O). Although humans existed in the previous Pleistocene epoch, it is only in the recent Holocene period that they have flourished. Today there are more humans alive than at any previous point in Earth's history.[5]
European colonization of the Americas
Maslin and Lewis argue that the start of the Anthropocene should be dated to the Orbis Spike, a trough in carbon dioxide levels associated with the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Reaching a minimum around 1610, global carbon dioxide levels were depressed below 285 parts per million, largely as a result of sequestration due to forest regrowth in the Americas. This was likely caused by indigenous peoples abandoning farmland following a sharp population decline due to initial contact with European diseases – around 50 million people or 90% of the indigenous population may have succumbed. For Maslin and Lewis, the Orbis Spike represents a GSSP, a kind of marker used to define the start of a new geological period. They also go on to say that associating the Anthropocene to European arrival in the Americas makes sense given that the continent's colonization was instrumental in the development of global trade networks and the capitalist economy, which played a significant role in initiating the Industrial Revolution and the Great Acceleration.[97][98]
A number of other anthropologists, geographers, and postcolonial, settler colonial, and Indigenous theorists have linked the Anthropocene to the rise of European colonialism.[99][100][101][98][102][103][104] Because of these arguments, it has been suggested that the epoch should instead be called "The Kleptocene" in order to call "attention to colonialism’s ongoing theft of land, lives (both human and nonhuman), and materials" that are "in large part responsible for contemporary ecological crisis."[105]
Industrial Revolution
Crutzen proposed the Industrial Revolution as the start of Anthropocene.[38] Lovelock proposes that the Anthropocene began with the first application of the Newcomen atmospheric engine in 1712.[106] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change takes the pre-industrial era (chosen as the year 1750) as the baseline related to changes in long-lived, well mixed greenhouse gases.[107] Although it is apparent that the Industrial Revolution ushered in an unprecedented global human impact on the planet,[108] much of Earth's landscape already had been profoundly modified by human activities.[109] The human impact on Earth has grown progressively, with few substantial slowdowns.
Great Acceleration
In May 2019 the twenty-nine members of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) proposed a start date for the Epoch in the mid-twentieth century, as that period saw "a rapidly rising human population accelerated the pace of industrial production, the use of agricultural chemicals and other human activities. At the same time, the first atomic-bomb blasts littered the globe with radioactive debris that became embedded in sediments and glacial ice, becoming part of the geologic record." The official start-dates, according to the panel, would coincide with either the radionuclides released into the atmosphere from bomb detonations in 1945, or coinciding with the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.[110]
Anthropocene markers
A marker that accounts for a substantial global impact of humans on the total environment, comparable in scale to those associated with significant perturbations of the geological past, is needed in place of minor changes in atmosphere composition.[111][112]
A useful candidate for this purpose is the pedosphere, which can retain information of its climatic and geochemical history with features lasting for centuries or millennia.[113] Human activity is now firmly established as the sixth factor of soil formation.[114] It affects pedogenesis directly by, for example, land levelling, trenching and embankment building, organic matter enrichment from additions of manure or other waste, organic matter impoverishment due to continued cultivation and compaction from overgrazing. Human activity also affects pedogenesis indirectly by drift of eroded materials or pollutants. Anthropogenic soils are those markedly affected by human activities, such as repeated ploughing, the addition of fertilisers, contamination, sealing, or enrichment with artefacts (in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources they are classified as Anthrosols and Technosols). They are recalcitrant repositories of artefacts and properties that testify to the dominance of the human impact, and hence appear to be reliable markers for the Anthropocene. Some anthropogenic soils may be viewed as the 'golden spikes' of geologists (Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point), which are locations where there are strata successions with clear evidences of a worldwide event, including the appearance of distinctive fossils.[93] Drilling for fossil fuels has also created holes and tubes which are expected to be detectable for millions of years.[115] The astrobiologist David Grinspoon has proposed that the site of the Apollo 11 Lunar landing, with the disturbances and artifacts that are so uniquely characteristic of our species' technological activity and which will survive over geological time spans could be considered as the 'golden spike' of the Anthropocene.[116]
An October 2020 study coordinated by University of Colorado at Boulder found that distinct physical, chemical and biological changes to Earth's rock layers began around the year 1950. The research revealed that since about 1950, humans have doubled the amount of fixed nitrogen on the planet through industrial production for agriculture, created a hole in the ozone layer through the industrial scale release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), released enough greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels to cause planetary level climate change, created tens of thousands of synthetic mineral-like compounds that do not naturally occur on Earth, and caused almost one-fifth of river sediment worldwide to no longer reach the ocean due to dams, reservoirs and diversions. Humans have produced so many millions of tons of plastic each year since the early 1950s that microplastics are "forming a near-ubiquitous and unambiguous marker of Anthropocene".[117][118] The study highlights a strong correlation between global human population size and growth, global productivity and global energy use and that the "extraordinary outburst of consumption and productivity demonstrates how the Earth System has departed from its Holocene state since ~1950 CE, forcing abrupt physical, chemical and biological changes to the Earth’s stratigraphic record that can be used to justify the proposal for naming a new epoch—the Anthropocene."[118]
A December 2020 study published in Nature found that the total anthropogenic mass, or human-made materials, outweighs all the biomass on earth, and highlighted that "this quantification of the human enterprise gives a mass-based quantitative and symbolic characterization of the human-induced epoch of the Anthropocene."[119][120]
In culture
Humanities
The concept of the Anthropocene has also been approached via humanities such as philosophy, literature and art. In the scholarly world, it has been the subject of increasing attention through special journals,[121] and conferences,[122][123] and disciplinary reports.[124] The Anthropocene, its attendant timescale, and ecological implications prompt questions about death and the end of civilisation,[125] memory and archives,[126] the scope and methods of humanistic inquiry,[127] and emotional responses to the "end of nature".[128] It has been also criticised as an ideological construct.[129]
Some environmental scholars suggest that "Capitalocene" is a more historically appropriate term.[130][131] At the same time, others suggest that the Anthropocene ignores systematic inequalities, such as imperialism and racism, that have contributed to the environmental degradation that would mark the Epoch.[132][104] In this vein, some thinkers have proposed the "Plantationocene" as a more appropriate term to call attention to the role that plantation agriculture has played in the formation of the Epoch, as it marks "the ways that plantation logics organize modern economies, environments, bodies, and social relations".[133][134]
Historians have actively engaged the Anthropocene. In 2000, the same year that Paul Crutzen coined the term, world historian John McNeill published Something New Under the Sun tracing the rise of human societies' unprecedented impact on the planet in the twentieth century.[135] In 2001, historian of science Naomi Oreskes revealed the systematic efforts to undermine trust in climate change science and went on to detail the corporate interests delaying action on the environmental challenge.[136][137] Both McNeill and Oreskes became members of the Anthropocene Working Group because of their work correlating human activities and planetary transformation. In 2009, Dipesh Chakrabarty pointed to the dilemma that the Anthropocene poses for the practice of history: on the one hand, it spells "the collapse of the age-old humanist distinction between natural history and human history" yet, on the other, societies and individuals do not experience themselves as "species."[138] In 2014, Julia Adeney Thomas highlighted problems of scale and value as the reasons for this irresolvable tension between human stories and scientific ones.[139] Since 2007, historians and scientists have been actively collaborating on multidisciplinary approaches to the Anthropocene.[140] In 2016, historians Christophe Bonneuil and Jean Baptiste-Fressoz published The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us in an attempt to provide "the first critical history of the Anthropocene" through engagement with the history of science, world history, and human development [141]
Popular culture
- The concept gained attention of the public via documentary films such as The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning, The Polar Explorer, L'homme a mangé la Terre, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch and Anthropocene.
- David Grinspoon makes a further distinction in the Anthropocene, namely the "proto-Anthropocene" and "mature Anthropocene". He also mentions the term "Terra Sapiens", or Wise Earth.[142]
- In 2019, the English musician Nick Mulvey released a music video on YouTube named "In The Anthropocene".[143] In cooperation with Sharp's Brewery, the song was recorded on 105 vinyl records made of washed-up plastic from the Cornish coast.[144]
- The Anthropocene Reviewed is a podcast by author John Green, where he "reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale".[145]
- In 2015, the American death metal band Cattle Decapitation released its seventh studio album titled The Anthropocene Extinction.[146]
See also
- Anthropocentrism
- Anthropogenic biomes
- Climate engineering
- Control of fire by early humans
- Defaunation
- Ecocriticism
- Geobiology
- Great Transition
- Holocene extinction
- Human overpopulation
- Hypoxia (environmental)
- International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
- Meghalayan
- Novel ecosystem
- Overconsumption
- Planetary boundaries
- Plastic pollution
- Power Down: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World
References
- "Anthropocene". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House.
- Borenstein, Seth (14 October 2014). "With their mark on Earth, humans may name era, too". Associated Press. Retrieved 14 October 2014.
- Waters, C.N.; et al. (8 January 2016). "The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene". Science. 351 (6269): aad2622. doi:10.1126/science.aad2622. PMID 26744408. S2CID 206642594.
- Edwards, Lucy E. (30 November 2015). "What is the Anthropocene?". Eos. 96. doi:10.1029/2015EO040297.
- Castree, Noel (2015). "The Anthropocene: a primer for geographers" (PDF). Geography. 100 (2): 66–75. doi:10.1080/00167487.2015.12093958.
- Ellis, Erle (2018). Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198792987.001.0001. ISBN 9780198792987.
- "Subcomission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, ICS " Working Groups". quaternary.stratigraphy.org. Retrieved 23 February 2016.
- Dvorsky, George. "New evidence suggests human beings are a geological force of nature". Gizmodo.com. Retrieved 15 October 2016.
- Carrington, Damian (29 August 2016). "The Anthropocene epoch: Scientists declare dawn of human-influenced age". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 August 2016.
- Subramanian, Meera (21 May 2019). "Anthropocene now: Influential panel votes to recognize Earth's new epoch". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-019-01641-5. PMID 32433629. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- "Results of binding vote by AWG". Anthropocene Working Group. International Commission on Stratigraphy. 21 May 2019. Archived from the original on 5 June 2019.
- Meyer, Robinson (16 April 2019). "The cataclysmic break that (maybe) occurred in 1950". The Atlantic. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- "The Anthropocene". The Geological Society.
- Ogden, M. (29 February 2016). "'The Anthropocene' viewed from Vernadsky's Noosphere". LaRouche PAC.
- Doklady: Biological sciences sections, Volumes 132–135, Akademii͡a nauk SSSR
- Revkin, Andrew C. (11 May 2011). "Confronting the 'Anthropocene'". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
- Dawson, Ashley (2016). Extinction: A radical history. OR Books. p. 19. ISBN 978-1944869014.
- Zalasiewicz, Jan; et al. (2008). "Are we now living in the Anthropocene?". GSA Today. 18 (2): 4–8. doi:10.1130/GSAT01802A.1.
- Zalasiewicz, J.; et al. (2010). "The new world of the Anthropocene". Environmental Science & Technology. 44 (7): 2228–2231. Bibcode:2010EnST...44.2228Z. doi:10.1021/es903118j. PMID 20184359.
- Steiner, Achim (15 December 2020). "The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene (Foreword)" (PDF). UNDP. Retrieved 16 December 2020.
- Ehlers, Eckart; Moss, C.; Krafft, Thomas (2006). Earth System Science in the Anthropocene: Emerging issues and problems. Springer Science+Business Media. ISBN 9783540265900.
- "2011 GSA Annual Meeting". Geological Society of America. Archived from the original on 29 September 2019. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
- Crutzen, P.J. & Stoermer, E.F. (2000). "The 'Anthropocene'". Global Change Newsletter. 41: 17–18.
- Sahney, S.; Benton, M. J. & Ferry, P. A. (2010). "Links between global taxonomic diversity, ecological diversity and the expansion of vertebrates on land". Biology Letters. 6 (4): 544–547. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2009.1024. PMC 2936204. PMID 20106856.
... it could be that without human influence the ecological and taxonomic diversity of tetrapods would continue to increase in an exponential fashion until most or all of the available ecospace is filled.
- Pimm, S.L.; Jenkins, C.N.; Abell, R.; Brooks, T.M.; Gittleman, J.L.; Joppa, L.N.; Raven, P. H.; Roberts, C.M.; Sexton, J.O. (2014). "The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection" (PDF). Science. 344 (6187): 1246752. doi:10.1126/science.1246752. PMID 24876501. S2CID 206552746. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
The overarching driver of species extinction is human population growth and increasing per capita consumption.
- Vignieri, Sacha (2014). "Vanishing fauna". Science. 345 (6195): 392–395. Bibcode:2014Sci...345..392V. doi:10.1126/science.345.6195.392. PMID 25061199.
- Ceballos, Gerardo; Ehrlich, Paul R.; Barnosky, Anthony D.; García, Andrés; Pringle, Robert M.; Palmer, Todd M. (2015). "Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction". Science Advances. 1 (5): e1400253. Bibcode:2015SciA....1E0253C. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1400253. PMC 4640606. PMID 26601195.
- Payne, Jonathan L.; Bush, Andrew M.; Heim, Noel A.; Knope, Matthew L.; McCauley, Douglas J. (2016). "Ecological selectivity of the emerging mass extinction in the oceans" (PDF). Science. 353 (6305): 1284–1286. Bibcode:2016Sci...353.1284P. doi:10.1126/science.aaf2416. PMID 27629258. S2CID 206647288.
- Doughty, C.E.; Wolf, A.; Field, C.B. (2010). "Biophysical feedbacks between the Pleistocene megafauna extinction and climate: The first human-induced global warming?". Geophysical Research Letters. 37 (L15703): L15703. Bibcode:2010GeoRL..3715703D. doi:10.1029/2010GL043985.
- "Was first nuclear test the start of new human-dominated epoch, the Anthropocene?". News Center. University of California, Berkeley. 16 January 2015.
- Lewis, Simon L.; Maslin, Mark A. (March 2015). "Defining the Anthropocene" (PDF). Nature. 519 (7542): 171–180. Bibcode:2015Natur.519..171L. doi:10.1038/nature14258. PMID 25762280. S2CID 205242896. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 December 2015.
- Edgeworth, Matt; Richter, Dan de B.; Waters, Colin; Haff, Peter; Neal, Cath; Price, Simon James (1 April 2015). "Diachronous beginnings of the Anthropocene: The lower bounding surface of anthropogenic deposits" (PDF). The Anthropocene Review. 2 (1): 33–58. doi:10.1177/2053019614565394. ISSN 2053-0196. S2CID 131236197.
- Waters, Colin N.; Zalasiewicz, Jan; Summerhayes, Colin; Barnosky, Anthony D.; Poirier, Clément; Gałuszka, Agnieszka; Cearreta, Alejandro; Edgeworth, Matt; Ellis, Erle C. (8 January 2016). "The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene". Science. 351 (6269): aad2622. doi:10.1126/science.aad2622. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 26744408. S2CID 206642594.
- "Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy – Working Group on the 'Anthropocene'". International Commission on Stratigraphy. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
- Davison, Nicola (30 May 2019). "The Anthropocene epoch: Have we entered a new phase of planetary history?". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ἄνθρωπος, καινός. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
- Harper, Douglas. "-cene". Online Etymology Dictionary.
- Crutzen, P. J. (2002). "Geology of mankind". Nature. 415 (6867): 23. Bibcode:2002Natur.415...23C. doi:10.1038/415023a. PMID 11780095. S2CID 9743349.
- Steffen, Will; Grinevald, Jacques; Crutzen, Paul; McNeill, John (2011). "The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives" (PDF). Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. 369 (1938): 842–867. Bibcode:2011RSPTA.369..842S. doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0327. PMID 21282150. S2CID 190418. Retrieved 31 December 2014.
- Pearce, Fred (2007). With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists fear tipping points in Climate Change. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. ISBN 978-0-8070-8576-9. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
- Michael, Samways (1999). "Translocating fauna to foreign lands: Here comes the Homogenocene". Journal of Insect Conservation. 3 (2): 65–66. doi:10.1023/A:1017267807870.
- Curnutt, John L. (2000). "AA Guide to the Homogenocene". Ecology. 81 (6): 1756–1757. doi:10.1890/0012-9658(2000)081[1756:AGTTH]2.0.CO;2.
- Mann, Charles C. (2011). 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-307-26572-2.
- Grantham, H. S.; Duncan, A.; Evans, T. D.; Jones, K. R.; Beyer, H. L.; Schuster, R.; Walston, J.; Ray, J. C.; Robinson, J. G.; Callow, M.; Clements, T.; Costa, H. M.; DeGemmis, A.; Elsen, P. R.; Ervin, J.; Franco, P.; Goldman, E.; Goetz, S.; Hansen, A.; Hofsvang, E.; Jantz, P.; Jupiter, S.; Kang, A.; Langhammer, P.; Laurance, W. F.; Lieberman, S.; Linkie, M.; Malhi, Y.; Maxwell, S.; Mendez, M.; Mittermeier, R.; Murray, N. J.; Possingham, H.; Radachowsky, J.; Saatchi, S.; Samper, C.; Silverman, J.; Shapiro, A.; Strassburg, B.; Stevens, T.; Stokes, E.; Taylor, R.; Tear, T.; Tizard, R.; Venter, O.; Visconti, P.; Wang, S.; Watson, J. E. M. (2020). "Anthropogenic modification of forests means only 40% of remaining forests have high ecosystem integrity". Nature Communications. 11 (1). doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19493-3. ISSN 2041-1723.
- McNeill, J.R. (2012). "Global Environmental History: The first 150,000 years". In McNeill, J. R.; Mauldin, E.S. (eds.). A Companion to Global Environmental History. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 3–17. ISBN 978-1-444-33534-7.
- Leakey, Richard; Lewin, Roger (1995). The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of life and the future of humankind. London: Doubleday.
- Boyle, Alan. "Scientists build case for 'Sixth Extinction' ... and say it could kill us". NBC News. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
- Kolbert, Elizabeth (2014). The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. New York City: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 978-0805092998.
- Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, Galetti M, Alamgir M, Crist E, Mahmoud MI, Laurance WF (13 November 2017). "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice". BioScience. 67 (12): 1026–1028. doi:10.1093/biosci/bix125.
Moreover, we have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century.
- Ceballos, Gerardo; Ehrlich, Paul R.; Raven, Peter H. (1 June 2020). "Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction". PNAS. 117 (24): 13596–13602. doi:10.1073/pnas.1922686117. PMC 7306750. PMID 32482862.
- Andermann, Tobias; Faurby, Søren; Turvey, Samuel T.; Antonelli, Alexandre; Silvestro, Daniele (1 September 2020). "The past and future human impact on mammalian diversity". Science Advances. 6 (36): eabb2313. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abb2313. ISSN 2375-2548. S2CID 221498762. Retrieved 9 October 2020. Text and images are available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
- "Anthropocene: Have humans created a new geological age?". BBC News. 10 May 2011.
- Pimm, S. L.; Jenkins, C. N.; Abell, R.; Brooks, T. M.; Gittleman, J. L.; Joppa, L. N.; Raven, P. H.; Roberts, C. M.; Sexton, J. O. (30 May 2014). "The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection" (PDF). Science. 344 (6187): 1246752. doi:10.1126/science.1246752. PMID 24876501. S2CID 206552746.
- Schiermeier, Quirin (2010). "Ocean greenery under warming stress". Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2010.379. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
- Bradbury, Roger (13 July 2012). "A world without coral reefs". Opinion. The New York Times. Retrieved 22 July 2012.
- Wear, Stephanie (20 July 2012). "Coral reefs: The living dead, or a comeback kid?". The Nature Conservancy. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 22 July 2012.
- "Research shows catastrophic invertebrate extinction in Hawai'i and globally". Phys.org. 10 August 2015. Retrieved 29 November 2015.
- Régnier, Claire; Achaz, Guillaume; Lambert, Amaury; Cowie, Robert H.; Bouchet, Philippe & Fontaine, Benoît (5 May 2015). "Mass extinction in poorly known taxa". PNAS. 112 (25): 7761–7766. Bibcode:2015PNAS..112.7761R. doi:10.1073/pnas.1502350112. PMC 4485135. PMID 26056308.
- Darimont, Chris T.; Fox, Caroline H.; Bryan, Heather M.; Reimchen, Thomas E. (21 August 2015). "The unique ecology of human predators". Science. 349 (6250): 858–860. Bibcode:2015Sci...349..858D. doi:10.1126/science.aac4249. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 26293961. S2CID 4985359.
- Ceballos, Gerardo; Ehrlich, Paul R; Dirzo, Rodolfo (23 May 2017). "Biological annihilation via the ongoing sixth mass extinction signaled by vertebrate population losses and declines". PNAS. 114 (30): E6089–E6096. doi:10.1073/pnas.1704949114. PMC 5544311. PMID 28696295.
Much less frequently mentioned are, however, the ultimate drivers of those immediate causes of biotic destruction, namely, human overpopulation and continued population growth, and overconsumption, especially by the rich. These drivers, all of which trace to the fiction that perpetual growth can occur on a finite planet, are themselves increasing rapidly.
- Sutter, John D. (11 July 2017). "Sixth mass extinction: The era of 'biological annihilation'". CNN. Retrieved 14 July 2017.
- Carrington, Damian (21 May 2018). "Humans just 0.01% of all life but have destroyed 83% of wild mammals – study". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
- Baillie, Jonathan; Ya-Ping, Zhang (14 September 2018). "Space for nature". Science. 361 (6407): 1051. Bibcode:2018Sci...361.1051B. doi:10.1126/science.aau1397. PMID 30213888.
- Watts, Jonathan (6 May 2019). "Human society under urgent threat from loss of Earth's natural life". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
- Plumer, Brad (6 May 2019). "Humans are speeding extinction and altering the natural world at an 'unprecedented' pace". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
- "Nature's dangerous decline 'unprecedented'; Species extinction rates 'accelerating'". Media Release. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 6 May 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
- Greenfield, Patrick (9 September 2020). "Humans exploiting and destroying nature on unprecedented scale – report". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 September 2020.
- Rott, Nathan (10 September 2020). "The World Lost Two-Thirds Of Its Wildlife In 50 Years. We Are to Blame". NPR. Retrieved 11 September 2020.
- Harvey, Fiona; Correspondent, Environment (18 August 2011). "Climate change driving species out of habitats much faster than expected". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
- Nuwer, Rachel (14 September 2012). "From Ancient Deforestation, a Delta Is Born". The New York Times. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
- Gaynor, Kaitlyn M.; et al. (2018). "The influence of human disturbance on wildlife nocturnality". Science. 360 (6394): 1232–1235. Bibcode:2018Sci...360.1232G. doi:10.1126/science.aar7121. PMID 29903973.
- Brennan, William (1 October 2018). "When Animals Take the Night Shift". The Atlantic. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
- "NASA Global Climate Change – Vital Signs of the Planet – Facts – Carbon Dioxide". 7 November 2016. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
- ESRL Web Team. "ESRL Global Monitoring Division – Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network". noaa.gov. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
- "Deep ice tells long climate story". BBC News. 4 September 2006. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
The 'scary thing', [Dr. Wolff] added, was the rate of change now occurring in CO
2 concentrations. In the core, the fastest increase seen was of the order of 30 parts per million (ppm) by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years. The last 30 ppm of increase has occurred in just 17 years. We really are in the situation where we don't have an analogue in our records. - Dixon, Simon J.; Viles, Heather A.; Garrett, Bradley L. (2018). "Ozymandias in the Anthropocene: The city as an emerging landform". Area. 50: 117–125. doi:10.1111/area.12358. ISSN 1475-4762.
- Smith, G.K. (April 2016). "Calcite straw stalactites growing from concrete structures". Cave and Karst Science. 43 (1): 4–10. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
- Giosan, L.; Syvitski, J.P.M.; Constantinescu, S.; Day, J. (3 December 2014). "Climate change: Protect the world's deltas". Nature. 516. pp. 31–33. Bibcode:2014Natur.516...31G. doi:10.1038/516031a.
- Cabadas-Báez, H.V.; Sedov, S.; Jiménez-Álvarez, S; Leonard, D.; Lailson-Tinoco, B.; García-Moll, R.; Ancona-Aragón, I.; Hernández, L. (2017). "Soils as a source of raw materials for ancient ceramic production in the Maya region of Mexico: Micromorphological insight". Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana. 70 (1): 21–48. doi:10.18268/BSGM2018v70n1a2.
- Carrington, Damian (31 August 2016). "How the domestic chicken rose to define the Anthropocene". The Guardian.
- Achmon, Yigal; Achmon, Moshe; Dowdy, F. Ryan; Spiegel, Orr; Claypool, Joshua T.; Toniato, Juliano; Simmons, Christopher W. (2018). "Understanding the Anthropocene through the lens of landfill microbiomes". Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. 16 (6): 354–360. doi:10.1002/fee.1819. ISSN 1540-9309. S2CID 89937817.
- Turney, Chris S. M.; Palmer, Jonathan; Maslin, Mark A.; Hogg, Alan; Fogwill, Christopher J.; Southon, John; Fenwick, Pavla; Helle, Gerhard; Wilmshurst, Janet M.; McGlone, Matt; Bronk Ramsey, Christopher; Thomas, Zoë; Lipson, Mathew; Beaven, Brent; Jones, Richard T.; Andrews, Oliver; Hua, Quan (2018). "Global peak in atmospheric radiocarbon provides a potential definition for the onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965". Scientific Reports. 8 (1): 3293. Bibcode:2018NatSR...8.3293T. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-20970-5. PMC 5818508. PMID 29459648.
- Certini, Giacomo; Scalenghe, Riccardo (April 2015). "Is the Anthropocene really worthy of a formal geologic definition?". The Anthropocene Review. 2 (1): 77–80. doi:10.1177/2053019614563840. ISSN 2053-0196. S2CID 130059700.
- Ellis, Erle; Goldewijk, Kees Klein; Gaillard, Marie-José; Kaplan, Jed O.; Thornton, Alexa; Powell, Jeremy; Garcia, Santiago Munevar; Beaudoin, Ella; Zerboni, Andrea (30 August 2019). "Archaeological assessment reveals Earth's early transformation through land use". Science. 365 (6456): 897–902. Bibcode:2019Sci...365..897S. doi:10.1126/science.aax1192. hdl:10150/634688. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 31467217. S2CID 201674203.
- Lightfoot, Kent G; Cuthrell, Rob Q (29 May 2015). "Anthropogenic burning and the Anthropocene in late-Holocene California". The Holocene. 25 (10): 1581–1587. Bibcode:2015Holoc..25.1581L. doi:10.1177/0959683615588376. ISSN 0959-6836. S2CID 130614921.
- Mason, Betsy (2003). "Man has been changing climate for 8,000 years". Nature. doi:10.1038/news031208-7.
- Adler, Robert (11 December 2003). "Early farmers warmed Earth's climate". New Scientist. Retrieved 4 February 2008.
- Ruddiman, William F. (2003). "The anthropogenic greenhouse era began thousands of years ago" (PDF). Climatic Change. 61 (3): 261–293. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.651.2119. doi:10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004577.17928.fa. S2CID 2501894. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 April 2014.
- Broecker, Wallace S.; Stocker, Thomas F. (2006). "The Holocene CO2 rise: Anthropogenic or natural?". Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union. 87 (3): 27. doi:10.1029/2006EO030002. ISSN 2324-9250.
- Tzedakis, P. C.; Raynaud, D.; McManus, J. F.; Berger, A.; Brovkin, V.; Kiefer, T. (2009). "Interglacial diversity". Nature Geoscience. 2 (11): 751–755. Bibcode:2009NatGe...2..751T. doi:10.1038/ngeo660.
- Boyle, J.F.; Gaillard, M.-J.; Kaplan, J.O. & Dearing, J.A. (2011). "Modelling prehistoric land use and carbon budgets: A critical review". The Holocene. 21 (5): 715–722. Bibcode:2011Holoc..21..715B. doi:10.1177/0959683610386984. S2CID 129590170.
- Certini, G. & Scalenghe, R. (2015). "Holocene as Anthropocene". Science. 349 (6245): 246. doi:10.1126/science.349.6245.246-a. PMID 26185234.
- Certini, G. & Scalenghe, R. (2011). "Anthropogenic soils are the golden spikes for the Anthropocene". The Holocene. 21 (8): 1269–1274. Bibcode:2011Holoc..21.1269C. doi:10.1177/0959683611408454. S2CID 128818837.
- "Andean and Chavín civilizations". Khan Academy. Retrieved 12 September 2018.
- Hong, S.; Candelone, J-P.; Patterson, C.C. & Boutron C.F. (1994). "Greenland ice evidence of hemispheric lead pollution two millennia ago by Greek and Roman civilisations". Science. 265 (5180): 1841–1843. Bibcode:1994Sci...265.1841H. doi:10.1126/science.265.5180.1841. PMID 17797222. S2CID 45080402.
- Kilvert, Nick. Arctic lead deposits trace European history from the Roman Empire to modern day ABC News, 17 July 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2021.
- Lewis, Simon L. (7 June 2018). Human planet : how we created the anthropocene. Maslin, Mark A. UK. ISBN 9780241280881. OCLC 1038430807.
- Maslin, Mark; Lewis, Simon (25 June 2020). "Why the Anthropocene began with European colonisation, mass slavery and the 'great dying' of the 16th century". The Conversation. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- Kotzé, Louis J. (1 March 2019). "Editorial: Coloniality, neoliberalism and the Anthropocene". Journal of Human Rights and the Environment. 10 (1): 1–6. doi:10.4337/jhre.2019.01.00. ISSN 1759-7188.
- DeLoughrey, Elizabeth M. (June 2019). Allegories of the Anthropocene. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-1-4780-0558-2. OCLC 1081380012.
- Lightfoot, Kent G.; Panich, Lee M.; Schneider, Tsim D.; Gonzalez, Sara L. (1 December 2013). "European colonialism and the Anthropocene: A view from the Pacific Coast of North America". Anthropocene. When Humans Dominated the Earth: Archeological Perspectives on the Anthropocene. 4: 101–115. doi:10.1016/j.ancene.2013.09.002. ISSN 2213-3054.
- Baldwin, Andrew; Erickson, Bruce (1 February 2020). "Introduction: Whiteness, coloniality, and the Anthropocene". Environment and Planning D: Society and Space. 38 (1): 3–11. doi:10.1177/0263775820904485. ISSN 0263-7758. S2CID 213839818.
- Davis, Heather; Todd, Zoe (20 December 2017). "On the Importance of a Date, or, Decolonizing the Anthropocene". ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies. 16 (4): 761–780. ISSN 1492-9732.
- Whyte, Kyle (2016). "Is it Colonial DéJà Vu? Indigenous Peoples and Climate Injustice". In Adamson, Joni (ed.). Humanities for the Environment: Integrating Knowledges, Forging New Constellations of Practice. Routledge. pp. 88–104. SSRN 2925277.
- Keeler, Kyle (8 September 2020). "Colonial Theft and Indigenous Resistance in the Kleptocene". Edge Effects Magazine. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
- Lovelock, James (4 July 2019). Novacene : the coming age of hyperintelligence. Appleyard, Bryan. London. ISBN 9780241399361. OCLC 1104037419.
- US Department of Commerce; NOAA; Earth System Research Laboratory. "NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Division – The NOAA annual greenhouse gas index (AGGI)". esrl.noaa.gov. Retrieved 17 May 2017.
- Douglas, I.; Hodgson, R. & Lawson, N. (2002). "Industry, environment and health through 200 years in Manchester". Ecological Economics. 41 (2): 235–255. doi:10.1016/S0921-8009(02)00029-0.
- Kirch, P.V. (2005). "The Holocene record". Annual Review of Environment and Resources. 30 (1): 409–440. doi:10.1146/annurev.energy.29.102403.140700.
- Subramanian, Meera (2019). "Anthropocene now: influential panel votes to recognize Earth's new epoch". Nature News.
- Zalasiewicz, J.; Williams, M.; Steffen, W. & Crutzen, P.J. (2010). "Response to 'The Anthropocene forces us to reconsider adaptationist models of human-environment interactions'". Environmental Science & Technology. 44 (16): 6008. Bibcode:2010EnST...44.6008Z. doi:10.1021/es102062w.
- Zalasiewicz, J.; et al. (2011). "Stratigraphy of the Anthropocene". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A. 369 (1938): 1036–1055. Bibcode:2011RSPTA.369.1036Z. doi:10.1098/rsta.2010.0315. PMID 21282159.
- Richter, D. deB. (2007). "Humanity's transformation of Earth's soil: Pedology's new frontier". Soil Science. 172 (12): 957–967. Bibcode:2007SoilS.172..957R. doi:10.1097/ss.0b013e3181586bb7. S2CID 15921701.
- Amundson, R. & Jenny, H. (1991). "The place of humans in the state factor theory of ecosystems and their soils". Soil Science. 151 (1): 99–109. Bibcode:1991SoilS.151...99A. doi:10.1097/00010694-199101000-00012. S2CID 95061311.
- "The Advent of the Anthropocene: Was that the big story of the 20th century?". World of Ideas, Boston U. Radio. Retrieved 28 November 2015.
- Grinspoon, D. (28 June 2016). "The golden spike of Tranquility Base". Sky & Telescope.
- Simpkins, Kelsey (16 October 2020). "Unprecedented energy use since 1950 has transformed humanity's geologic footprint". phys.org. University of Colorado at Boulder. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
- Syvitski, Jaia; Waters, Colin N.; Day, John; et al. (2020). "Extraordinary human energy consumption and resultant geological impacts beginning around 1950 CE initiated the proposed Anthropocene Epoch". Communications Earth & Environment. 1 (32). doi:10.1038/s43247-020-00029-y. S2CID 222415797.
- Laville, Sandra (9 December 2020). "Human-made materials now outweigh Earth's entire biomass – study". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 December 2020.
- Elhacham, Emily; Ben-Uri, Liad; et al. (2020). "Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass". Nature. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5.
- Clark, Timothy (1 December 2012). Clark, Timothy (ed.). "Special Issue: Deconstruction in the Anthropocene". Oxford Literary Review. 34 (2): v–vi. doi:10.3366/olr.2012.0039.
- Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University (13 June 2012). Anthropocene Humanities: The 2012 Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes. Canberra, Australia. Archived from the original on 31 August 2014. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
- Rachel Carson; Alexander von Humboldt (14 June 2013). Culture and the Anthropocene. Munich, Germany. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
- Wenzel, Jennifer (13 March 2014). "Climate Change". State of the Discipline Report: Ideas of the Decade. American Comparative Literature Association.
- Scranton, Roy (10 November 2013). "Learning how to die in the Anthropocene". Opinionator. The New York Times. Retrieved 17 July 2014.
- Colebrook, Claire (27 January 2014). "The Anthropocene and the Archive". The Memory Network: Exchanges. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
- Nowviskie, Bethany (10 July 2014). "Digital humanities in the anthropocene". nowviskie.org. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
- Ronda, Margaret (10 June 2013). "Mourning and Melancholia in the Anthropocene". Post45. Retrieved 21 July 2014.
- Malm, Andreas (March 2015). "The Anthropocene Myth". Jacobin.
- Moore, Jason W., ed. (2016). Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism. Oakland: PM Press. ISBN 978-1629631486.
- Davies, Jeremy (2016). The Birth of the Anthropocene. Oakland, California: University of California Press. pp. 94–95. ISBN 9780520289970.
- Todd, Zoe; Davis, Heather (2017). "On the Importance of a Date, or, Decolonizing the Anthropocene". ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies. 16: 761–780.
- "What is the Plantationocene?". Edge Effects Magazine.
- Haraway, Donna (2015). "Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin" (PDF). Environmental Humanities. 6: 159–165. doi:10.1215/22011919-3615934.
- McNeill, John (2000). Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
- Oreskes, Naomi; Eric, Conway (2010). Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change.
- Oreskes, Naomi (3 December 2004). "The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change". Science. 306 (5702): 1686. doi:10.1126/science.1103618. PMID 15576594. S2CID 153792099.
- Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2009). "The Climate of History: Four Theses". Critical Inquiry. 35 (2): 197–222. doi:10.1086/596640. S2CID 143935389.
- Thomas, Julia Adeney (2014). "History and Biology in the Anthropocene: Problems of Scale, Problems of Value". The American Historical Review. 119 (5): 1587–1607. doi:10.1093/ahr/119.5.1587.
- Steffen, Will; Crutzen, Paul; McNeill, John (2007). "The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?". Ambio. 36 (8): 614–621. doi:10.1579/0044-7447(2007)36[614:TAAHNO]2.0.CO;2. PMID 18240674.Robin, Libby; Steffen, Will (2007). "History for the Anthropocene". History Compass. 5 (5): 1694–1719. doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00459.x.Thomas, Julia Adeney; Williams, Mark; Zalasiewicz, Ian (2020). The Anthropocene: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Bonneuil, Christophe; Baptiste-Fressoz, Jean (2016). The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us. Verso Books.
- Grinspoon, David (20 December 2016). "Welcome to Terra Sapiens". Aeon Essays.
- "In The Anthropocene" song from Nick Mulvey
- CMU: Nick Mulvey releases vinyl made from recycled plastic washed up on Cornish beaches
- "The Anthropocene Reviewed – WNYC Studios and Complexly". Spotify. Retrieved 13 May 2020.
- Staff writer(s) (20 May 2015). "CATTLE DECAPITATION To Release 'The Anthropocene Extinction' This August Via Metal Blade Records" (Press release). Metal Blade Records. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
Further reading
- Bonneuil, Christophe; Fressoz, Jean-Baptiste.(2016) The Shock of the Anthropocene. The Earth, History and Us, Verso Books. Translated by David Fernbach. Originally published as L’événement Anthropocène: La terre, l’histoire et nous. Le Seuil 2013
- Davies, Jeremy (2016). The Birth of the Anthropocene. Oakland, CA, USA: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520289970.
- Dirzo, Rodolfo; Hillary S. Young; Mauro Galetti; Gerardo Ceballos; Nick J. B. Isaac; Ben Collen (2014). "Defaunation in the Anthropocene" (PDF). Science. 345 (6195): 401–406. Bibcode:2014Sci...345..401D. doi:10.1126/science.1251817. PMID 25061202. S2CID 206555761.
- Dixon, Simon J; Viles, Heather A; Garrett, Bradley L (2018). "Ozymandias in the Anthropocene: the city as an emerging landform". Area. 50: 117–125. doi:10.1111/area.12358. ISSN 1475-4762.
- Ellis, Erle (2018). Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/actrade/9780198792987.001.0001. ISBN 9780198792987.
- Ellis, Erle C.; Fuller, Dorian Q.; Kaplan, Jed O.; Lutters, Wayne G. (2013). "Dating the Anthropocene: Towards an empirical global history of human transformation of the terrestrial biosphere". Elementa. 1: 000018. doi:10.12952/journal.elementa.000018.
- Grinspoon, David (December 2016). "Welcome to Terra Sapiens". Aeon.
- Hamilton, Clive (2017). Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene. Polity. ISBN 978-1509519750.
- Ialenti, Vincent. 2016. "Generation (Lexicon for An Anthropocene Yet Unseen)". Cultural Anthropology: Theorising the Contemporary. Archived from the original on 7 May 2016. Retrieved 13 April 2016.
- Kim, Rakhyun E.; Klaus Bosselmann (2013). "International Environmental Law in the Anthropocene: Towards a Purposive System of Multilateral Environmental Agreements". Transnational Environmental Law. 2 (2): 285–309. doi:10.1017/S2047102513000149.
- MacCormack, Patricia (2020). The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1350081093.
- Purdy, Jedediah. (2015). "Anthropocene Fever". Aeon. pp. 1–9.
- Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, Galetti M, Alamgir M, Crist E, Mahmoud MI, Laurance WF (2017). "World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice". BioScience. 67 (12): 1026–1028. doi:10.1093/biosci/bix125.
- Ruddiman, William F. (December 2003). "The anthropogenic greenhouse era began thousands of years ago". Climatic Change. 61 (3): 261–293. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.651.2119. doi:10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004577.17928.fa. S2CID 2501894.
- Ruddiman, William F.; Stephen J. Vavrus & John E. Kutzbach (2005). "A test of the overdue-glaciation hypothesis" (PDF). Quaternary Science Reviews. 24 (1): 11. Bibcode:2005QSRv...24....1R. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2004.07.010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 3 October 2006.
- Ruddiman, William F. (2005). Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12164-2.
- Schmidt, G. A.; D. T. Shindel & S. Harder (2004). "A note on the relationship between ice core methane concentrations and insolation". Geophysical Research Letters. 31 (23): L23206. Bibcode:2004GeoRL..3123206S. doi:10.1029/2004GL021083.
- Schneider-Mayerson, Matthew (2017). "Some Islands Will Rise: Singapore in the Anthropocene". Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities. 4 (2): 166–184. doi:10.5250/resilience.4.2-3.0166. S2CID 158809548.
- Steffen, Will; Crutzen, Paul; McNeill, John (2007). "The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature?". AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment. 36 (8): 614–621. doi:10.1579/0044-7447(2007)36[614:taahno]2.0.co;2. PMID 18240674.
- Steffen, Will; et al. (9 August 2018). "Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene". PNAS. 115 (33): 8252–8259. Bibcode:2018PNAS..115.8252S. doi:10.1073/pnas.1810141115. hdl:2078.1/204292. PMC 6099852. PMID 30082409.
- Visconti, Guido (2014). "Anthropocene: another academic invention?" (PDF). Rend. Fis. Acc. Lincei. 25 (3): 381–392. doi:10.1007/s12210-014-0317-x. S2CID 128678966.
- "Human-Driven Planet: Time to Make It Official?". Science Now. January 2008.
- Klinkenborg, Verlyn (December 2016). What’s Happening to the Bees and Butterflies? New York Review of Books
- Vanishing: The Sixth Mass Extinction, and How to stop the sixth mass extinction (December 2016), CNN.
- Williams, Mark; Zalasiewicz, Jan; Haff, P. K.; Schwägerl, Christian; Barnosky, Anthony D.; Ellis, Erle C. (2015). "The Anthropocene Biosphere". The Anthropocene Review. 2 (3): 196–219. doi:10.1177/2053019615591020. S2CID 7771527.
- 'Ozymandias in the Anthropocene: the city as an emerging landform', Dixon S., et al. (2017) AREA, Royal Geographical Society ISSN 1475-4762
External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to: Anthropocene |
Look up Anthropocene in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anthropocene. |
- "Have humans created a new geological age?", New Scientist, 24 January 2008
- Videos of a Radcliffe conference on Biodiversity in the Anthropocene, 10 March 2006
- "Debate over the Early Anthropogenic Hypothesis", RealClimate, December 2005
- "Earth Is Us", Dot Earth blog, New York Times, 28 January 2008
- Recent work on the Early Anthropocene Hypothesis presented at AGU, December 2008
- (in French) Thierry Picquet, "New era in the evolution of the world", Planétarisation
- Humanity Blamed for 9,000 Years of Global Warming
- Nothing new under the sun: Anthropogenic global warming started when people began farming, The Economist review; includes nice graphic showing the rise in methane (a greenhouse gas), from agricultural slash-and-burn started 8,000 years ago.
- How Did Humans First Alter Global Climate?, Scientific American, 2005
- Methane: A Scientific Journey from Obscurity to Climate Super-Stardom NASA
- Anthropocene: Have humans created a new geological age? BBC News, 11 May 2011
- Vince, G. (2011). "An Epoch Debate". Science. 334 (6052): 32–37. Bibcode:2011Sci...334...32V. doi:10.1126/science.334.6052.32. PMID 21980090.
- Steffen, W; Crutzen, PJ; McNeill, JR (2007). "The Anthropocene: are humans now overwhelming the great forces of Nature?" (PDF). AMBIO. 36 (8): 614–621. doi:10.1579/0044-7447(2007)36[614:taahno]2.0.co;2. PMID 18240674.
- The Anthropocene epoch: have we entered a new phase of planetary history?, The Guardian, 2019
- Tooze, Adam, "Whose century?", London Review of Books, vol. 42, no. 15 (30 July 2020), pp. 9–13. Tooze closes (p. 13): "Can [the US] fashion a domestic political bargain to enable the US to become what it currently is not: a competent and co-operative partner in the management of the collective risks of the Anthropocene. This is what the Green New Deal promised. After the shock of COVID-19 it is more urgent than ever."
- The forgotten environmental crisis: how 20th century settler writers foreshadowed the Anthropocene. The Conversation . December 3, 2020.