A page from my now-defunct Anthropocene blog, shamelessly recycled here for future reference:
WTF is the Anthropocene?
The Anthropocene is our current epoch—a geological time period in the history of the Earth—defined by human activity comprising the most dominant force on the planet.
For the last 12 thousand years, the Earth has been in the Holocene epoch, which has been defined by relatively stable climate conditions. Stable enough, in fact, for a species called homo sapiens (that’s us, ya’ll!) to spread out across the Earth and develop a full-fledged global civilization.
Along with that civilization came some seriously profound impacts on the Earth’s biogeochemical cycles (e.g. climate change, deforestation, acidification, etc.) Although it’s yet to be _formally _designated as our current epoch by geologists, it’s a safe bet to take it as fact that we are already living in in the Anthropocene. I mean, with global temperature averages expected to far exceed the 2 degrees celsius increase we’d need in order to avoid some of the worst effects of climate change, some might say it’s more critical than ever before that we are able to talk about this profound time in the history of our planet, society and species
When did it start?
There’s been a lot of discussion about this recently, with some people arguing we entered the Anthropocene back in 1945 with the first nuclear text, others thinking like we entered the Anthropocene when the steam engine was invented at the beginning of the 19th century, and still others contending that the Anthropocene kicked off when we first began killing off species like a veritable extinction event.
But recently, there seems to be a reasonable consensus around the idea that it started with one big event in human history:
The Great Acceleration, y’all.
Basically, once industrialization started taking off in the 1950s, shit got real _real _fast.
Here are some handy graphs to show you what I mean:
- Socio-economic trends since 1950
- Earth system trends since 1950
(Graph credits: IGBP)
Why is it Important?
That’s what this blog is all about.
The meaning of the Anthrocene is posed to be a decades-long intellectual battle — it’s naturally up for interpretation, and the implications so far seem to be that it means a big shift in how we perceive the relationship between humans, nature and society.
There’s a growing field of academic discourse which aims to trace its meaning—as well as some compelling articles and speculation written recently about what the practical implications of the Anthropocene could and should be—but they’re not always the most accessible for your average reader. On one level, the purpose of this blog is to collect the different meanings being batted around and analyze them in a way that makes sense for a wider (and younger) audience — communicating these ideas to more people who will be inheriting this new epoch and encouraging more conversation about what the Anthropocene _should _mean.
For different perspectives about the Anthropocene, check out this page.
What’s Next?
…for real though. No one’s really sure what exactly it means, if anything.
Part of what this whole blog is about is to plant the seed for the notion that the Anthropocene is still largely a tabula rasa as far as theoretical basis and practical implications. As a popular discussion, the Anthropocene is as much a frustratingly dark and banal topic as it is an inspiring and positivistic one. Recently, writers about the topic have argued that religion, politics, and technology may all serve heightened roles in the Anthropocene, bearing the potential to be the saviors of our species and our planet.
And in all honesty, it’s all still up for grabs. This blog attempts to make sense of current understandings.