🌍⏳

In an age of changing tides, where boundaries wane and life collides,
I emerge as a new dawn, both feared and embraced, forever drawn.
A force unseen, I claim dominion, transforming the world with human opinion.
I carve landscapes, rule the air, and hold the fates of creatures rare.
With footprints wide and fingers long, the Earth itself sings my song.

What am I, the epoch that bends the planetary tale,
Defined by human's relentless trail?

Welcome to the Anthropocene

In June 2012, the United Nations Earth Summit Rio+20 was inaugurated with GLOBAÏA's thought-provoking film, Welcome to the Anthropocene. This cinematic exploration delved into the contemporary state of our planet, elucidating the profound impact of human activities on Earth's ecosystems.

The Rio+20 conference, which marked the largest gathering in the history of the United Nations, brought together world leaders, policymakers, and representatives from diverse sectors to address pressing global environmental challenges, foster sustainable development, and shape a collective vision for a more balanced, harmonious coexistence with nature.

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The Anthropocene Epoch/Event (AE)

The Anthropocene, an emerging concept, reflects the significant and rapid impact of human industrial activities on the Earth's environment, including climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, land use change, resource depletion, population growth, technological advances, globalization, anthropogenic mass extinction, and growing inequalities. Despite lacking formal recognition by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the term "Anthropocene" has been widely embraced across various domains, underlining the pivotal age defined by accelerating human impacts on the planet.

The starting date for the Anthropocene is debated among scientists, with different dates proposed based on various human-driven markers. A proposed starting point is 1945, adopted by GLOBAÏA, aligning with several interconnected events:

1. The start of the Atomic Age (Trinity);

2. The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki;

3. The end of World War 2;

4. The end of the Holocaust;

5. The creation of United Nations, and;

6. The spark that ignited the Great Acceleration.

The abbreviation AE represents the Anthropocene Epoch, which could also denote an Event, Era, or Eon, as its precise classification remains a subject of debate.

Recent scholarly discussions propose that the Anthropocene is an ongoing, intensifying, diachronous event rather than a formal geological epoch, encompassing complex, time-transgressive human impacts on the environment that have significantly intensified during the XXth and XXIst centuries. The concept of the Anthropocene Event transcends the constraints of a strict geological epoch, reflecting transformative human activities and their profound effects on the planet, including scientific, social, economic, and cultural dimensions.

However, defining the Anthropocene as an epoch with a mid-XXth century start aligns the original Earth System concept with chronostratigraphic practice. The "-cene" suffix denotes an epoch-level unit, consistent with the sharp distinction of the Anthropocene's stratigraphic record from the Holocene. The mid-XXth century onset is supported by abundant stratigraphic evidence, with numerous markers exhibiting abrupt, globally synchronous changes of unprecedented magnitude — the ‘Great Acceleration Event Array’ (GAEA). This allows ultra-high resolution characterization of a clearly recognizable Anthropocene base. The proposed ‘Anthropocene Event’ encompassing a vaguely defined, time-transgressive interval of all significant human impacts going back 50,000 years is not a geological event as conventionally understood. Instead, it conflates the Anthropocene epoch with an ‘Anthropogenic Modification Episode’ — a fundamentally distinct, albeit complementary concept.

From a geobiological perspective, 1945 marks a discernible global shift, underscored by nuclear tests dispersing radionuclides across sediments and ice cores, serving as markers of this new epoch known as the 🌎🎢 Great Acceleration. In addition to the list of pivotal events mentioned above, the foundation of the Bretton Woods institutions in 1945, promoting globalization, has had profound implications for global disparities, social unrest, and environmental degradation. Furthermore, 1945 signified the culmination of revolutionary work not only at Bletchley Park, where the German Enigma cipher was deciphered and the Colossus computer was conceived, but also at the University of Pennsylvania, where the Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer (ENIAC) was developed. These momentous achievements laid the foundation for the digital and AI era, which has since catalysed extraordinary advancements and innovations, along with a unique set of challenges.

The Anthropocene Event underscores a critical inflection point where human technological capabilities highlighted a mismatch between technological progress and ethical development, sparking a shift in collective consciousness towards greater responsibility for the Earth and future generations. This juncture marked a significant moment, pushing planetary processes and systems beyond the Holocene's stability. The notion of 🌍🚧 Planetary Boundaries emphasizes the Anthropocene as a significant pressure, reshaping Earth's systems in ways that could breach thresholds maintaining stable conditions, underscoring the urgent need for global stewardship and sustainable practices to navigate this new epoch.

Formal definitions of the Anthropocene and further references can be found on the Anthropocene Working Group’s website.

The precise starting dates for the Anthropocene is still a hotly debated topic in science. In addition to the year 1945, which marks the beginning of the Great Acceleration and Atomic Age, here are the main other dates that have been suggested over the years in scientific literature.

July 2023 Update

Welcome to the Crawfordian

The Anthropocene Working Group has selected Crawford Lake, Ontario, Canada (which coincidentally looks like a human footprint) as the Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), often referred to as the 'Golden Spike', for the proposed Anthropocene Epoch, with a suggested starting date of 1950 CE. The Crawford Lake sediment core records anthropogenic impacts from the 13th to the 21st century. The dark organic matter and light calcite layers in the core indicate seasonal changes and human activities, including Indigenous agricultural activities as seen in maize pollen from the late 13th century. This farming resulted in thicker sediment layers (called ‘varves’) and lake eutrophication (the excessive growth of algae). After Indigenous abandonment in the 15th century, varves thinned until the arrival of European colonizers in the 19th century. Their activities, including farming and logging, resulted in thick varves and more eutrophication. Evidence of atomic bomb testing from 1945 and the resultant "bomb pulse" are present in the varves. Emissions from increased fossil fuel combustion in the 1950s, reflected in thin varves and a shift in algae populations, illustrate the advent of the Great Acceleration. The core effectively records local, regional, and global anthropogenic impacts over time. We will further update this page once the Anthropocene is officially recognised by the International Commission on Stratigraphy, likely in 2024.

The determination of the Anthropocene's commencement is a subject of intense discussion and disagreement among scholars. We, however, advocate for 1945 due to its historical, technological, and symbolic significance (see below). The Anthropocene, unlike other pivotal junctures in Earth's history, manifests from symbolic systems materialized through institutional and technological structures. This unprecedented characteristic, we argue, should be mirrored in the selection of the date symbolising its inception.

However, it is important to note that specifying 1945 or 1950 as the starting point does not overlook or nullify the influence humans exerted on the environment prior to this time. Rather, it signifies that around this period, a quantitative and qualitative threshold may have been crossed due to the Great Acceleration and the numerous transformations it induced.

Reference:
McCarthy et al. (2023). The varved succession of Crawford Lake, Milton, Ontario, Canada as a candidate Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the Anthropocene series. The Anthropocene Review, 10(1), 146–176. https://doi.org/10.1177/20530196221149281

Anthropocene Mirrors

Shades of a World of Frankensteinian Proportions

In 1815, the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia unleashed a catastrophic natural event that would reverberate throughout the world, instigating a chain reaction connecting the realms of literature, industry, and the environment. The Tambora eruption led to the "Year Without a Summer" in 1816, which not only influenced the creation of Mary Shelley's iconic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus but also coincided with the burgeoning Industrial Revolution.

Amidst the gloomy weather and incessant rain brought about by the Tambora eruption, Shelley conceived her masterpiece, which explores the ethical and moral implications of scientific progress, serving as a prescient metaphor for the dawning age of human-induced environmental transformation. Frankenstein's eponymous protagonist, in his hubris and desire for mastery over nature, ultimately engenders a monstrous creation with unintended and disastrous consequences.

Coincidentally, the Tambora eruption occurred at the cusp of the Industrial Revolution, a period marked by rapid technological innovations, urbanisation, and exponential economic growth. This unprecedented shift in the human-environment dynamic laid the foundation for the Anthropocene, as our impact on the planet became increasingly palpable and pervasive.

As the world reeled from the eruption's climatic consequences, Mary Shelley's cautionary tale emerged as a reflection of our collective anxiety and fascination with the transformative power of science and technology. Simultaneously, the Industrial Revolution propelled humanity into a new epoch marked by our indelible influence on Earth's systems. This confluence of events serves as a stark reminder of the interconnected nature of our actions on “Earth, the only home we’ve ever known”, as expressed by Carl Sagan.

Here, we present various facets of the Anthropocene, reflecting its cultural reverberations and historical echoes as they emerge from renowned cautionary tales and notable figures.

Framing the Anthropocene

‘We have been weeds and must learn to be gardeners.’
— David Grinspoon

Well, "welcome" may not be the most suitable word to describe the Anthropocene, the era that humanity has shaped. The Anthropocene can be considered a collection of unfavorable news for both humans and our planet's biosphere.

This topic is highly debated, as is the existence of this alleged geological period defined by thermo-industrial activities. Nonetheless, it's hard to ignore the fact that we are living in a unique period of Earth's history. The range of rapid and long-lasting changes humans have brought about in the Earth System is evident and increasingly documented.

Officially, the Anthropocene doesn't exist. However, it might be permanently added to the geologic time scale in the coming years. It is the International Commission on Stratigraphy (see Working Group on the ‘Anthropocene’) that determines the denomination and the calibration of different divisions and subdivisions of geological time, which date back to the formation of the Earth, 4.6 billion years ago.

Unofficially, the term is widely used in scientific literature and, more recently, in publications aimed at the general public.

You might wonder, what exactly is the Anthropocene?

First, let's look at the etymology. The Ancient Greek [anthropos] means "human being," while [kainos] means "new, current." The Anthropocene can be best described as the new human-dominated period of Earth's history.

The term was proposed in 2000 by Paul J. Crutzen, Nobel Prize in 1995 for his work on atmospheric chemistry and his research on stratospheric ozone depletion (the so-called "hole"), and by Eugene F. Stoermer in a publication (p. 17) of the former International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (now part of Future Earth). But the concept itself, the idea that human activity affects the Earth to the point where it can cross a new age, is not new and dates back to the late nineteenth century. Different terms were proposed over the decades, such as Anthropozoic (Stoppani, 1873), Noosphere (de Chardin, 1922; Vernadsky, 1936), Eremozoic (Wilson, 1992), and Anthrocene (Revkin, 1992). It seems that the success of the term chosen by Crutzen and Stoermer is due to the luck of having been made at the appropriate time, when humankind became more than ever aware of the extent of its impact on global environment. It should be noted that Edward O. Wilson (who suggested Eremozoic, "the age of loneliness") popularized the terms "biodiversity" and "biophilia."

Technically, the Anthropocene is the most recent period of the Quaternary, succeding to the Holocene. The Quaternary is a period of the Earth's history characterized by numerous and cyclical glaciations, starting 2,588,000 years ago (2.588 Ma). The Quaternary is divided into three epochs: the Pleistocene, the Holocene, and now the Anthropocene.

The Pleistocene (2.588 Ma to 11.7 Ka) was a tumultuous era, during which more than eleven major glaciations occurred. Furthermore, the Pleistocene is also the time of early humans, the exit of our ancestors from Africa, the invention of the first tools, the evolution of bipedalism, the invention of graphic arts, cultural and linguistic refinements, and the dominance of Homo sapiens on the other hominids.

The Holocene (11.7 ka until now) is a time comparatively smoother in terms of climate variability. At the end of the last Ice Age, 12,000 years ago, a more stable climate regime settled on Earth. The ice gave way to temperate climates, and already, humans were present on all continents. It took a few thousand years for agriculture (domestication of land by humans for food mainly) to take off in the Fertile Crescent and elsewhere in Africa, China, New Guinea and South America. Thus went human progress, managing with success to feed ever more humans.

We are officially still in the Holocene. In fact, we are in the Phanerozoic Eon, Cenozoic era, Quaternary period and Holocene epoch. But now, the Earth's system does not seem to behave the same way as, say, at the time of Hesiod, Dante or Cervantes. The Earth of the 21st century is warming, urbanizing, being deforested and spoiled by novel entities. The comforting shell of the Holocene, which has fostered the birth of civilizations, is now punctured.

Read more about the Anthropocene on the page of the Anthropocene Working Group from the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy from the International Commission on Stratigraphy.

Here is our own definition for the Anthropocene:

“A phase characterised by a regime shift in the behaviour of thermo-industrial societies, beginning in 1945, and leading to unprecedented disruptions in the Earth System across the entire Cenozoic era. These disruptions include climate change, ecosystem collapse, environmental contamination, resource exploitation, land cover change, and drastic alterations to the inhabited world. These shifts necessitate a substantial reorientation of our awareness and perspectives, demanding new approaches to living on Earth.”

Stills from Welcome to the Anthropocene

To help communicate the concept of the Anthropocene, we, along with our international partners, launched Anthropocene[dot]info in 2012 during the Planet Under Pressure conference. The site is no longer online, as of 2024.

The Anthropocene Equation

The Anthropocene equation is a mathematical expression developed by Will Steffen and Owen Gaffney to describe the impact of human activity on Earth's climate system. The equation is derived by comparing the current rate of change in Earth's temperature to the natural rates observed throughout Earth's geological history.

Reference:
https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019616688022
https://futureearth.org/2017/02/10/the-mathematics-of-the-anthropocene/