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The Anthropocene: A Multidisciplinary Approach
Humans rank with the powerful forces of nature transforming Earth. Since the mid-20th century, population growth, industrialization, and globalization have had such deep and wide-ranging impacts that our planet no longer functions as it did during the previous eleven millennia. So distinctive is this collective human intervention that a new geological interval has been proposed; it is called the Anthropocene.
The Anthropocene is intriguing scientifically, fascinating intellectually, and deeply disturbing politically, socially, economically, and ethically. We must learn how to co-exist sustainably with the rest of nature in what is emerging as a new planetary state. To do so, we must first understand what "Anthropocene" means in all its dimensions. This book adopts a multidisciplinary approach, starting with an exploration of the Anthropocene as a geological concept: ranging across the physical changes to the landscape, to the rapidly heating climate, to a biosphere undergoing transformation. And what of the "anthropos" in the Anthropocene? While geoscience does not normally address political and ethical issues of justice and equity, or economics and culture, Anthropocene studies in the humanities and social sciences investigate the complexities of the human activity driving global change. Here the book looks at human history, both in the deep past and more recently, the politics and economics of growth spurring the Anthropocene, and potential ways of mitigating its cruel effects. Our fragile, still beautiful, planet is finite. The new realities of the Anthropocene will need our best efforts, across disciplinary divides, at effective hope and action.
The Anthropocene is intriguing scientifically, fascinating intellectually, and deeply disturbing politically, socially, economically, and ethically. We must learn how to co-exist sustainably with the rest of nature in what is emerging as a new planetary state. To do so, we must first understand what "Anthropocene" means in all its dimensions. This book adopts a multidisciplinary approach, starting with an exploration of the Anthropocene as a geological concept: ranging across the physical changes to the landscape, to the rapidly heating climate, to a biosphere undergoing transformation. And what of the "anthropos" in the Anthropocene? While geoscience does not normally address political and ethical issues of justice and equity, or economics and culture, Anthropocene studies in the humanities and social sciences investigate the complexities of the human activity driving global change. Here the book looks at human history, both in the deep past and more recently, the politics and economics of growth spurring the Anthropocene, and potential ways of mitigating its cruel effects. Our fragile, still beautiful, planet is finite. The new realities of the Anthropocene will need our best efforts, across disciplinary divides, at effective hope and action.
- GenresEnvironment
288 pages, Hardcover
Published November 23, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 4, 2023
Technically, the Anthropocene is a proposed geological epoch currently under active consideration for adoption by the International Commission on Stratigraphy and the International Union of Geological Scientists. Scientifically speaking, the Anthropocene resolves to questions of measurement and definition: measurement, in the sense that there must exist globally-visible indications in the Earth's strata for the term to be of any practical use; and definition, in that such a visible measure must correspond to a meaningful explanatory concept.
Two of the members of the Anthropocene Working Group co-authored this book along with a historian, and they analyze the term in both this technical sense, as well as more broadly, looking at how the term has gained general currency to refer to the manifold ways that human activity has substantially altered the biosphere, especially since the 1950s, and our growing awareness of the degree to which these changes threaten our longterm survival.
For the last 2.6 million years, the Earth has alternately heated and cooled in glacial-interglacial cycles lasting tens of thousands of years, and those oscillations have always occurred within a consistent range. We are now near the top of the range, and are almost certain to exceed it in the next generations, meaning that all of the species that have adapted during that time to life within this range will now be tested as never before. Observed events such as mass coral bleaching in the oceans are an ominous indication of what this is likely to mean.
It's important to recognize that while climate change is a key part of what we mean by the Anthropocene, it is not the only factor - indeed, one comprehensive study predicts that there's a greater than 50% chance that in the next few centuries, the Earth will see the loss of more than 70% of species due to human impacts, and that is calculated before taking climate change impacts into effects. Another paper cited in this book summarize the global-scale forcing mechanisms driving the Anthropocene as: population growth with attendant resource consumption, habitat transformation and fragmentation, energy production and consumption, and climate change.
This book is grim reading. I have read a great deal of material on climate change, and I've never been as convinced by any single source that the chances of avoiding the worst outcomes are virtually nil. That is not to say the book is fatalistic in a Uninhabitable Earth kind of way - far from it. The authors are dispassionate and realistic about describing the dangers, and do suggest a variety of approaches toward working toward a solution.
However, the sheer number and magnitude of the various effects, combined with the astonishing speed at which their impact has been felt, in aggregate create a network of interrelated and mutually-reinforcing problems of enormous complexity. There has been no comparable problem in the history of our species, and it is hard to see how our current mechanisms for coordinating collective action could possibly rise to the challenge.
The book itself emphasizes the degree to which dealing with the various threats necessitates wholesale rethinking of our patterns of consumption and resource management, changes far more profound than those that are usually on the table.
This is an extremely well-written book, and an excellent survey of the key information and major figures and studies dealing with this topic in a variety of fields. It is an excellent introduction for anyone looking to understand this phenomenon in its manifold registers.
Two of the members of the Anthropocene Working Group co-authored this book along with a historian, and they analyze the term in both this technical sense, as well as more broadly, looking at how the term has gained general currency to refer to the manifold ways that human activity has substantially altered the biosphere, especially since the 1950s, and our growing awareness of the degree to which these changes threaten our longterm survival.
For the last 2.6 million years, the Earth has alternately heated and cooled in glacial-interglacial cycles lasting tens of thousands of years, and those oscillations have always occurred within a consistent range. We are now near the top of the range, and are almost certain to exceed it in the next generations, meaning that all of the species that have adapted during that time to life within this range will now be tested as never before. Observed events such as mass coral bleaching in the oceans are an ominous indication of what this is likely to mean.
It's important to recognize that while climate change is a key part of what we mean by the Anthropocene, it is not the only factor - indeed, one comprehensive study predicts that there's a greater than 50% chance that in the next few centuries, the Earth will see the loss of more than 70% of species due to human impacts, and that is calculated before taking climate change impacts into effects. Another paper cited in this book summarize the global-scale forcing mechanisms driving the Anthropocene as: population growth with attendant resource consumption, habitat transformation and fragmentation, energy production and consumption, and climate change.
This book is grim reading. I have read a great deal of material on climate change, and I've never been as convinced by any single source that the chances of avoiding the worst outcomes are virtually nil. That is not to say the book is fatalistic in a Uninhabitable Earth kind of way - far from it. The authors are dispassionate and realistic about describing the dangers, and do suggest a variety of approaches toward working toward a solution.
However, the sheer number and magnitude of the various effects, combined with the astonishing speed at which their impact has been felt, in aggregate create a network of interrelated and mutually-reinforcing problems of enormous complexity. There has been no comparable problem in the history of our species, and it is hard to see how our current mechanisms for coordinating collective action could possibly rise to the challenge.
The book itself emphasizes the degree to which dealing with the various threats necessitates wholesale rethinking of our patterns of consumption and resource management, changes far more profound than those that are usually on the table.
This is an extremely well-written book, and an excellent survey of the key information and major figures and studies dealing with this topic in a variety of fields. It is an excellent introduction for anyone looking to understand this phenomenon in its manifold registers.
May 20, 2021
Convenient overview of the discussion on the Anthropocene. Perfect for use in courses.
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November 4, 2021Informative, dense, academic. I see this as a resource for motivated readers or perhaps used as readings for an academic course.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews