Paul Crutzen had tied the Anthropocene to the late 18th century and the Industrial Revolution, with combustion of fossil fuels causing an initial uptick in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations above those typical of the Holocene. Will Steffen, building on this earlier proposal, came to argue for the mid-20th century as the main point of onset for the Anthropocene, marked by the ‘Great Acceleration’ in human activities around that time. And geologist Bill Ruddiman even suggested that the Anthropocene might be recognized thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution as the result of
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