Anthropocene Quotes

“Even more concerning is that massively harmful global environmental changes have managed to elude detection for decades, even when they should have been obvious all along. Two classic examples are ocean acidification (Figure 43) and plastic pollution. You probably know that dissolving carbon dioxide in water makes it more acidic. Yet this simple chemistry was not widely considered a problem for oceans until 2003 when global ecologist Ken Caldeira did the maths that recognized the scale of the threat. Already, the growth of some corals is slowing. If CO2 emissions continue unabated, Earth’s coral reefs and many species of shellfish will disappear by the end of this century, based on comparisons with prior intervals of Earth history with more acidic oceans. Worse still, warmer oceans might do the job first. Yet even in Planet Under Pressure, the most comprehensive summary of Earth system science ever, published in 2004, there was no mention of ocean acidification.”
― Erle C. Ellis, Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction

“Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, the broader public in some nations remains divided over the seriousness of anthropogenic climate change, accelerating extinctions, and other environmental changes with serious global consequences. Would scientific recognition of the Anthropocene change public perceptions and actions to better avoid or adapt to these changes? As with the Anthropocene itself, the jury is still out.”
― Erle C. Ellis, Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction

“For scientists in general, the evidence that humans are causing potentially catastrophic changes to Earth’s functioning as a system is rich, multifaceted, detailed, and robust—the product of decades of research. There is no need for an Anthropocene epoch to understand or recognize these changes. Indeed, a growing number of Earth scientists, including Stan Finney, are increasingly concerned that the push to recognize an Anthropocene epoch might even be diverting scientific efforts away from more important goals, like better understanding and addressing the specific challenges of global climate change or mass extinction. In the words of geologist James Scourse, ‘while the anthropocenists rearrange the deck chairs, other scientists are getting on with the business of trying to understand, and do something about, the crisis we face’.”
― Erle C. Ellis, Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction

“Major shifts in Earth’s climate are the norm, not the exception, in the Quaternary, which includes dozens of glacial to interglacial transitions. Earth was also significantly warmer during the Eemian, the last interglacial interval before the Holocene, which ended about 115,000 years ago. The relatively stable and moderate interglacial temperatures of the Holocene therefore stand out as an island of climate stability within a sea of extremes. If Earth’s climate system were to leave this relatively stable state, there is every reason to believe that the consequences might be catastrophic both to human societies and to non-human life as we know it. No industrial or even agricultural society has ever experienced climate shifts like those common before the Holocene. And greenhouse gas emissions and climate change are far from the only Earth system alterations that have accelerated since the 1950s.”
― Erle C. Ellis, Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction

“In 1989, journalist Bill McKibben published The End of Nature, the first popular book about climate change. For McKibben, human destruction of natural environments had reached its pinnacle. Modern societies had already altered, domesticated, and controlled the world more than any before, polluting and degrading water, soil, air—and the nature of life itself. By altering the climate system, humans had taken the final step. Nature untouched by humans had now disappeared through the global reach of a human-altered climate.”
― Erle C. Ellis, Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction