Das Anthropozän - Die Erde in unserer Hand

The Anthropocene concept is a comprehensive conceptual "toolbox" for systemic analysis, interdisciplinary monitoring and a new understanding of the gigantic current impact of human activities on the Earth system. At the same time, it neither implies a fatalistic acceptance of an apocalypse, nor does it promote a simplistic "everything will be fine" positivism, but rather allows differentiated observations from different perspectives. Precisely because of its systemic and interdisciplinary approach, the concept does not narrow possible pathways for the development, propagation and application of future options. On the contrary, the Earth system sciences, social sciences, cultural studies and the humanities together and very clearly express that in order to achieve global development goals such as justice, food security, health, peace and other goals for sustainable development (SDGs) (UNSDGs 2015), we keep on needing "assessable" and predictable conditions of an Anthropocene Earth system (Steffen et al. 2016). In order not to completely switch from the relative stability of the Holocene to incalculable risks, but rather to transform the Anthropocene Earth System into a different, but permanently habitable Anthropocene, it is necessary not to exceed planetary boundaries (sensu Rockström et al. 2009, Steffen et al. 2015b) and to see the SDGs as a compass. For this purpose, continuous monitoring of the state of the Anthropocene Earth system is indispensable. Only then both safe shelter spaces and a creative leeway for shaping the Anthropocene remain guaranteed. Within this framework, and depending on the region, the culture, the social requirements and the sociopolitical goals, it should be possible to negotiate very freely where the future journey should go. Necessary for that is a generally more holistic, systemic view of the integration of humankind into planetary processes, which means an integration of all societal groups, i.e. politics, science, business, administration, civil society groups and individuals. Another prerequisite is the improvement of future literacy via education in schools, universities, companies etc., with the goal to develop skills for better imagining alternate futures, depicting desirable futures, and designing solution portfolios for them. (excerpt from the conclusions of the paper

A practical solution: the Anthropocene is a geological event, not a formal epoch

The Anthropocene has yet to be defined in a way that is functional both to the international geological community and to the broader fields of environmental and social sciences. Formally defining the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphical series and geochronological epoch with a precise global start date would drastically reduce the Anthropocene’s utility across disciplines. Instead, we propose the Anthropocene be defined as a geological event, thereby facilitating a robust geological definition linked with a scholarly framework more useful to and congruent with the many disciplines engaging with human-environment interactions. Unlike formal epochal definitions, geological events can recognize the spatial and temporal heterogeneity and diverse social and environmental processes that interact to produce anthropogenic global environmental changes. Consequently, an Anthropocene Event would incorporate a far broader range of transformative human cultural practices and would be more readily applicable across academic fields than an Anthropocene Epoch, while still enabling a robust stratigraphic characterization

The geomorphology of the Anthropocene:emergence, status and implications

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: BROWN, A.G. ... et al, 2017. The geomorphology of the Anthropocene: emergence, status and implications. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 42(1), pp.71-90., which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/esp.3943. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.The Anthropocene is proposed as a new interval of geological time in which human influence on Earth and its geological record dominates over natural processes. A major challenge in demarcating the Anthropocene is that the balance between human-influenced and natural processes varies over spatial and temporal scales owing to the inherent variability of both human activities (as associated with culture and modes of development) and natural drivers (e.g. tectonic activity and sea level variation). Against this backdrop, we consider how geomorphology might contribute towards the Anthropocene debate focussing on human impact on aeolian, fluvial, cryospheric and coastal process domains, and how evidence of this impact is preserved in landforms and sedimentary records. We also consider the evidence for an explicitly anthropogenic geomorphology that includes artificial slopes and other human-created landforms. This provides the basis for discussing the theoretical and practical contributions that geomorphology can make to defining an Anthropocene stratigraphy. It is clear that the relevance of the Anthropocene concept varies considerably amongst different branches of geomorphology, depending on the history of human actions in different process domains. For example, evidence of human dominance is more widespread in fluvial and coastal records than in aeolian and cryospheric records, so geomorphologically the Anthropocene would inevitably comprise a highly diachronous lower boundary. Even to identify this lower boundary, research would need to focus on the disambiguation of human effects on geomorphological and sedimentological signatures. This would require robust data, derived from a combination of modelling and new empirical work rather than an arbitrary ‘war of possible boundaries’ associated with convenient, but disputed, `golden spikes’. Rather than being drawn into stratigraphical debates, the primary concern of geomorphology should be with the investigation of processes and landform development, so providing the underpinning science for the study of this time of critical geological transition

The Limits of Anthropocene Narratives

The rapidly growing transdisciplinary enthusiasm about developing new kinds of Anthropocene stories is based on the shared assumption that the Anthropocene predicament is best made sense of by narrative means. Against this assumption, this article argues that the challenge we are facing today does not merely lie in telling either scientific, socio-political, or entangled Anthropocene narratives to come to terms with our current condition. Instead, the challenge lies in coming to grips with how the stories we can tell in the Anthropocene relate to the radical novelty of the Anthropocene condition about which no stories can be told. What we need to find are meaningful ways to reconcile an inherited commitment to narrativization and the collapse of storytelling as a vehicle of understanding the Anthropocene as our current predicament

On the Anthropocene formalization and the proposal by the Anthropocene Working Group

In the coming years the Anthropocene will be likely submitted to formalization by the Anthropocene Working Group as a chronostratigraphic unit of the Geologic Time Scale. This has generated an increasing debate among detractors and defenders of its formalization in general, and of the proposal by the Anthropocene Working Group in particular. Here, the main issues regarding the Geologic Time Scale and the rules to formalize units, the empirical data supporting the Anthropocene formalization and the critiques to formalize it are critically reviewed. The procedure to formalize the Anthropocene is not dissimilar from those of the other units of the Geologic Time Scale and has been essentially based on stratigraphic and geologic criteria. Following the recommendation of the Anthropocene Working Group and based on the empirical evidence on the Anthropocene as it is expressed in strata and, more important, on the immanent and structural link between the Anthropocene and the reproduction of capital, it is proposed to define Capitalian as a Stage of the Anthropocene Epoch. In this way, a truly comprehensive understanding of the Earth history is obtained, which comprises the ultimate causes of the ongoing planetary transformation and its stratatigraphic expression

Response to Merritts et al. (2023): The Anthropocene is complex. Defining it is not

Merritts et al. (2023) misrepresent Paul Crutzen's Anthropocene concept as encompassing all significant anthropogenic impacts, extending back many millennia. Crutzen's definition reflects massively enhanced, much more recent human impacts that transformed the Earth System away from the stability of Holocene conditions. His concept of an epoch (hence the ‘cene’ suffix) is more consistent with the strikingly distinct sedimentary record accumulated since the mid-20th century. Waters et al. (2022) highlighted a Great Acceleration Event Array (GAEA) of stratigraphic event markers that are indeed diverse and complex but also tightly clustered around 1950 CE, allowing ultra-high resolution characterization and correlation of a clearly recognisable Anthropocene chronostratigraphic base. The ‘Anthropocene event’ offered by Merritts et al., following Gibbard et al. (2021, 2022), is a highly nuanced concept that obfuscates the transformative human impact of the chronostratigraphic Anthropocene. Waters et al. (2022) restricted the meaning of the term ‘event’ in geology to conform with usual Quaternary practice and improve its utility. They simultaneously recognized an evidence-based Anthropogenic Modification Episode that is more explicitly defined than the highly interpretive interdisciplinary ‘Anthropocene event’ of Gibbard et al. (2021, 2022). The advance of science is best served through clearly developed concepts supported by tightly circumscribed terminology; indeed, improvements to stratigraphy over recent decades have been achieved through increasingly precise definitions, especially for chronostratigraphic units, and not by retaining vague terminology

Response to Merritts et al. (2023): The Anthropocene is complex. Defining it is not

Merritts et al. (2023) misrepresent Paul Crutzen’s Anthropocene concept as encompassing all significant anthropogenic impacts, extending back many millennia. Crutzen's definition reflects massively enhanced, much more recent human impacts that transformed the Earth System away from the stability of Holocene conditions. His concept of an epoch (hence the ‘cene’ suffix) is more consistent with the strikingly distinct sedimentary record accumulated since the mid-20th century. Waters et al. (2022) highlighted a Great Acceleration Event Array (GAEA) of stratigraphic event markers that are indeed diverse and complex but also tightly clustered around 1950 CE, allowing ultra-high resolution characterization and correlation of a clearly recognisable Anthropocene chronostratigraphic base. The ‘Anthropocene event’ offered by Merritts et al., following Gibbard et al. (2021, 2022), is a highly nuanced concept that obfuscates the transformative human impact of the chronostratigraphic Anthropocene. Waters et al. (2022) restricted the meaning of the term ‘event’ in geology to conform with usual Quaternary practice and improve its utility. They simultaneously recognized an evidence-based Anthropogenic Modification Episode that is more explicitly defined than the highly interpretive interdisciplinary ‘Anthropocene event’ of Gibbard et al. (2021, 2022). The advance of science is best served through clearly developed concepts supported by tightly circumscribed terminology; indeed, improvements to stratigraphy over recent decades have been achieved through increasingly precise definitions, especially for chronostratigraphic units, and not by retaining vague terminology