Posts Tagged ‘Anthropocene Working Group’
MOVIE OF THE WEEK October 4, 2010: ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH
Alliance of Women Film Journalists If teen global warming activist Greta Thunberg’s passionate, scolding speeches about the precarious state of our planet haven’t totally pushed your panic button yet, there’s a good chance “Anthropocene: The Human Epoch” will. Jennifer Baichwal’s stunning but sobering documentary captures humanity’s impact on the globe with images that cannot be…
Read MoreThe Wonders and Terrors of Humanity’s Impact on Earth
By Laura Leavitt | Hyperallergic Featuring stunning landscape photography, the documentary Anthropocene surveys a new era of human-driven geology. The cult film Koyaanisqatsi, named after the Hopi idea of “life lived out of balance,” contains no dialogue, but rather scenes all over the world — of cities, nature, the tiniest industrially produced products, and the vastness of canyons.…
Read MorePetrifying Earth Process: The Stratigraphic Imprint of Key Earth System Parameters in the Anthropocene
By Jan Zalasiewicz, Will Steffen, Reinhold Leinfelder, Mark Williams, Colin Waters | Theory, Culture & Society Abstract The Anthropocene concept arose within the Earth System science (ESS) community, albeit explicitly as a geological (stratigraphical) time term. Its current analysis by the stratigraphical community, as a potential formal addition to the Geological Time Scale, necessitates comparison of the methodologies and patterns of…
Read MoreThe Anthropocene: Scientists respond to criticisms of a new geological epoch
Press Release A team of academics led by the University of Leicester has responded to criticisms of the proposal to formalise a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene. Geological critics of a formalised Anthropocene have alleged that the idea did not arise from geology; that there is simply not enough physical evidence for it as…
Read MoreAnthropocene: its stratigraphic basis
By Jan Zalasiewicz, Colin Waters & Martin J. Head | Nature, Correspondence As officers of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG; J.Z. and C.W.) and chair of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS; M.J.H.) of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), we note that the AWG has less power than Erle Ellis and colleagues imply (Nature 540, 192–193; 2016). Its role…
Read MoreCOMMENT: Finney & Edwards Article
By Jan Zalasiewicz, Colin N. Waters, Alexander P. Wolfe, et al. | GSA Today The article about the Anthropocene by Finney and Edwards (GSA Today, v. 26, no. 3–4, p. 4–10) is part of a wider critical commentary we have addressed (Zalasiewicz et al., 2017), and is an essential and welcome part of its analysis. We…
Read MoreCan Humans Go From Unintended Global Warming to Climate By Design?
By Andrew C. Revkin | Dot Earth, The New York Times Geoengineering is in the wind more and more these days, particularly the use of sun-blocking aerosols as a cheap, temporary counterweight to greenhouse-gas-driven global warming. In pondering the plausibility or desirability of such a tool, it might be useful to start with a thought experiment: 1) Suppose…
Read MoreThe Anthropocene epoch: scientists declare dawn of human-influenced age
By Damian Carrington | The Guardian | August 29, 2016 Humanity’s impact on the Earth is now so profound that a new geological epoch – the Anthropocene – needs to be declared, according to an official expert group who presented the recommendation to the International Geological Congress in Cape Town on Monday. The new epoch should…
Read MoreAtomic bombs and oil addiction herald Earth’s new epoch: The Anthropocene
By Paul Voosen | Science Magazine | August 24, 2016 Just after World War II, when the atomic bombs fell and our thirst for coal and oil became a full-blown addiction, Earth entered the Anthropocene, a new geologic time when humanity’s environmental reach left a mark in sediments worldwide. That’s the majority conclusion of the Anthropocene Working Group, a…
Read MoreDefine the Anthropocene in terms of the whole Earth
By Clive Hamilton | Nature | August 17, 2016 Do we live in the Anthropocene? Officially, not yet — although the debate about whether to declare a new geological epoch will resurface later this month at the International Geological Congress in Cape Town, South Africa. The concept of the Anthropocene has become well known and is much…
Read MoreChanging the Face of the Earth
By Dr. Colin Waters | LaboratoryNews | April 12, 2016 We have geo-engineered the Earth expertly for our own ends, but will humanity’s indelible stamp on the planet define an entire geological epoch? The term “Anthropocene” was coined by Paul Crutzen 16 years ago to mark the present as distinct from previous geological time. The term has…
Read MoreDawn of the Anthropocene: 5 Ways We Know Humans Have Triggered a New Geological Epoch
By Jan A. Zalasiewicz, Mark Williams | Alternet | March 19, 2016 Is the Anthropocene real? That is, the vigorously debated concept of a new geological epoch driven by humans. Our environmental impact is indeed profound – there is little debate about that – but is it significant on a geological timescale, measured over millions of…
Read MoreThe Anthropocene: Great Marketing, Wrong Product
By Brad Allenby | Slate | February 8, 2016 It was in 2011 that the Economist, a publication usually known for arcane speculation on geopolitics and economics, welcomed its readers to the Anthropocene and warned that humans had “changed the way the world works.” The drumbeat behind the concept has continued, recently receiving new momentum with the release in…
Read MoreA New Geological Epoch, the Anthropocene, Has Begun, Scientists Say
By Emily Chung | CBC News – Technology & Science | January 7, 2016 We’re living through one of the most extraordinary events in Earth’s history — the start of a new geological epoch, an international group of scientists says. Welcome to the Anthropocene, everyone. Geological epochs are long periods of time — typically lasting around two million…
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