anthropocene

is a call for (or a description of)) a new negative human universality predicated upon common vulnerability in the face of climate crisis.

For Chakrabarty, the Anthropocene trope suggests that 'humanity' stands freshly united in a new negative human universality predicated upon common vulnerability in the face of climate crisis.5Certainly, the arrival of the Anthropocene problematizes traditional subject- object relations. It also complicates the traditional separation between natural and cultural histories - as Chakrabarty argues.6 The overarching Anthropocene sense of a new, universal humanity bearing responsibilities towards the planet also carries the promise of a more eco- responsive normativity - a normativity reflected in biocultural rights discourse - but it remains critical to counterbalance this 'new' Anthropocene 'human commonality' with the fact that human universals remain stubbornly marked by histories, presents and future histories of profound hierarchical inequality.

is a disruption of the global hierarchy of sciences and an invitation to the human sciences who are now needed to understand what is going on with the 'human' influences.

properly understand 'nature' we need the social and human sciences.'For instance, one could claim that it disrupts the global hierarchy of sciences. After all, it comes as an invitation to collaboration from the 'hard sciences', from the apex of the hierarchy of sciences, to the human and social sciences. The invitation is also a declaration of the failure of the conventional natural sciences and sounds something like this: 'something is happening to the natural world and in order to understand this, we need to bring the activities of those beings called 'humans' into the picture. To properly understand 'nature' we need the social and human sciences.' This invitation comes, it seems to me, at an auspicious moment, namely a moment that you represent, Scott! It is a moment of fundamental ferment in genetics and molecular science in which symbiosis, co-evolution, and epigenetics emphasize the social and co-species nature of evolution. This type of approach, in turn, gels really well with what is happening in anthropology (and other social sciences) where there is also considerable interest in co-species symbiosis. So, my question is this: Does the Anthropocene, in spite of its polluted nature, not still represent an opportunity to break the two cultures of science (Snow 1961)'

is a geological period characterized by human impact on the geology of the earth that began two hundred years ago with the invention of the steam engine.

Paul Crutzen and biologist Eugene Stoermer coined the term Anthropocene to describe a new epoch in Earth's history. In their view, a keytransformation in the life of the planet began some two hundred years ago, aroundthe time the steam engine was invented, when human activity 'gradually grew into a significant geological, morphological force' (2000:17). Crutzen and Stoermer argue that the Holocene, the geological epoch that began about 12,000 years ago, has now phased into the Anthropocene. (Kirksey)

is a hegemonically western legacy with a western logic. The notion of gia, a spatial phenomenon, is a possible antidote.

The Anthropocene grew, they noted (as you have also just highlighted), out of a particular view of the world that is hegemonically Western (Danowski et al. 2014). The Anthropocene, in other words, had a Western legacy and a Western logic. Meanwhile, the notion of Gaia, proposed by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis (Lovelock & Margulis 1974), was, so the conference organizers suggested, a spatial phenomenon, an autopoetic sphere that created its own stabilities and instabilities. As a spatial concept, Gaia seemed to open up to other ontologies and other worldviews and perhaps also to other potential solutions to the world's problems. Gaia was, so they felt, a better anthropological alternative.

is a moment in the history of our species when the fabric of human life depends on extractions of rapidly depleting geological materials that took millennia to form.

The Anthropocene is a moment in the history of our species when the fabric of human life depends on extractions of rapidly depleting geological materials that took millennia to form. This is also a moment when anthropogenic activities have produced waste materials whose recognizable geological stratification will outlast the survival of the human species.

is a period beginning between 1570 1620 with the death of 50 million indigenous people triggered by the arrival of europeans which led to forests taking over 65 million hectares of abandoned agricultural fields, reducing global co2.

This week in Nature, two researchers propose that a potential marker for the start of the Anthropocene could be a noticeable drop in atmospheric CO2 concentrations between 1570 and 1620, which is recorded in ice cores (see page 171). They link this change to the deaths of some 50 million indigenous people in the Americas, triggered by the arrival of Europeans. In the aftermath, forests took over 65 million hectares of abandoned agricultural fields a surge of regrowth that reduced global CO2.'

is a phenomenon whereby the human agent has grown to the dimension of a natural phenomenon, impacting the very rock-layers of the world. The human as a geological force.

The human agent has grown to the dimension of a natural phenomenon (comparable, if you counting terawatts,to plate tectonics) (latour 2014 (Distinguished Lecture AAA) . . .So, as you may see, choosing the name Anthropocene brings together three features fairly familiar to anthropologist: the concentration on human agency...the necessity to tackle again the connection between what used to be called 'physical' and 'cultural' anthropology... and the reopening ofthe key question of whatis common and whatis specific in the various ways ofinhabiting the earth. Is this enough of a gift' Or are you still worried thatit might be a poison in disguise' Well there is a fourth elementthatis broughtin with the idea of the Anthropocene and this one is not so familiar. Quite the contrary, it runs against what anthropology has mostlamented about. Suddenly, with the question ofthe Anthropocene everywhere on the table, anthropologist are confronted head on with the question of urgency and political relevance. (Latour 2014 Distinguished Lecture AAA)

is a slogan for the age of climate change, a change in the relationship between humans and nature which some attribute to factories (the industrial revolution), others to farms (the 5,000 year-old agricultural revolution).

The Anthropocene is, in important ways, a slogan for the age of climate change. Some scientist, accordingly, date it to the Industrial Revolution, when the spike in carbon emissions began. Others look back as much as 5,000 years, to a time when methane levels rose sharply, maybe because of rice cultivation in Asia -a way of saying that farming, not factories, marked the great change in the relationship between humans and nature.'

anthropocene, n.All

anthropocene