anthropocene

File:The Anthropocene triple threat—climate change, biodiversity loss, and global food insecurity - Fsufs-05-564900-g001.jpg, biodiversity loss, and global food insecurity.{{Cite journal |last1=Petersen-Rockney |first1=Margiana |last2=Baur |first2=Patrick |last3=Guzman |first3=Aidee |last4=Bender |first4=S. Franz |last5=Calo |first5=Adam |last6=Castillo |first6=Federico |last7=De Master |first7=Kathryn |last8=Dumont |first8=Antoinette |last9=Esquivel |first9=Kenzo |last10=Kremen |first10=Claire |last11=LaChance |first11=James |last12=Mooshammer |first12=Maria |last13=Ory |first13=Joanna |last14=Price |first14=Mindy J. |last15=Socolar |first15=Yvonne |date=2021-03-15 |title=Narrow and Brittle or Broad and Nimble? Comparing Adaptive Capacity in Simplifying and Diversifying Farming Systems |journal=Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems |volume=5 |doi=10.3389/fsufs.2021.564900 |issn=2571-581X |doi-access=free|bibcode=2021FrSFS...564900P }}]]An early concept for the Anthropocene was the Noosphere by Vladimir Vernadsky, who in 1938 wrote of "scientific thought as a geological force".{{cite news |url=http://action.larouchepac.com/_the_anthropocene|title='The Anthropocene' viewed from Vernadsky's Noosphere |last=Ogden |first=M. |newspaper=Promethean Pac |date=29 February 2016 |publisher=LaRouche PAC}} Scientists in the Soviet Union appear to have used the term Anthropocene as early as the 1960s to refer to the Quaternary, the most recent geological period.{{citation | mode=cs1 | publisher=Akademii͡a nauk SSSR |title=Doklady: Biological sciences sections, Volumes 132–135}}{{full citation needed|date=June 2018}}

Ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer subsequently used Anthropocene with a different sense in the 1980s{{cite news |last=Revkin |first=Andrew C. |title=Confronting the 'Anthropocene' |url=http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/11/confronting-the-anthropocene/ |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=25 March 2014 |date=11 May 2011}}{{Cite journal |last=Badri |first=Adarsh |date=2024-02-05 |title=Feeling for the Anthropocene: affective relations and ecological activism in the global South |journal=International Affairs |volume=100 |issue=2 |pages=731–749 |doi=10.1093/ia/iiae010 |issn=0020-5850|doi-access=free }} and the term was widely popularised in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J. Crutzen,{{cite book |last=Dawson |first=Ashley |author-link=Ashley Dawson |title=Extinction: A radical history |date=2016 |publisher=OR Books |url=http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/extinction-by-ashley-dawson/ |page=19 |isbn=978-1944869014}}{{Cite news |last1=Crutzen |first1=Paul J. |last2=Stoermer |first2=Eugene F. |date= |title=The "Anthropocene" |pages=17–18 |work=IGBP Newsletter}} who regarded the influence of human behavior on Earth's atmosphere in recent centuries as so significant as to constitute a new geological epoch.{{cite book |last=Pearce |first=Fred |url=https://archive.org/details/withspeedviolenc00pear |title=With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists fear tipping points in Climate Change |date=2007 |publisher=Beacon Press |isbn=978-0-8070-8576-9 |location=Boston, Massachusetts |author-link=Fred Pearce |access-date=5 September 2016}}{{rp|21}}{{Cite news |date=13 February 2021 |title=Paul Crutzen died on January 28th |newspaper=The Economist |url=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2021/02/13/paul-crutzen-died-on-january-28th |access-date=2021-02-21 |issn=0013-0613}}{{quote box

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| quote = The pressures we exert on the planet have become so great that scientists are considering whether the Earth has entered an entirely new geological epoch: the Anthropocene, or the age of humans. It means that we are the first people to live in an age defined by human choice, in which the dominant risk to our survival is ourselves.

| source = —Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator{{cite web |url=http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdr_2020_overview_english.pdf |title=The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene (Foreword)|last= Steiner |first=Achim |date=15 December 2020 |website= |publisher=UNDP |access-date= 16 December 2020|quote=}}

}}

The term Anthropocene is informally used in scientific contexts.{{cite book |title=Earth System Science in the Anthropocene: Emerging issues and problems |date=2006 |first1=Eckart |last1=Ehlers |first2=C. |last2=Moss |first3=Thomas |last3=Krafft |publisher=Springer Science+Business Media |isbn=9783540265900 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Id3Z5XTcOWgC&q=Earth+System+Science+in+the+Anthropocene:+Emerging+Issues+and+Problems}} The Geological Society of America entitled its 2011 annual meeting: Archean to Anthropocene: The past is the key to the future.{{cite web |url=https://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2011/ |title=2011 GSA Annual Meeting |publisher=Geological Society of America |access-date=28 November 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190929144800/http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2011/ |archive-date=29 September 2019 |url-status=dead }} The new epoch has no agreed start-date, but one proposal, based on atmospheric evidence, is to fix the start with the Industrial Revolution {{circa}}1780, with the invention of the steam engine.{{cite journal |last1=Zalasiewicz |first1=Jan |display-authors=etal |year=2008 |title=Are we now living in the Anthropocene? |journal=GSA Today |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=4–8 |bibcode=2008GSAT...18b...4Z |doi=10.1130/GSAT01802A.1 |doi-access=free}}{{cite journal |author1=Crutzen, P.J. |author2=Stoermer, E.F. |name-list-style=amp|title=The 'Anthropocene' |journal=Global Change Newsletter |volume=41 |pages=17–18 |year=2000}} Other scientists link the new term to earlier events, such as the rise of agriculture and the Neolithic Revolution (around 12,000 years BP).

Evidence of relative human impact – such as the growing human influence on land use, ecosystems, biodiversity, and species extinction – is substantial; scientists think that human impact has significantly changed (or halted) the growth of biodiversity.{{cite journal |author1=Sahney, S. |author2=Benton, M. J. |author3=Ferry, P. A. |name-list-style=amp|year=2010 |title=Links between global taxonomic diversity, ecological diversity and the expansion of vertebrates on land |journal=Biology Letters |doi=10.1098/rsbl.2009.1024 |volume=6 |pages=544–547 |issue=4 |pmid=20106856 |pmc=2936204 |quote=... it could be that without human influence the ecological and taxonomic diversity of tetrapods would continue to increase in an exponential fashion until most or all of the available ecospace is filled. }}{{cite journal |last1=Pimm |first1=S.L. |last2=Jenkins |first2=C.N. |last3=Abell |first3=R. |last4=Brooks |first4=T.M. |last5=Gittleman |first5=J.L. |last6=Joppa |first6=L.N. |last7=Raven |first7=P. H. |last8=Roberts |first8=C.M. |last9=Sexton |first9=J.O. |year=2014 |title=The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection |url=http://static.squarespace.com/static/51b078a6e4b0e8d244dd9620/t/538797c3e4b07a163543ea0f/1401395139381/Pimm+et+al.+2014.pdf |pmid=24876501 |journal=Science |volume=344 |issue=6187 |page=1246752 |doi=10.1126/science.1246752 |s2cid=206552746 |access-date=15 December 2016 |quote=The overarching driver of species extinction is human population growth and increasing per capita consumption.}}{{cite journal |last=Vignieri |first=Sacha |year=2014 |title=Vanishing fauna |journal=Science |volume=345 |issue=6195 |pages=392–395 |doi=10.1126/science.345.6195.392 |pmid=25061199|bibcode=2014Sci...345..392V |doi-access=free }}{{cite journal |last1=Ceballos |first1=Gerardo |last2=Ehrlich |first2=Paul R. | author2-link = Paul R. Ehrlich |last3=Barnosky |first3=Anthony D. |author-link3=Anthony David Barnosky |last4=García |first4=Andrés |last5=Pringle |first5=Robert M. |last6=Palmer |first6=Todd M. |year=2015 |title=Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction |journal=Science Advances |volume=1 |issue=5 |page=e1400253 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.1400253 |pmid=26601195 |pmc=4640606 |bibcode=2015SciA....1E0253C}} Those arguing for earlier dates posit that the proposed Anthropocene may have begun as early as 14,000–15,000 years BP, based on geologic evidence; this has led other scientists to suggest that "the onset of the Anthropocene should be extended back many thousand years";{{Cite journal |last1=Doughty |first1=C.E. |last2=Wolf |first2=A. |last3=Field |first3=C.B. |title=Biophysical feedbacks between the Pleistocene megafauna extinction and climate: The first human-induced global warming? |journal=Geophysical Research Letters |volume=37 |issue=L15703 |pages=L15703 |year=2010 |url=http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL043985.shtml |doi=10.1029/2010GL043985 |bibcode=2010GeoRL..3715703D|doi-access=free }}{{rp|1}} this would make the Anthropocene essentially synonymous with the current term, Holocene.

In 2008, the Stratigraphy Commission of the Geological Society of London considered a proposal to make the Anthropocene a formal unit of geological epoch divisions. A majority of the commission decided the proposal had merit and should be examined further. Independent working groups of scientists from various geological societies began to determine whether the Anthropocene will be formally accepted into the Geological Time Scale.{{cite journal |author1=Zalasiewicz, J. |display-authors=etal |year=2010 |title=The new world of the Anthropocene |journal=Environmental Science & Technology |volume=44 |issue=7 |pages=2228–2231 |bibcode=2010EnST...44.2228Z |doi=10.1021/es903118j |pmid=20184359 |hdl-access=free |hdl=1885/36498}}

File:Trinity Test Fireball 16ms.jpg in July 1945 has been proposed as the start of the Anthropocene.]]

In January 2015, 26 of the 38 members of the International Anthropocene Working Group published a paper suggesting the Trinity test on 16 July 1945 as the starting point of the proposed new epoch.{{cite news |title=Was first nuclear test the start of new human-dominated epoch, the Anthropocene? |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |department=News Center |date=16 January 2015 |url=http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/01/16/was-first-nuclear-test-dawn-of-new-human-dominated-epoch-the-anthropocene/ |archive-date=14 April 2015 |access-date=29 January 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150414155447/http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2015/01/16/was-first-nuclear-test-dawn-of-new-human-dominated-epoch-the-anthropocene/ |url-status=dead }} However, a significant minority supported one of several alternative dates. A March 2015 report suggested either 1610 or 1964 as the beginning of the Anthropocene.{{cite journal |last1=Lewis |first1=Simon L. |last2=Maslin |first2=Mark A. |title=Defining the Anthropocene |journal=Nature |volume=519 |issue=7542 |date=March 2015 |pages=171–180 |doi=10.1038/nature14258 |pmid=25762280 |bibcode=2015Natur.519..171L |s2cid=205242896 |url=http://www.realtechsupport.org/UB/MCC/Lewis_DefiningAnthropocene_2015.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151224052554/http://www.realtechsupport.org/UB/MCC/Lewis_DefiningAnthropocene_2015.pdf |archive-date=24 December 2015 }} Other scholars pointed to the diachronous character of the physical strata of the Anthropocene, arguing that onset and impact are spread out over time, not reducible to a single instant or date of start.{{cite journal |title=Diachronous beginnings of the Anthropocene: The lower bounding surface of anthropogenic deposits |journal=The Anthropocene Review |date=1 April 2015 |issn=2053-0196 |pages=33–58 |volume=2 |issue=1 |doi=10.1177/2053019614565394 |first1=Matt |last1=Edgeworth |first2=Dan de B. |last2=Richter |first3=Colin |last3=Waters |first4=Peter |last4=Haff |first5=Cath |last5=Neal |first6=Simon James |last6=Price|bibcode=2015AntRv...2...33E |s2cid=131236197 |url=http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/509573/1/Diachronous%20beginnings%20_for%20NORA.pdf }}

A January 2016 report on the climatic, biological, and geochemical signatures of human activity in sediments and ice cores suggested the era since the mid-20th century should be recognised as a geological epoch distinct from the Holocene.{{Cite journal |title=The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene |journal=Science |date=8 January 2016 |issn=0036-8075 |pmid=26744408 |pages=aad2622 |volume=351 |issue=6269 |doi=10.1126/science.aad2622 |first1=Colin N. |last1=Waters |first2=Jan |last2=Zalasiewicz |first3=Colin |last3=Summerhayes |first4=Anthony D. |last4=Barnosky |first5 = Clément |last5=Poirier |first6=Agnieszka |last6=Gałuszka |first7=Alejandro |last7=Cearreta |first8=Matt |last8=Edgeworth |first9=Erle C. |last9=Ellis|bibcode=2016Sci...351.2622W |s2cid=206642594 }}

The Anthropocene Working Group met in April 2016 to consolidate evidence supporting the argument for the Anthropocene as a true geologic epoch.{{cite web |title=Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy – Working Group on the 'Anthropocene' |publisher=International Commission on Stratigraphy |access-date=28 November 2015 |url=http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/workinggroups/anthropocene/}} Evidence was evaluated and the group voted to recommend Anthropocene as the new geological epoch in August 2016.

In April 2019, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) announced that they would vote on a formal proposal to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, to continue the process started at the 2016 meeting. In May 2019, 29 members of the 34 person AWG panel voted in favour of an official proposal to be made by 2021. The AWG also voted with 29 votes in favour of a starting date in the mid 20th century. Ten candidate sites for a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point have been identified, one of which will be chosen to be included in the final proposal.{{cite web |title=Results of binding vote by AWG |publisher=International Commission on Stratigraphy |department=Anthropocene Working Group |url=http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/ |date=21 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190605091924/http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/ |archive-date=5 June 2019}} Possible markers include microplastics, heavy metals, or radioactive nuclei left by tests from thermonuclear weapons.{{cite news |title=The Anthropocene epoch: Have we entered a new phase of planetary history? |date=30 May 2019 |first=Nicola |last=Davison |access-date=5 June 2019 |newspaper=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/30/anthropocene-epoch-have-we-entered-a-new-phase-of-planetary-history}}

In November 2021, an alternative proposal that the Anthropocene is a geological event, not an epoch, was published{{Cite journal|last1=Gibbard|first1=by Philip L.|last2=Bauer|first2=Andrew M.|last3=Edgeworth|first3=Matthew|last4=Ruddiman|first4=William F.|last5=Gill|first5=Jacquelyn L.|last6=Merritts|first6=Dorothy J.|last7=Finney|first7=Stanley C.|last8=Edwards|first8=Lucy E.|last9=Walker|first9=Michael J. C.|last10=Maslin|first10=Mark|last11=Ellis|first11=and Erle C.|date=2021|title=A practical solution: the Anthropocene is a geological event, not a formal epoch|journal=Episodes Journal of International Geoscience|volume=45 |issue=4 |pages=349–357 |language=en|doi=10.18814/epiiugs/2021/021029|s2cid=244165877|doi-access=free|bibcode=2021Episo..45..349G }}{{Cite journal|last1=Bauer|first1=Andrew M.|last2=Edgeworth|first2=Matthew|last3=Edwards|first3=Lucy E.|last4=Ellis|first4=Erle C.|last5=Gibbard|first5=Philip|last6=Merritts|first6=Dorothy J.|date=16 September 2021|title=Anthropocene: event or epoch?|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02448-z|journal=Nature|language=en|volume=597|issue=7876|pages=332|doi=10.1038/d41586-021-02448-z|pmid=34522014|bibcode=2021Natur.597..332B|s2cid=237515330|issn=0028-0836|url-access=subscription}} and later expanded in 2022.{{Cite journal |last1=Gibbard |first1=Philip |last2=Walker |first2=Michael |last3=Bauer |first3=Andrew |last4=Edgeworth |first4=Matthew |last5=Edwards |first5=Lucy |last6=Ellis |first6=Erle |last7=Finney |first7=Stanley |last8=Gill |first8=Jacquelyn L. |last9=Maslin |first9=Mark |last10=Merritts |first10=Dorothy |last11=Ruddiman |first11=William |date=2022 |title=The Anthropocene as an Event, not an Epoch |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jqs.3416 |journal=Journal of Quaternary Science |language=en |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=395–399 |doi=10.1002/jqs.3416 |bibcode=2022JQS....37..395G |s2cid=247378724 |issn=0267-8179}} This challenged the assumption underlying the case for the Anthropocene epoch – the idea that it is possible to accurately assign a precise date of start to highly diachronous processes of human-influenced Earth system change. The argument indicated that finding a single GSSP would be impractical, given human-induced changes in the Earth system occurred at different periods, in different places, and spread under different rates. Under this model, the Anthropocene would have many events marking human-induced impacts on the planet, including the mass extinction of large vertebrates, the development of early farming, land clearance in the Americas, global-scale industrial transformation during the Industrial Revolution, and the start of the Atomic Age. The authors are members of the AWG who had voted against the official proposal of a starting date in the mid-20th century, and sought to reconcile some of the previous models (including Ruddiman and Maslin proposals). They cited Crutzen's original concept,{{Cite journal |last=Crutzen |first=Paul J. |date=2002 |title=Geology of mankind |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=415 |issue=6867 |pages=23 |doi=10.1038/415023a |pmid=11780095 |bibcode=2002Natur.415...23C |s2cid=9743349 |issn=1476-4687|doi-access=free }} arguing that the Anthropocene is much better and more usefully conceived of as an unfolding geological event, like other major transformations in Earth's history such as the Great Oxidation Event.

In July 2023, the AWG chose Crawford Lake in Ontario, Canada as a site representing the beginning of the proposed new epoch. The sediment in that lake shows a spike in levels of plutonium from hydrogen bomb tests, a key marker the group chose to place the start of the Anthropocene in the 1950s, along with other elevated markers including carbon particles and nitrates from the burning of fossil fuels and widespread application of chemical fertilizers respectively. Had it been approved, the official declaration of the new Anthropocene epoch would have taken place in August 2024,{{cite news |last1=Carrington |first1=Damian |title=Canadian lake chosen to represent start of Anthropocene|url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/11/nuclear-bomb-fallout-site-chosen-to-define-start-of-anthropocene |access-date=July 11, 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=July 11, 2023}} and its first age may have been named Crawfordian after the lake.{{Cite news |date=2023-07-11 |title=The Anthropocene: Canadian lake mud 'symbolic of human changes to Earth' |language=en-GB |work=BBC News |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66132769 |access-date=2023-07-16}}

In March 2024, an internal vote was held by the IUGS: After nearly 15 years of debate, the proposal to ratify the Anthropocene had been defeated by a 12-to-4 margin, with 2 abstentions. These results were not out of a dismissal of human impact on the planet, but rather an inability to constrain the Anthropocene in a geological context. This is because the widely-adopted 1950 start date was found to be prone to recency bias. It also overshadowed earlier examples of human impacts, many of which happened in different parts of the world at different times. Although the proposal could be raised again, this would require the entire process of debate to start from the beginning. The results of the vote were officially confirmed by the IUGS and upheld as definitive later that month.

{{main|Industrial Revolution}}

Crutzen proposed the Industrial Revolution as the start of Anthropocene. Lovelock proposes that the Anthropocene began with the first application of the Newcomen steam engine in 1712.{{Cite book |last1=Lovelock |first1=James |title=Novacene : the coming age of hyperintelligence |date=4 July 2019 |last2=Appleyard |first2=Bryan |isbn=9780241399361 |location=London |publisher= Allen Lane|oclc=1104037419}} The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change takes the pre-industrial era (chosen as the year 1750) as the baseline related to changes in long-lived, well mixed greenhouse gases.{{Cite web |author=US Department of Commerce |author2=NOAA |author3=Earth System Research Laboratory |title=NOAA/ESRL Global Monitoring Division – The NOAA annual greenhouse gas index (AGGI) |url=https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/aggi.html |access-date=17 May 2017 |website=esrl.noaa.gov}} Although it is apparent that the Industrial Revolution ushered in an unprecedented global human impact on the planet,{{cite journal |author1=Douglas, I. |author2=Hodgson, R. |author3=Lawson, N. |name-list-style=amp |year=2002 |title=Industry, environment and health through 200 years in Manchester |journal=Ecological Economics |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=235–255 |doi=10.1016/S0921-8009(02)00029-0|bibcode=2002EcoEc..41..235D }} much of Earth's landscape already had been profoundly modified by human activities.{{cite journal |author=Kirch, P.V. |year=2005 |title=The Holocene record |journal=Annual Review of Environment and Resources |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=409–440 |doi=10.1146/annurev.energy.29.102403.140700 |doi-access=free}} The human impact on Earth has grown progressively, with few substantial slowdowns. A 2024 scientific perspective paper authored by a group of scientists led by William J. Ripple proposed the start of the Anthropocene around 1850, stating it is a "compelling choice ... from a population, fossil fuel, greenhouse gasses, temperature, and land use perspective."{{cite journal |last1=Ripple|first1=William J.|author-link1=William J. Ripple|last2=Wolf|first2=Christopher|last3= van Vuuren|first3=Detlef P.|last4=Gregg|first4= Jillian W.|last5=Lenzen|first5=Manfred |date=January 9, 2024 |title=An environmental and socially just climate mitigation pathway for a planet in peril|journal=Environmental Research Letters|volume=19 |issue=2|pages=021001|doi=10.1088/1748-9326/ad059e|quote=Specifically, our results show a great escalation beginning around 1850 for most variables. If combined with information on carrying capacity or planetary boundaries, these data could be used to explore the possibility that human demands on multiple fronts have greatly accelerated and may have approached or exceeded the biosphere's regenerative capacity. From a population, fossil fuel, greenhouse gasses, temperature, and land use perspective, the mid 19th century (∼1850) stands out as a compelling choice among the potential starting points for the Anthropocene.|doi-access=free|bibcode=2024ERL....19b1001R }}

{{main|Great Acceleration}}

In May 2019 the twenty-nine members of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) proposed a start date for the Epoch in the mid-20th century, as that period saw "a rapidly rising human population accelerated the pace of industrial production, the use of agricultural chemicals and other human activities. At the same time, the first atomic-bomb blasts littered the globe with radioactive debris that became embedded in sediments and glacial ice, becoming part of the geologic record." The official start-dates, according to the panel, would coincide with either the radionuclides released into the atmosphere from bomb detonations in 1945, or with the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

The peak in radionuclides fallout consequential to atomic bomb testing during the 1950s is another possible date for the beginning of the Anthropocene (the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945 or the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963).

The name Anthropocene is a combination of anthropo- from the Ancient Greek {{lang|grc|ἄνθρωπος}} ({{transliteration|grc|ánthropos}}) meaning 'human' and -cene from {{lang|grc|καινός}} ({{transliteration|grc|kainós}}) meaning 'new' or 'recent'.{{LSJ|a)/nqrwpos|ἄνθρωπος}}, {{LSJ|kaino/s|καινός|ref}}.{{OEtymD|-cene}}

As early as 1873, the Italian geologist Antonio Stoppani acknowledged the increasing power and effect of humanity on the Earth's systems and referred to an 'anthropozoic era'.{{cite journal | last=Crutzen | first=P. J. | title=Geology of mankind | journal=Nature | volume=415 |year=2002 | page=23 | doi=10.1038/415023a | pmid=11780095 | issue=6867|bibcode = 2002Natur.415...23C | s2cid=9743349 | doi-access=free }}

{{Main|Human impact on the environment}}

{{main|Holocene extinction|Biodiversity loss}}

The human impact on biodiversity forms one of the primary attributes of the Anthropocene.{{Cite book |last=McNeill |first=J.R. |chapter=Global Environmental History: The first 150,000 years |editor1=McNeill, J. R. |editor2=Mauldin, E.S. |title=A Companion to Global Environmental History |pages=3–17 |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-444-33534-7 |chapter-url=https://www.wiley.com/en-gb/A+Companion+to+Global+Environmental+History-p-9781444335347}} Humankind has entered what is sometimes called the Earth's sixth major extinction.{{cite book |last1=Leakey |first1=Richard |first2=Roger |last2=Lewin |title=The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of life and the future of humankind |url=https://archive.org/details/sixthextinctionb00leak |url-access=registration |publisher=Doubleday |location=London |year=1995|isbn=9780385424974 }}{{cite journal|last= Dirzo|first= Rodolfo|author2= Hillary S. Young|author3= Mauro Galetti|author4= Gerardo Ceballos|author5= Nick J. B. Isaac|author6= Ben Collen|title= Defaunation in the Anthropocene |journal= Science|year= 2014|doi= 10.1126/science.1251817|pmid= 25061202|volume= 345| issue=6195|pages= 401–406|url=http://www.uv.mx/personal/tcarmona/files/2010/08/Science-2014-Dirzo-401-6-2.pdf|bibcode= 2014Sci...345..401D|s2cid= 206555761}}{{Cite book |last=Kolbert |first=Elizabeth |author-link=Elizabeth Kolbert |title=The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History |title-link=The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History |year=2014 |publisher=Henry Holt and Company |location=New York City |isbn=978-0805092998}}{{cite journal|vauthors=Ripple WJ, Wolf C, Newsome TM, Galetti M, Alamgir M, Crist E, Mahmoud MI, Laurance WF|title=World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice|journal=BioScience|volume=67|issue=12|pages=1026–1028|date=13 November 2017|doi=10.1093/biosci/bix125|author-link1=William J. Ripple|quote=Moreover, we have unleashed a mass extinction event, the sixth in roughly 540 million years, wherein many current life forms could be annihilated or at least committed to extinction by the end of this century.|title-link=World Scientists' Warning to Humanity|doi-access=free|hdl=1808/25687|hdl-access=free}}{{cite journal |last1=Ceballos|first1=Gerardo|last2=Ehrlich |first2=Paul R.|last3= Raven|first3=Peter H.|date=1 June 2020 |title=Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction |journal=PNAS |volume=117 |issue=24 |pages=13596–13602 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1922686117|doi-access=free|pmid=32482862|pmc=7306750|bibcode=2020PNAS..11713596C}} Most experts agree that human activities have accelerated the rate of species extinction.{{cite journal |last1=Andermann |first1=Tobias |last2=Faurby |first2=Søren |last3=Turvey |first3=Samuel T. |last4=Antonelli |first4=Alexandre |last5=Silvestro |first5=Daniele |title=The past and future human impact on mammalian diversity |journal=Science Advances |date=1 September 2020 |volume=6 |issue=36 |pages=eabb2313 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.abb2313 |pmid=32917612 |pmc=7473673 |bibcode=2020SciA....6.2313A |s2cid=221498762 |language=en |issn=2375-2548|doi-access=free }} 50px Text and images are available under a [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License]. The exact rate remains controversial – perhaps 100 to 1000 times the normal background rate of extinction.{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13335683 |work=BBC News|title=Anthropocene: Have humans created a new geological age? |date=10 May 2011}}{{cite journal |last1=Pimm |first1=S. L. |last2=Jenkins |first2=C. N. |last3=Abell |first3=R. |last4=Brooks |first4=T. M. |last5= Gittleman |first5=J. L. |last6=Joppa |first6=L. N. |last7=Raven|first7=P. H. |last8=Roberts |first8=C. M.|last9= Sexton |first9=J. O.|date=30 May 2014 |title=The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection |url=http://static.squarespace.com/static/51b078a6e4b0e8d244dd9620/t/538797c3e4b07a163543ea0f/1401395139381/Pimm+et+al.+2014.pdf |journal=Science |volume= 344 |issue=6187 |pages= 1246752 |doi=10.1126/science.1246752|pmid=24876501|s2cid=206552746}}

Anthropogenic extinctions started as humans migrated out of Africa over 60,000 years ago.{{cite journal |editor1-last=Johns|editor1-first=David |editor2-last=Crist|editor2-first=Eileen|editor3-last= Sahgal|editor3-first=Bittu|date=2022 |title=Ending the Colonization of the Non-Human World|url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/biological-conservation/special-issue/10574WDL8SQ|journal=Biological Conservation|volume= |issue= |pages= |doi= |access-date=}} Increases in global rates of extinction have been elevated above background rates since at least 1500, and appear to have accelerated in the 19th century and further since. Rapid economic growth is considered a primary driver of the contemporary displacement and eradication of other species.{{cite journal |last1= Cafaro|first1=Philip|date=2022 |title=Reducing Human Numbers and the Size of our Economies is Necessary to Avoid a Mass Extinction and Share Earth Justly with Other Species|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359182950|journal=Philosophia|volume=50 |issue= 5|pages=2263–2282 |doi=10.1007/s11406-022-00497-w|s2cid=247433264 |access-date=}}

According to the 2021 Economics of Biodiversity review, written by Partha Dasgupta and published by the UK government, "biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history."{{cite web |url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/957629/Dasgupta_Review_-_Headline_Messages.pdf |title=The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review Headline Messages |last=Dasgupta |first=Partha |author-link= Partha Dasgupta |date=2021 |website= |publisher=UK government| page=1|access-date=15 December 2021 |quote=Biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history. Current extinction rates, for example, are around 100 to 1,000 times higher than the baseline rate, and they are increasing. }}{{cite news |last=Carrington |first=Damian |date=2 February 2021 |title=Economics of biodiversity review: what are the recommendations? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/02/economics-of-biodiversity-review-what-are-the-recommendations |work= The Guardian|location= |access-date=16 December 2021}} A 2022 scientific review published in Biological Reviews confirms that an anthropogenic sixth mass extinction event is currently underway.{{cite journal |last1= Cowie |first1=Robert H. |last2=Bouchet |first2=Philippe |last3=Fontaine |first3=Benoît |date=2022|title=The Sixth Mass Extinction: fact, fiction or speculation? |journal=Biological Reviews |volume= 97|issue= 2|pages= 640–663|doi=10.1111/brv.12816|pmid=35014169 |pmc=9786292 |s2cid=245889833 |doi-access=free }}{{cite news |last=Sankaran |first=Vishwam |date=17 January 2022 |title=Study confirms sixth mass extinction is currently underway, caused by humans |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/sixth-mass-extinction-global-biodiversity-b1994346.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220507/https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/sixth-mass-extinction-global-biodiversity-b1994346.html |archive-date=7 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |work=The Independent |location= |access-date=18 January 2022}}{{cbignore}} A 2022 study published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, which surveyed more than 3,000 experts, states that the extinction crisis could be worse than previously thought, and estimates that roughly 30% of species "have been globally threatened or driven extinct since the year 1500."{{cite news |last=Melillo|first=Gianna |date=19 July 2022 |title=Threat of global extinction may be greater than previously thought, study finds|url=https://thehill.com/changing-america/sustainability/environment/3565945-threat-of-global-extinction-may-be-greater-than-previously-thought-study-finds/|work=The Hill |location= |access-date=20 July 2022}}{{cite journal|last1=Isbell|first1=Forest|last2=Balvanera|first2=Patricia|display-authors=etal.|date=2022|title=Expert perspectives on global biodiversity loss and its drivers and impacts on people|journal=Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment|volume=21|issue=2|pages=94–103|doi=10.1002/fee.2536|s2cid=250659953|doi-access=free|hdl=10852/101242|hdl-access=free}} According to a 2023 study published in Biological Reviews some 48% of 70,000 monitored species are experiencing population declines from human activity, whereas only 3% have increasing populations.{{cite news|author= |date=May 23, 2023 |title=Biodiversity: Almost half of animals in decline, research shows|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-65681648|work=BBC |location= |access-date=May 23, 2023}}{{cite journal |last1=Finn|first1=Catherine|last2=Grattarola|first2=Florencia |last3=Pincheira-Donoso|first3=Daniel |date=2023 |title=More losers than winners: investigating Anthropocene defaunation through the diversity of population trends|url= |journal=Biological Reviews|volume= 98|issue= 5|pages= 1732–1748|doi=10.1111/brv.12974|pmid=37189305 |s2cid=258717720 |access-date=}}{{cite news |last=Paddison|first= Laura |date=May 22, 2023|title=Global loss of wildlife is 'significantly more alarming' than previously thought, according to a new study|url=https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/22/world/wildlife-crisis-biodiversity-scn-climate-intl/index.html|work=CNN |location= |access-date=May 23, 2023}}

{{excerpt|biodiversity loss|paragraphs=1-3}}

{{main|Biogeography}}

Studies of urban evolution give an indication of how species may respond to stressors such as temperature change and toxicity. Species display varying abilities to respond to altered environments through both phenotypic plasticity and genetic evolution.{{cite journal |last1=Bender |first1=Eric |title=Urban evolution: How species adapt to survive in cities |journal=Knowable Magazine |publisher= Annual Reviews |date=21 March 2022 |doi=10.1146/knowable-031822-1 |doi-access=free |url=https://knowablemagazine.org/article/living-world/2022/urban-evolution-species-adapt-survive-cities |access-date=31 March 2022}}{{cite journal |last1=Diamond |first1=Sarah E. |last2=Martin |first2=Ryan A. |title=Evolution in Cities |journal=Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics |date=2 November 2021 |volume=52 |issue=1 |pages=519–540 |doi=10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-012021-021402 |s2cid=239646134 |url=https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-012021-021402 |access-date=1 April 2022 |language=en |issn=1543-592X |archive-date=31 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220331205605/https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-012021-021402 |url-status=dead }}{{cite journal |last1=Diamond |first1=Sarah E |last2=Chick |first2=Lacy D |last3=Perez |first3=Abe |last4=Strickler |first4=Stephanie A |last5=Zhao |first5=Crystal |title=Evolution of plasticity in the city: urban acorn ants can better tolerate more rapid increases in environmental temperature |journal=Conservation Physiology |date=14 June 2018 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=coy030 |doi=10.1093/conphys/coy030 |pmid=29977563 |pmc=6007456 |issn=2051-1434}} Researchers have documented the movement of many species into regions formerly too cold for them, often at rates faster than initially expected.{{cite web |last1=Harvey |first1=Fiona |author-link=Fiona Harvey |date=18 August 2011 |title=Climate change driving species out of habitats much faster than expected |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/18/climate-change-species-habitats |access-date=8 November 2015 |website=The Guardian}}

Permanent changes in the distribution of organisms from human influence will become identifiable in the geologic record. This has occurred in part as a result of changing climate, but also in response to farming and fishing, and to the accidental introduction of non-native species to new areas through global travel. The ecosystem of the entire Black Sea may have changed during the last 2000 years as a result of nutrient and silica input from eroding deforested lands along the Danube River.{{cite web|url=http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/from-ancient-deforestation-a-delta-is-born/|last=Nuwer|first=Rachel|author-link=Rachel Nuwer |website=The New York Times|title=From Ancient Deforestation, a Delta Is Born|date=14 September 2012|access-date=14 June 2018}}

{{cite journal |last1= Gaynor|first1=Kaitlyn M.|display-authors=etal. |year=2018 |title=The influence of human disturbance on wildlife nocturnality|journal=Science |volume=360 |issue= 6394|pages=1232–1235|doi=10.1126/science.aar7121|pmid=29903973|bibcode=2018Sci...360.1232G|doi-access=free}}

Researchers have found that the growth of the human population and expansion of human activity has resulted in many species of animals that are normally active during the day, such as elephants, tigers and boars, becoming nocturnal to avoid contact with humans, who are largely diurnal.{{cite news |last= Brennan|first=William|date=1 October 2018 |title=When Animals Take the Night Shift|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/up-all-night/568291/|work=The Atlantic |access-date=16 February 2019}}

{{main|Climate change|Effects of climate change|Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere}}

One geological symptom resulting from human activity is increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide ({{CO2}}) content. This signal in the Earth's climate system is especially significant because it is occurring much faster,{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5314592.stm |date=4 September 2006 |title=Deep ice tells long climate story |work=BBC News|access-date=28 November 2015 |quote=The 'scary thing', [Dr. Wolff] added, was the rate of change now occurring in {{CO2}} concentrations. In the core, the fastest increase seen was of the order of 30 parts per million (ppm) by volume over a period of roughly 1,000 years. The last 30 ppm of increase has occurred in just 17 years. We really are in the situation where we don't have an analogue in our records.}} and to a greater extent, than previously. Most of this increase is due to the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.

{{excerpt|Carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere|paragraphs=1}}

{{excerpt|Effects of climate change|paragraphs=1-2}}

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| image1 = 062821Yreka Fire CalFire -2wiki.jpg

| alt1 = Thick orange-brown smoke blocks half a blue sky, with conifers in the foreground

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| alt2 = A few grey fish swim over grey coral with white spikes

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| alt3 = Desert sand half covers a village of small flat-roofed houses with scattered green trees

| image4 = US Navy 071120-M-8966H-005 An aerial view over southern Bangladesh reveals extensive flooding as a result of Cyclone Sidr.jpg

| alt4 = large areas of still water behind riverside buildings

| footer = Some climate change effects: wildfire caused by heat and dryness, bleached coral caused by ocean acidification and heating, environmental migration caused by desertification, and coastal flooding caused by storms and sea level rise.

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Changes in drainage patterns traceable to human activity will persist over geologic time in large parts of the continents where the geologic regime is erosional. This involves, for example, the paths of roads and highways defined by their grading and drainage control. Direct changes to the form of the Earth's surface by human activities (quarrying and landscaping, for example) also record human impacts.

It has been suggested{{by whom|date=January 2021}} that the deposition of calthemite formations exemplify a natural process which has not previously occurred prior to the human modification of the Earth's surface, and which therefore represents a unique process of the Anthropocene.{{Cite journal |last1= Dixon |first1= Simon J. |last2= Viles |first2= Heather A. |last3= Garrett |first3= Bradley L. |title= Ozymandias in the Anthropocene: The city as an emerging landform |journal= Area |volume= 50 |pages= 117–125 |doi= 10.1111/area.12358 |issn= 1475-4762|year= 2018 |issue= 1 |doi-access= free |bibcode= 2018Area...50..117D }} Calthemite is a secondary deposit, derived from concrete, lime, mortar or other calcareous material outside the cave environment.

{{cite journal

|last= Smith |first= G.K. |date= April 2016 |title= Calcite straw stalactites growing from concrete structures|journal= Cave and Karst Science |volume= 43 |issue= 1 |pages= 4–10 |url= http://bcra.org.uk/pub/candks/index.html |access-date= 14 June 2018}}

Calthemites grow on or under man-made structures (including mines and tunnels) and mimic the shapes and forms of cave speleothems, such as stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone etc.

Human activities, including deforestation and road construction, are believed to have elevated average total sediment fluxes across the Earth's surface. However, construction of dams on many rivers around the world means the rates of sediment deposition in any given place do not always appear to increase in the Anthropocene. For instance, many river deltas around the world are actually currently starved of sediment by such dams, and are subsiding and failing to keep up with sea level rise, rather than growing.{{cite journal |last1=Giosan |first1=L. |last2=Syvitski |first2=J.P.M. |last3=Constantinescu |first3=S. |last4=Day |first4=J. |date=3 December 2014 |title=Climate change: Protect the world's deltas |journal=Nature |volume=516 |issue=7529 |pages=31–33 |doi=10.1038/516031a |pmid=25471866 |bibcode=2014Natur.516...31G|s2cid=1970583 |doi-access=free }}

{{Further information|Technofossil}}

Increases in erosion due to farming and other operations will be reflected by changes in sediment composition and increases in deposition rates elsewhere. In land areas with a depositional regime, engineered structures will tend to be buried and preserved, along with litter and debris. Litter and debris thrown from boats or carried by rivers and creeks will accumulate in the marine environment, particularly in coastal areas, but also in mid-ocean garbage patches. Such human-created artifacts preserved in stratigraphy are known as technofossils.{{Cite journal |first1=H.V. |last1=Cabadas-Báez |first2=S. |last2=Sedov |first3=S |last3=Jiménez-Álvarez |first4=D. |last4=Leonard |first5=B. |last5=Lailson-Tinoco |first6=R. |last6=García-Moll |first7=I. |last7=Ancona-Aragón |first8=L. |last8=Hernández |year=2017 |title=Soils as a source of raw materials for ancient ceramic production in the Maya region of Mexico: Micromorphological insight |journal=Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=21–48 |doi=10.18268/BSGM2018v70n1a2|doi-access=free }}

File:Technofossils.jpg estuary]]

Changes in biodiversity will also be reflected in the fossil record, as will species introductions. An example cited is the domestic chicken, originally the red junglefowl Gallus gallus, native to south-east Asia but has since become the world's most common bird through human breeding and consumption, with over 60 billion consumed annually and whose bones would become fossilised in landfill sites.{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/31/domestic-chicken-anthropocene-humanity-influenced-epoch |title=How the domestic chicken rose to define the Anthropocene |first=Damian |last=Carrington |date= 31 August 2016 |newspaper=The Guardian}} Hence, landfills are important resources to find "technofossils".{{Cite journal |last1=Achmon |first1=Yigal |last2=Achmon |first2=Moshe |last3=Dowdy |first3=F. Ryan |last4=Spiegel |first4=Orr |last5=Claypool |first5=Joshua T. |last6=Toniato |first6=Juliano |last7=Simmons |first7=Christopher W. |s2cid=89937817 |year=2018 |title=Understanding the Anthropocene through the lens of landfill microbiomes |journal=Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment |volume=16 |issue=6 |pages=354–360 |doi=10.1002/fee.1819 |bibcode=2018FrEE...16..354A |issn=1540-9309}}

In terms of trace elements, there are a range of distinct signatures left by modern societies. For example, in the Upper Fremont Glacier in Wyoming, there is a layer of chlorine present in ice cores from 1960's atomic weapon testing programs, as well as a layer of mercury associated with coal plants in the 1980s.{{cite journal |last1=Sousa |first1=Matthew |last2=Benson |first2=Bryce |last3=Welty |first3=Connor |last4=Price |first4=Dylan |last5=Thirkill |first5=Ruth |last6=Erickson |first6=William |last7=Cummings |first7=Mackenzie |last8=Dunnivant |first8=Frank M. |display-authors=6 |date=February 2020 |title=Atmospheric Deposition of Coal-Related Pollutants in the Pacific Northwest of the United States from 1950 to 2016 |journal=Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=335–342 |doi=10.1002/etc.4635 |pmid=31743941 |bibcode=2020EnvTC..39..335S |s2cid=208186469 }}{{cite report |author1=Cecil, L. DeWayne |author2=David L. Naftz |author3=Paul F. Schuster |author4=David D. Susong |author5=Jaromy R. Green |year=2010 |title=The Paleoenvironmental Record Preserved in Middle Latitude, High-Mountain Glaciers – An Overview of U.S. Geological Survey Experience in Central Asia and the United States |url=http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/p1386f/pdf/F8_PaleoRecord.pdf |publisher=United States Geological Survey |access-date=2022-05-14}}{{cite report |author1=Krabbenhoft, David |author2=Paul Schuster |title=Glacial Ice Cores Reveal a Record of Natural and Anthropogenic Atmospheric Mercury Deposition for the Last 270 Years |series=USGS Fact Sheet |volume=FS-051-02 |publisher=U.S. Geological Survey |url=http://toxics.usgs.gov/pubs/FS-051-02/pdf/fs-051-02.pdf |access-date=2022-05-14 |archive-date=8 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220308171512/https://toxics.usgs.gov/pubs/FS-051-02/pdf/fs-051-02.pdf |url-status=dead }}

From the late 1940s, nuclear tests have led to local nuclear fallout and severe contamination of test sites both on land and in the surrounding marine environment. Some of the radionuclides that were released during the tests are Caesium-137, Strontium-90, Plutonium-239, Plutonium-240, Americium-241, and Iodine-131. These have been found to have had significant impact on the environment and on human beings. In particular, Caesium-137 and Strontium-90 have been found to have been released into the marine environment and led to bioaccumulation over a period through food chain cycles. The carbon isotope carbon-14, commonly released during nuclear tests, has also been found to be integrated into the atmospheric carbon dioxide, and infiltrating the biosphere, through ocean-atmosphere gas exchange. Increase in thyroid cancer rates around the world is also surmised to be correlated with increasing proportions of the Iodine-131 radionuclide.{{cite journal |last=Prăvălie |first=Remus |date=October 2014 |title=Nuclear weapons tests and environmental consequences: A global perspective |journal=Ambio |volume=43 |issue=6 |pages=729–744 |doi=10.1007/s13280-014-0491-1 |pmid=24563393 |pmc=4165831 |bibcode=2014Ambio..43..729P }}

The highest global concentration of radionuclides was estimated to have been in 1965, one of the dates which has been proposed as a possible benchmark for the start of the formally defined Anthropocene.{{cite journal |last1=Turney |first1=Chris S.M. |last2=Palmer |first2=Jonathan |last3=Maslin |first3=Mark A. |last4=Hogg |first4=Alan |last5=Fogwill |first5=Christopher J. |last6=Southon |first6=John |last7=Fenwick |first7=Pavla |last8=Helle |first8=Gerhard |last9=Wilmshurst |first9=Janet M. |last10=McGlone |first10=Matt |last11=Bronk Ramsey |first11=Christopher |last12=Thomas |first12=Zoë |last13=Lipson |first13=Mathew |last14=Beaven |first14=Brent |last15=Jones |first15=Richard T. |last16=Andrews |first16=Oliver |last17=Hua |first17=Quan |display-authors=6 |year=2018 |title=Global peak in atmospheric radiocarbon provides a potential definition for the onset of the Anthropocene Epoch in 1965 |journal=Scientific Reports |volume=8 |issue=1 |page=3293 |doi=10.1038/s41598-018-20970-5 |pmid=29459648 |pmc=5818508 |bibcode=2018NatSR...8.3293T}}

Human burning of fossil fuels has also left distinctly elevated concentrations of black carbon, inorganic ash, and spherical carbonaceous particles in recent sediments across the world. Concentrations of these components increases markedly and almost simultaneously around the world beginning around 1950.

A marker that accounts for a substantial global impact of humans on the total environment, comparable in scale to those associated with significant perturbations of the geological past, is needed in place of minor changes in atmosphere composition.{{cite journal |author1=Zalasiewicz, J. |author2=Williams, M. |author3=Steffen, W. |author4=Crutzen, P.J. |name-list-style=amp |year=2010 |title=Response to 'The Anthropocene forces us to reconsider adaptationist models of human-environment interactions' |journal=Environmental Science & Technology |volume=44 |issue=16 |page=6008 |bibcode=2010EnST...44.6008Z |doi=10.1021/es102062w}}{{cite journal |author1=Zalasiewicz, J. |display-authors=etal |year=2011 |title=Stratigraphy of the Anthropocene |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A |volume=369 |issue=1938 |pages=1036–1055 |bibcode=2011RSPTA.369.1036Z |doi=10.1098/rsta.2010.0315 |pmid=21282159 |doi-access=free}} A range of markers characterizing the period have been identified, such as silicone or aluminium, but most prominently plastic, with plastic, reminiscent of archaeological ages like the iron age, marking an archaeological plastic age or the anthropocene even as a geological plastic epoch.{{cite web | last=Giaimo | first=Cara | title=Stone Age, Bronze Age... Plastic Age? The Race to Define Our Epoch | website=Atlas Obscura | date=January 13, 2016 | url=https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/stone-age-bronze-age-plastic-age-the-race-to-define-our-epoch | access-date=May 4, 2025}}

A useful candidate for holding markers in the geologic time record is the pedosphere. Soils retain information about their climatic and geochemical history with features lasting for centuries or millennia.{{cite journal |author=Richter, D. deB. |year=2007 |title=Humanity's transformation of Earth's soil: Pedology's new frontier |journal=Soil Science |volume=172 |issue=12 |pages=957–967 |bibcode=2007SoilS.172..957R |doi=10.1097/ss.0b013e3181586bb7 |s2cid=15921701}} Human activity is now firmly established as the sixth factor of soil formation.{{cite journal |author1=Amundson, R. |author2=Jenny, H. |name-list-style=amp |year=1991 |title=The place of humans in the state factor theory of ecosystems and their soils |journal=Soil Science |volume=151 |issue=1 |pages=99–109 |bibcode=1991SoilS.151...99A |doi=10.1097/00010694-199101000-00012 |s2cid=95061311}} Humanity affects pedogenesis directly by, for example, land levelling, trenching and embankment building, landscape-scale control of fire by early humans, organic matter enrichment from additions of manure or other waste, organic matter impoverishment due to continued cultivation and compaction from overgrazing. Human activity also affects pedogenesis indirectly by drift of eroded materials or pollutants. Anthropogenic soils are those markedly affected by human activities, such as repeated ploughing, the addition of fertilisers, contamination, sealing, or enrichment with artefacts (in the World Reference Base for Soil Resources they are classified as Anthrosols and Technosols). An example from archaeology would be dark earth phenomena when long-term human habitation enriches{{cite journal |last1=Janovský |first1=Martin |title=Stable isotope analysis in soil prospection reveals the type of historic land ‑ use under contemporary temperate forests in Europe |journal=Scientific Reports |date=2024 |volume=14 |issue=1 |page=14746 |doi=10.1038/s41598-024-63563-1|pmid=38926400 |pmc=11208554 |bibcode=2024NatSR..1414746J }} the soil with black carbon.

Anthropogenic soils are recalcitrant repositories of artefacts and properties that testify to the dominance of the human impact, and hence appear to be reliable markers for the Anthropocene. Some anthropogenic soils may be viewed as the 'golden spikes' of geologists (Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point), which are locations where there are strata successions with clear evidences of a worldwide event, including the appearance of distinctive fossils.{{cite journal |author1=Certini, G. |author2=Scalenghe, R. |name-list-style=amp |year=2011 |title=Anthropogenic soils are the golden spikes for the Anthropocene |journal=The Holocene |volume=21 |issue=8 |pages=1269–1274 |bibcode=2011Holoc..21.1269C |doi=10.1177/0959683611408454 |s2cid=128818837}} Drilling for fossil fuels has also created holes and tubes which are expected to be detectable for millions of years.{{cite web |title=The Advent of the Anthropocene: Was that the big story of the 20th century? |url=http://worldofideas.wbur.org/2015/03/29/mcneill |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304072916/http://worldofideas.wbur.org/2015/03/29/mcneill |archive-date=4 March 2016 |access-date=28 November 2015 |website=World of Ideas, Boston U. Radio}} The astrobiologist David Grinspoon has proposed that the site of the Apollo 11 Lunar landing, with the disturbances and artifacts that are so uniquely characteristic of our species' technological activity and which will survive over geological time spans could be considered as the 'golden spike' of the Anthropocene.{{cite magazine |author=Grinspoon, D. |date=28 June 2016 |title=The golden spike of Tranquility Base |url=https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-blogs/the-golden-spike-of-tranquility-base/ |magazine=Sky & Telescope}}

An October 2020 study coordinated by University of Colorado at Boulder found that distinct physical, chemical and biological changes to Earth's rock layers began around the year 1950. The research revealed that since about 1950, humans have doubled the amount of fixed nitrogen on the planet through industrial production for agriculture, created a hole in the ozone layer through the industrial scale release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), released enough greenhouse gasses from fossil fuels to cause planetary level climate change, created tens of thousands of synthetic mineral-like compounds that do not naturally occur on Earth, and caused almost one-fifth of river sediment worldwide to no longer reach the ocean due to dams, reservoirs and diversions. Humans have produced so many millions of tons of plastic each year since the early 1950s that microplastics are "forming a near-ubiquitous and unambiguous marker of Anthropocene".{{Cite web |last=Simpkins |first=Kelsey |date=16 October 2020 |title=Unprecedented energy use since 1950 has transformed humanity's geologic footprint |url=https://phys.org/news/2020-10-unprecedented-energy-humanity-geologic-footprint.html |access-date=2020-10-17 |website=phys.org |publisher=University of Colorado at Boulder |language=en}}{{cite journal |last1=Syvitski |first1=Jaia |last2=Waters |first2=Colin N. |last3=Day |first3=John |display-authors=etal. |date=2020 |title=Extraordinary human energy consumption and resultant geological impacts beginning around 1950 CE initiated the proposed Anthropocene Epoch |journal=Communications Earth & Environment |volume=1 |issue=32 |page=32 |bibcode=2020ComEE...1...32S |doi=10.1038/s43247-020-00029-y |s2cid=222415797 |doi-access=free|hdl=10810/51932 |hdl-access=free }} The study highlights a strong correlation between global human population size and growth, global productivity and global energy use and that the "extraordinary outburst of consumption and productivity demonstrates how the Earth System has departed from its Holocene state since c. 1950 CE, forcing abrupt physical, chemical and biological changes to the Earth's stratigraphic record that can be used to justify the proposal for naming a new epoch—the Anthropocene."

A December 2020 study published in Nature found that the total anthropogenic mass, or human-made materials, outweighs all the biomass on earth, and highlighted that "this quantification of the human enterprise gives a mass-based quantitative and symbolic characterization of the human-induced epoch of the Anthropocene."{{cite news |last=Laville |first=Sandra |date=9 December 2020 |title=Human-made materials now outweigh Earth's entire biomass – study |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/09/human-made-materials-now-outweigh-earths-entire-biomass-study |access-date=10 December 2020}}{{cite journal |last1=Elhacham |first1=Emily |last2=Ben-Uri |first2=Liad |display-authors=etal. |date=2020 |title=Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass |journal=Nature |volume=588 |issue=7838 |pages=442–444 |bibcode=2020Natur.588..442E |doi=10.1038/s41586-020-3010-5 |pmid=33299177 |s2cid=228077506}}

File:Decline-of-the-worlds-wild-mammals.png for Our World in Data.{{cite web |last=Ritchie |first=Hannah |date=April 20, 2021 |title=Wild mammals have declined by 85% since the rise of humans, but there is a possible future where they flourish |url=https://ourworldindata.org/wild-mammal-decline |access-date=April 18, 2023 |website=Our World in Data |publisher= |quote=}} ]]

Although the validity of Anthropocene as a scientific term remains disputed, its underlying premise, i.e., that humans have become a geological force, or rather, the dominant force shaping the Earth's climate, has found traction among academics and the public. In an opinion piece for Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Rodolfo Dirzo, Gerardo Ceballos, and Paul R. Ehrlich write that the term is "increasingly penetrating the lexicon of not only the academic socio-sphere, but also society more generally", and is now included as an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.{{cite journal |last1=Dirzo |first1=Rodolfo |last2=Ceballos |first2=Gerardo |last3=Ehrlich |first3=Paul R. |date=2022 |title=Circling the drain: the extinction crisis and the future of humanity |url= |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B |volume=377 |issue=1857 |pages= |doi=10.1098/rstb.2021.0378 |pmc=9237743 |pmid=35757873}} The University of Cambridge, as another example, offers a degree in Anthropocene Studies.{{cite web |last= |first= |date= |title=MPhil in Anthropocene Studies |url=https://www.geog.cam.ac.uk/graduate/mphil/anthropocene/ |access-date= |website= |publisher= |quote=}} In the public sphere, the term Anthropocene has become increasingly ubiquitous in activist, pundit, and political discourses. Some who are critical of the term Anthropocene nevertheless concede that "For all its problems, [it] carries power."{{Cite web |last=Sutoris |first=Peter |date=20 October 2021 |title=The term 'Anthropocene' isn't perfect – but it shows us the scale of the environmental crisis we've caused |url=http://theconversation.com/the-term-anthropocene-isnt-perfect-but-it-shows-us-the-scale-of-the-environmental-crisis-weve-caused-169301 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211020162931/https://theconversation.com/the-term-anthropocene-isnt-perfect-but-it-shows-us-the-scale-of-the-environmental-crisis-weve-caused-169301 |archive-date=20 October 2021 |access-date= |website=The Conversation |language=en}} The popularity and currency of the word has led scholars to label the term a "charismatic meta-category"{{Cite web |last=Reddy |first=Elizabeth |date=8 April 2014 |title=What Does it Mean to do Anthropology in the Anthropocene? |url=https://blog.castac.org/2014/04/what-does-it-mean-to-do-anthropology-in-the-anthropocene/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140531064303/http://blog.castac.org:80/2014/04/what-does-it-mean-to-do-anthropology-in-the-anthropocene/ |archive-date=31 May 2014 |website=Platypus |language=en-US}} or "charismatic mega-concept."{{Cite book |last1=Davis |first1=Heather |url=http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/art-in-the-anthropocene/ |title=Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies |last2=Turpin |first2=Etienne |date=2014 |publisher=Open Humanities Press |isbn=978-1-78542-008-5 |pages=3–30 |language=EN}} The term, regardless, has been subject to a variety of criticisms from social scientists, philosophers, Indigenous scholars, and others.

The anthropologist John Hartigan has argued that due to its status as a charismatic meta-category, the term Anthropocene marginalizes competing, but less visible, concepts such as that of "multispecies."{{Cite journal |last=Hartigan |first=John |date=12 December 2014 |title=Multispecies vs Anthropocene |url=http://somatosphere.net/2014/multispecies-vs-anthropocene.html/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921163424/http://somatosphere.net/2014/multispecies-vs-anthropocene.html/ |archive-date=21 September 2020 |website=Somatosphere |language=en-US}} The more salient charge is that the ready acceptance of Anthropocene is due to its conceptual proximity to the status quo – that is, to notions of human individuality and centrality.

Other scholars appreciate the way in which the term Anthropocene recognizes humanity as a geological force, but take issue with the indiscriminate way in which it does. Not all humans are equally responsible for the climate crisis. To that end, scholars such as the feminist theorist Donna Haraway and sociologist Jason Moore, have suggested naming the Epoch instead as the Capitalocene.{{Cite book |last=Haraway |first=Donna |url=http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/art-in-the-anthropocene/ |title=Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies |date=2014 |publisher=Open Humanities Press |isbn=978-1-78542-008-5 |editor-last=Davis |editor-first=Heather |pages=255–270 |language=EN |editor2-last=Turpin |editor2-first=Etienne}}{{cite book |title=Anthropocene or Capitalocene? Nature, history, and the crisis of capitalism |publisher=PM Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-1629631486 |editor-last=Moore |editor-first=Jason W. |place=Oakland, CA}}{{Cite Q|Q114630752|mode=cs1 |author-last=Davies|author-first=Jeremy|edition=1st, hardcover|pp=94–95|url={{GBurl|-VklDQAAQBAJ|p=94}}}} Such implies capitalism as the fundamental reason for the ecological crisis, rather than just humans in general.{{cite book |last=Hickel |first=Jason |title=Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World |publisher=Windmill Books |year=2021 |isbn=978-1786091215 |pages=39–40 |quote=It was only with the rise of capitalism over the past few hundred years, and the breathtaking acceleration of industrialization from the 1950s, that on a planetary scale things began to tip out of balance. |author-link=Jason Hickel}}{{cite book |last=Foster |first=John Bellamy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wY5IEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT7location= |title=Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution |date=2022 |publisher=Monthly Review Press |isbn=978-1583679746 |page=1 |quote=The advent of the Anthropocene coincided with a planetary rift, as the human economy under capitalism heedlessly crossed, or began to cross, Earth System boundaries, fouling its own nest and threatening the destruction of the planet as a safe home for humanity. |author-link=John Bellamy Foster}}{{cite book |last1=Derber|first1=Charles |author-link1=Charles Derber|last2=Moodliar |first2=Suren |date=2023 |title=Dying for Capitalism: How Big Money Fuels Extinction and What We Can Do About It|url= |location= |publisher=Routledge |page= |isbn=978-1032512587}} However, according to philosopher Steven Best, humans have created "hierarchical and growth-addicted societies" and have demonstrated "ecocidal proclivities" long before the emergence of capitalism.{{cite journal |last=Best |first=Steven |date=2021 |title=Failed Species: The Rise and Fall of the Human Empire |url=https://addletonacademicpublishers.com/contents-rjac/2241-volume-9-2-2021/4078-failed-species-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-human-empire |journal=Romanian Journal of Artistic Creativity |volume=9 |issue=2 |pages= |doi= |quote=Today we call this planetary monolith "global capitalism," but humans became global animals tens of thousands of years before the onset of capitalism. Humans created hierarchical and growth-addicted societies some ten thousand years ago and their ecocidal proclivities stretch back millennia more into prehistory. And just like every political empire of the past, the human empire has possibly reached its zenith and begun its downward spiral toward collapse. This empire's peak and slide into catastrophe marks a new epoch not only in human history, but also the history of the earth. Debates over whether advanced societies have entered into a new "postmodernity" pale in significance to the scientifically-based proposition that human activity has created a new epoch in geological history—the age of the Anthropocene. This epoch characterized by the dominance of human influence over earth's systems and has led to, among other colossal events, a sixth mass extinction crisis and runaway climate change.}} Hartigan, Bould, and Haraway all critique what Anthropocene does as a term; however, Hartigan and Bould differ from Haraway in that they criticize the utility or validity of a geological framing of the climate crisis, whereas Haraway embraces it.

In addition to "Capitalocene," other terms have also been proposed by scholars to trace the roots of the Epoch to causes other than the human species broadly. Janae Davis, for example, has suggested the "Plantationocene" as a more appropriate term to call attention to the role that plantation agriculture has played in the formation of the Epoch, alongside Kathryn Yusoff's argument that racism as a whole is foundational to the Epoch. The Plantationocene concept traces "the ways that plantation logics organize modern economies, environments, bodies, and social relations."{{cite magazine |date=c. 2020 |title=What is the Plantationocene? |url=https://edgeeffects.net/plantationocene-series-plantation-worlds/ |magazine=Edge Effects Magazine}}{{cite journal |last=Haraway |first=Donna |year=2015 |title=Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making kin |url=https://environmentalhumanities.org/arch/vol6/6.7.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Environmental Humanities |volume=6 |pages=159–165 |doi=10.1215/22011919-3615934 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150714061851/http://environmentalhumanities.org/arch/vol6/6.7.pdf |archive-date=2015-07-14}}{{cite book |last1=Yusoff |first1=Kathryn |title=A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None |publisher=University of Minnesota Press}}{{Cite journal |last1=Davis |first1=Janae |last2=Moulton |first2=Alex A. |last3=Sant |first3=Levi Van |last4=Williams |first4=Brian |date=2019 |title=Anthropocene, Capitalocene, ... Plantationocene?: A Manifesto for Ecological Justice in an Age of Global Crises |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gec3.12438 |journal=Geography Compass |language=en |volume=13 |issue=5 |pages=e12438 |doi=10.1111/gec3.12438 |bibcode=2019GComp..13E2438D |issn=1749-8198 |s2cid=155374232|url-access=subscription }} In a similar vein, Indigenous studies scholars such as Métis geographer Zoe Todd have argued that the Epoch must be dated back to the colonization of the Americas, as this "names the problem of colonialism as responsible for contemporary environmental crisis."{{Cite journal |last1=Davis |first1=Heather |last2=Todd |first2=Zoe |date=20 December 2017 |title=On the Importance of a Date, or, Decolonizing the Anthropocene |url=https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1539 |journal=ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies |language=en |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=761–780 |issn=1492-9732}} Potawatomi philosopher Kyle Powys Whyte has further argued that the Anthropocene has been apparent to Indigenous peoples in the Americas since the inception of colonialism because of "colonialism's role in environmental change."{{Cite journal |last=Whyte |first=Kyle |date=2017 |title=Indigenous Climate Change Studies : Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/711473 |journal=English Language Notes |volume=55 |issue=1 |pages=153–162 |doi=10.1215/00138282-55.1-2.153 |issn=2573-3575 |s2cid=132153346|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite book |last=Whyte |first=Kyle |title=Humanities for the Environment: Integrating Knowledges, Forging New Constellations of Practice |publisher=Routledge |year=2016 |editor-last=Adamson |editor-first=Joni |pages=88–104 |chapter=Is it Colonial DéJà Vu? Indigenous Peoples and Climate Injustice |doi=10.2139/ssrn.2925277 |ssrn=2925277}}{{Cite journal |last=Whyte |first=Kyle P. |date=1 March 2018 |title=Indigenous science (fiction) for the Anthropocene: Ancestral dystopias and fantasies of climate change crises |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/2514848618777621 |journal=Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space |language=en |volume=1 |issue=1–2 |pages=224–242 |doi=10.1177/2514848618777621 |bibcode=2018EnPlE...1..224W |issn=2514-8486 |s2cid=158298529|url-access=subscription }}

Other critiques of Anthropocene have focused on the genealogy of the concept. Todd also provides a phenomenological account, which draws on the work of the philosopher Sara Ahmed, writing: "When discourses and responses to the Anthropocene are being generated within institutions and disciplines which are embedded in broader systems that act as de facto 'white public space,' the academy and its power dynamics must be challenged."{{Cite book |last=Todd |first=Zoe |url=http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/art-in-the-anthropocene/ |title=Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies |date=2014 |publisher=Open Humanities Press |isbn=978-1-78542-008-5 |editor-last=Davis |editor-first=Heather |pages=241–254 |language=EN |editor2-last=Turpin |editor2-first=Etienne}} Other aspects which constitute current understandings of the concept of the Anthropocene such as the ontological split between nature and society, the assumption of the centrality and individuality of the human, and the framing of environmental discourse in largely scientific terms have been criticized by scholars as concepts rooted in colonialism and which reinforce systems of postcolonial domination.{{cite journal |last1=Hacıgüzeller |first1=Piraye |date=December 2021 |title=On critical hope and the anthropos of non-anthropocentric discourses. Some thoughts on archaeology in the Anthropocene |journal=Archaeological Dialogues |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=163–170 |doi=10.1017/S1380203821000192 |s2cid=244775395 |doi-access=free|hdl=10067/1836770151162165141 |hdl-access=free }} To that end, Todd makes the case that the concept of Anthropocene must be indigenized and decolonized if it is to become a vehicle of justice as opposed to white thought and domination.

Eco-philosopher David Abram, in a book chapter titled 'Interbreathing in the Humilocene', has proposed adoption of the term ‘Humilocene’ (the Epoch of Humility), which emphasizes an ethical imperative and ecocultural direction that human societies should take. The term plays with the etymological roots of the term ‘human’, thus connecting it back with terms such as humility, humus (the soil), and even a corrective sense of humiliation that some human societies should feel given their collective destructive impact on the earth.{{Cite book |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781351068833 |title=Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity |date=2020-05-01 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-06884-0 |editor-last=Milstein |editor-first=Tema |edition=1 |location=Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. {{!}} |language=en |doi=10.4324/9781351068840 |editor-last2=Castro-Sotomayor |editor-first2=José}}

{{Main|Early anthropocene}}

William Ruddiman has argued that the Anthropocene began approximately 8,000 years ago with the development of farming and sedentary cultures.{{cite journal |last1=Certini |first1=Giacomo |last2=Scalenghe |first2=Riccardo |date=April 2015 |title=Is the Anthropocene really worthy of a formal geologic definition? |journal=The Anthropocene Review |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=77–80 |doi=10.1177/2053019614563840 |bibcode=2015AntRv...2...77C |issn=2053-0196 |s2cid=130059700}} At that point, humans were dispersed across all continents except Antarctica, and the Neolithic Revolution was ongoing. During this period, humans developed agriculture and animal husbandry to supplement or replace hunter-gatherer subsistence.{{cite journal |last1=Ellis |first1=Erle |last2=Goldewijk |first2=Kees Klein |last3=Gaillard |first3=Marie-José |last4=Kaplan |first4=Jed O. |last5=Thornton |first5=Alexa |last6=Powell |first6=Jeremy |last7=Garcia |first7=Santiago Munevar |last8=Beaudoin |first8=Ella |last9=Zerboni |first9=Andrea |display-authors=6 |date=30 August 2019 |title=Archaeological assessment reveals Earth's early transformation through land use |journal=Science |volume=365 |issue=6456 |pages=897–902 |bibcode=2019Sci...365..897S |doi=10.1126/science.aax1192 |issn=0036-8075 |pmid=31467217 |s2cid=201674203 |hdl-access=free |hdl=10150/634688}} Such innovations were followed by a wave of extinctions, beginning with large mammals and terrestrial birds. This wave was driven by both the direct activity of humans (e.g. hunting) and the indirect consequences of land-use change for agriculture. Landscape-scale burning by prehistoric hunter-gathers may have been an additional early source of anthropogenic atmospheric carbon.{{cite journal |last1=Lightfoot |first1=Kent G. |last2=Cuthrell |first2=Rob Q. |date=29 May 2015 |title=Anthropogenic burning and the Anthropocene in late-Holocene California |journal=The Holocene |volume=25 |issue=10 |pages=1581–1587 |bibcode=2015Holoc..25.1581L |doi=10.1177/0959683615588376 |issn=0959-6836 |s2cid=130614921}} Ruddiman also claims that the greenhouse gas emissions in-part responsible for the Anthropocene began 8,000 years ago when ancient farmers cleared forests to grow crops.{{cite news |last=Mason |first=Betsy |year=2003 |title=Man has been changing climate for 8,000 years |journal=Nature |doi=10.1038/news031208-7}}{{cite magazine |last=Robert |first=Adler |date=11 December 2003 |title=Early farmers warmed Earth's climate |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4464-early-farmers-warmed-earths-climate/ |magazine=New Scientist |access-date=4 February 2008}}{{cite journal |last=Ruddiman |first=William F. |year=2003 |title=The anthropogenic greenhouse era began thousands of years ago |url=http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~avf5/teaching/Files_pdf/Ruddiman2003.pdf |url-status=dead |journal=Climatic Change |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=261–293 |citeseerx=10.1.1.651.2119 |doi=10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004577.17928.fa |bibcode=2003ClCh...61..261R |s2cid=2501894 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416132256/http://earth.geology.yale.edu/~avf5/teaching/Files_pdf/Ruddiman2003.pdf |archive-date=16 April 2014}}

Ruddiman's work has been challenged with data from an earlier interglaciation ("Stage 11", approximately 400,000 years ago) which suggests that 16,000 more years must elapse before the current Holocene interglaciation comes to an end, and thus the early anthropogenic hypothesis is invalid.{{cite journal |last1=Broecker |first1=Wallace S. |last2=Stocker |first2=Thomas F. |year=2006 |title=The Holocene CO2 rise: Anthropogenic or natural? |journal=Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union |volume=87 |issue=3 |pages=27 |bibcode=2006EOSTr..87...27B |doi=10.1029/2006EO030002 |issn=2324-9250 |doi-access=free}} Also, the argument that "something" is needed to explain the differences in the Holocene is challenged by more recent research showing that all interglacials are different.{{cite journal |last1=Tzedakis |first1=P.C. |last2=Raynaud |first2=D. |last3=McManus |first3=J.F. |last4=Berger |first4=A. |last5=Brovkin |first5=V. |last6=Kiefer |first6=T. |year=2009 |title=Interglacial diversity |journal=Nature Geoscience |volume=2 |issue=11 |pages=751–755 |bibcode=2009NatGe...2..751T |doi=10.1038/ngeo660}}

Homogenocene (from old Greek: homo-, same; geno-, kind; kainos-, new;) is a more specific term used to define our current epoch, in which biodiversity is diminishing and biogeography and ecosystems around the globe seem more and more similar to one another mainly due to invasive species that have been introduced around the globe either on purpose (crops, livestock) or inadvertently. This is due to the newfound globalism that humans participate in, as species traveling across the world to another region was not as easily possible in any point of time in history as it is today.Crawley MJ. 1989. Chance and timing in biological invasions. In: Drake JA, Mooney HJ, DiCastri F, et al. (Eds). Biological invasions: a global perspective. Chichester, UK: John Wiley.

The term Homogenocene was first used by Michael Samways in his editorial article in the Journal of Insect Conservation from 1999 titled "Translocating fauna to foreign lands: Here comes the Homogenocene."{{cite journal |last=Michael |first=Samways |year=1999 |title=Translocating fauna to foreign lands: Here comes the Homogenocene |journal=Journal of Insect Conservation |volume=3 |issue=2 |pages=65–66 |doi=10.1023/A:1017267807870|s2cid=263987331 }}

The term was used again by John L. Curnutt in the year 2000 in Ecology, in a short list titled "A Guide to the Homogenocene",{{cite journal |last=Curnutt |first=John L. |year=2000 |title=AA Guide to the Homogenocene |journal=Ecology |volume=81 |issue=6 |pages=1756–1757 |doi=10.1890/0012-9658(2000)081[1756:AGTTH]2.0.CO;2}} which reviewed Alien species in North America and Hawaii: impacts on natural ecosystems by George Cox. Charles C. Mann, in his acclaimed book 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created, gives a bird's-eye view of the mechanisms and ongoing implications of the homogenocene.{{cite book |last=Mann |first=Charles C. |url=https://archive.org/details/1493uncoveringne00mann |title=1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created |publisher=Knopf |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-307-26572-2 |location=New York}}

The concept of the Anthropocene has also been approached via humanities such as philosophy, literature and art. In the scholarly world, it has been the subject of increasing attention through special journals,{{cite journal |volume=34 |issue=2 |editor-first=Timothy |editor-last=Clark |title=Special Issue: Deconstruction in the Anthropocene |journal=Oxford Literary Review |date=1 December 2012 |doi=10.3366/olr.2012.0039 |pages=v–vi | last1 = Clark | first1 = Timothy}} conferences,{{Cite conference |author=Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University |title=Anthropocene Humanities: The 2012 Annual Meeting of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes |location=Canberra, Australia |access-date=21 July 2014 |date=13 June 2012 |url=http://chcinetwork.org/anthropocene-humanities/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140831221523/http://chcinetwork.org/anthropocene-humanities/ |archive-date=31 August 2014 }}{{Cite conference |author1=Rachel Carson |author2=Alexander von Humboldt |title=Culture and the Anthropocene |location=Munich, Germany |access-date=21 July 2014 |date=14 June 2013 |url=http://www.carsoncenter.uni-muenchen.de/events_conf_seminars/event_history/2013/2013_conf_ws_sem/130614_cult_anthrop/index.html}} and disciplinary reports.{{cite book |publisher=American Comparative Literature Association |last=Wenzel |first=Jennifer |title=State of the Discipline Report: Ideas of the Decade |chapter=Climate Change |date=13 March 2014 |chapter-url=http://stateofthediscipline.acla.org/entry/climate-change}} The Anthropocene, its attendant timescale, and ecological implications prompt questions about death and the end of civilisation,{{cite news |last=Scranton |first=Roy |title=Learning how to die in the Anthropocene |newspaper=The New York Times |department=Opinionator |access-date=17 July 2014 |date=10 November 2013 |url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/learning-how-to-die-in-the-anthropocene/}} memory and archives,{{cite web |last=Colebrook |first=Claire |author-link=Claire Colebrook |date=27 January 2014 |title=The Anthropocene and the Archive |website=The Memory Network: Exchanges |url=http://thememorynetwork.net/the-anthropocene-and-the-archive/ |access-date=21 July 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303205338/http://thememorynetwork.net/the-anthropocene-and-the-archive/ |archive-date=3 March 2016}} the scope and methods of humanistic inquiry,{{cite web |last=Nowviskie |first=Bethany |date=10 July 2014 |title=Digital humanities in the anthropocene |website=nowviskie.org |url=http://nowviskie.org/2014/anthropocene/ |access-date=10 July 2014}} and emotional responses to the "end of nature".{{Cite journal |last=Ronda |first=Margaret |title=Mourning and Melancholia in the Anthropocene |journal=Post45 |access-date=21 July 2014 |date=10 June 2013 |url=http://post45.research.yale.edu/2013/06/mourning-and-melancholia-in-the-anthropocene/}} Some scholars have posited that the realities of the Anthropocene, including "human-induced biodiversity loss, exponential increases in per-capita resource consumption, and global climate change," have made the goal of environmental sustainability largely unattainable and obsolete.{{Cite journal|last1=Benson|first1=Melinda Harm|last2=Craig|first2=Robin Kundis|date=2014|title=The End of Sustainability|url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08941920.2014.901467|journal=Society & Natural Resources|language=en|volume=27|issue=7|pages=777–782|doi=10.1080/08941920.2014.901467|bibcode=2014SNatR..27..777B |s2cid=67783261|issn=0894-1920|url-access=subscription}}

Historians have actively engaged the Anthropocene. In 2000, the same year that Paul Crutzen coined the term, world historian John McNeill published Something New Under the Sun, tracing the rise of human societies' unprecedented impact on the planet in the twentieth century.{{cite book |last=McNeill |first=John |year=2000 |title=Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company }} In 2001, historian of science Naomi Oreskes revealed the systematic efforts to undermine trust in climate change science and went on to detail the corporate interests delaying action on the environmental challenge.{{cite book |last1=Oreskes |first1=Naomi |last2=Eric |first2=Conway |year=2010 |title=Merchants of Doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to climate change }}{{cite journal |last1=Oreskes |first1=Naomi |date=3 December 2004 |title=The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change |journal=Science |volume=306 |issue=5702 |pages=1686 |doi= 10.1126/science.1103618|pmid=15576594 |s2cid=153792099 |doi-access=free }} Both McNeill and Oreskes became members of the Anthropocene Working Group because of their work correlating human activities and planetary transformation.

• In 2019, the English musician Nick Mulvey released a music video on YouTube named "In the Anthropocene".{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYnaQIvBRAE |title=Nick Mulvey – In the Anthropocene |date=2019-10-01 |last=Mulvey |first=Nick |access-date=2024-06-27 |via=YouTube}} In cooperation with Sharp's Brewery, the song was recorded on 105 vinyl records made of washed-up plastic from the Cornish coast.[https://completemusicupdate.com/article/nick-mulvey-releases-vinyl-made-from-recycled-plastic-washed-up-on-cornish-beaches/ CMU: Nick Mulvey releases vinyl made from recycled plastic washed up on Cornish beaches]
• The Anthropocene Reviewed is a podcast and book by author John Green, where he "reviews different facets of the human-centered planet on a five-star scale".{{Cite web|title=The Anthropocene Reviewed – WNYC Studios and Complexly|url=https://open.spotify.com/show/3scirzcuaGm02MQ4FUZydq|website=Spotify|language=en|access-date=13 May 2020}}
• Photographer Edward Burtynsky created "The Anthropocene Project" with Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, which is a collection of photographs, exhibitions, a film, and a book. His photographs focus on landscape photography that captures the effects human beings have had on the earth.{{Cite web |last=Kenigsberg |first=Ben |date=September 24, 2019 |title='Anthropocene: The Human Epoch' Review: Global Warnings |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/24/movies/anthropocene-the-human-epoch-review.html |website=The New York Times}}{{Cite magazine |last=Davison |first=Nicola |title=The devastating environmental impact of human progress like you've never seen it before |url=https://www.wired.com/story/ed-burtynsky-anthropocene/ |access-date=2024-04-05 |magazine=Wired |language=en-US |issn=1059-1028}}
• In 2015, the American death metal band Cattle Decapitation released its seventh studio album titled The Anthropocene Extinction.{{cite press release |title=Cattle Decapitation – To Release 'The Anthropocene Extinction' This August Via Metal Blade Records |url=http://www.metalblade.com/us/news/cattle-decapitation-to-release-the-anthropocene-extinction/ |publisher=Metal Blade Records |date=20 May 2015 |access-date=2020-10-20}}
• In 2020, Canadian musician Grimes released her fifth studio album titled Miss Anthropocene. The name is also a pun on the feminine title "Miss" and the words "misanthrope" and "Anthropocene."{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.billboard.com/media/lists/best-pop-albums-2020-9498901/|title=The 25 Best Pop Albums of 2020: Staff Picks|magazine=Billboard|date=November 15, 2019|access-date=May 5, 2024}}

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• [https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/30/anthropocene-epoch-have-we-entered-a-new-phase-of-planetary-history The Anthropocene epoch: have we entered a new phase of planetary history?], The Guardian, 2019
• [https://www.npr.org/2021/03/17/974774461/drawing-a-line-in-the-mud-scientists-debate-when-age-of-humans-began Drawing A Line In The Mud: Scientists Debate When 'Age Of Humans' Began]. NPR. 17 March 2021.
• {{cite web|title=The Anthropocene: Where on Earth are we Going? [Full]|publisher=The Royal Society of Victoria|website=YouTube|date=April 15, 2021|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvD0TgE34HA}} (lecture given by Professor Will Steffen in Melbourne, Australia)
• [https://theconversation.com/8-billion-humans-how-population-growth-and-climate-change-are-connected-as-the-anthropocene-engine-transforms-the-planet-193075 8 billion humans: How population growth and climate change are connected as the 'Anthropocene engine' transforms the planet]. The Conversation. 3 November 2022.

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