Our activities now affect the entire planet. But there’s a vital debate over when we started disrupting these systems. Was it 1950 – or hundreds and thousands of years earlier?
Canada’s Crawford Lake, in Ontario, was chosen for its pristine sediment record.
SF photo/Shutterstock
Alejandro Cearreta, Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
Crawford Lake in Ontario contains the record that best identifies the beginning of the Anthropocene, the geologic epoch characterized by the global impact of human activity.
Yantian Port, Shenzhen City, China.
Weiming Xie/Shutterstock
Environmental debates often centre proposals for curtailing emissions, without addressing how we got into this mess and how we might get out. A radical new book ponders the alternatives.
Although alternative terms have been suggested, the Anthropocene captures the magnitude of the crisis we face.
‘Ice Watch,’ an installation by Icelandic-Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, put 12 blocks of ice harvested from a fjord in a clock formation in a public place in London, in December 2018.
(Sarflondondunc/Flickr)
From installations of ice to projected art generated from air quality readings, artists and designers offer powerful experiences where people become witnesses to what’s happening and what’s possible.
A study published in the journal Nature reveals that global mass of goods produced by humankind now exceeds that of all life on earth. This is a stark warning on our growing domination of the planet.
If all of humanity was wiped out tomorrow, it’s estimated that the natural world would take at least five million years to recover from the damage humans have done to the world.
Almost a century ago, New Zealand and Australia were at the forefront of an environmental crisis that forewarned of humanity’s global impact – erosion. It left its mark on culture.
‘Antarctic cities’ residents care deeply about the continent, with environmental concerns outweighing economic priorities. Asked about its future, they feel a mix of hope, pessimism and sadness.
It marked the point when humans began to exert a geologically-huge influence on the environment.
The pangolin, one of the most poached animals in the world, could have served as an intermediate host in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 to humans.
Wahyudi/AFP
Allan and Helaine Shiff Curator of Climate Change, Royal Ontario Museum and Assistant Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto