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Author: Jan Zalasiewicz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110847523X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
Reviews the evidence underpinning the Anthropocene as a geological epoch written by the Anthropocene Working Group investigating it. The book discusses ongoing changes to the Earth system within the context of deep geological time, allowing a comparison between the global transition taking place today with major transitions in Earth history.
Author: Jan Zalasiewicz
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110847523X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
Reviews the evidence underpinning the Anthropocene as a geological epoch written by the Anthropocene Working Group investigating it. The book discusses ongoing changes to the Earth system within the context of deep geological time, allowing a comparison between the global transition taking place today with major transitions in Earth history.
Author: C.N. Waters
Publisher: Geological Society of London
ISBN: 1862396280
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317
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Book Description
Humankind has pervasively influenced the Earth’s atmosphere, biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and cryosphere, arguably to the point of fashioning a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. To constrain the Anthropocene as a potential formal unit within the Geological Time Scale, a spectrum of indicators of anthropogenically-induced environmental change is considered, and shown as stratigraphical signals that may be used to characterize an Anthropocene unit, and to recognize its base. This volume describes a range of evidence that may help to define this potential new time unit and details key signatures that could be used in its definition. These signatures include lithostratigraphical (novel deposits, minerals and mineral magnetism), biostratigraphical (macro- and micro-palaeontological successions and human-induced trace fossils) and chemostratigraphical (organic, inorganic and radiogenic signatures in deposits, speleothems and ice and volcanic eruptions). We include, finally, the suggestion that humans have created a further sphere, the technosphere, that drives global change.
Author: Ian Angus
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583676090
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
Science tells us that a new and dangerous stage in planetary evolution has begun—the Anthropocene, a time of rising temperatures, extreme weather, rising oceans, and mass species extinctions. Humanity faces not just more pollution or warmer weather, but a crisis of the Earth System. If business as usual continues, this century will be marked by rapid deterioration of our physical, social, and economic environment. Large parts of Earth will become uninhabitable, and civilization itself will be threatened. Facing the Anthropocene shows what has caused this planetary emergency, and what we must do to meet the challenge. Bridging the gap between Earth System science and ecological Marxism, Ian Angus examines not only the latest scientific findings about the physical causes and consequences of the Anthropocene transition, but also the social and economic trends that underlie the crisis. Cogent and compellingly written, Facing the Anthropocene offers a unique synthesis of natural and social science that illustrates how capitalism's inexorable drive for growth, powered by the rapid burning of fossil fuels that took millions of years to form, has driven our world to the brink of disaster. Survival in the Anthropocene, Angus argues, requires radical social change, replacing fossil capitalism with a new, ecosocialist civilization.
Author: Jan Zalasiewicz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199214980
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
If aliens came to Earth 100 millions years in the future, what traces would they find of long-extinct humanity's brief reign on the planet? This engaging and thought-provoking account looks at what our species will leave behind, buried deep in the rock strata, and provides us with a warning of our devastating environmental impact.
Author: J. R. McNeill
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674545036
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
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Book Description
The Earth has entered a new age—the Anthropocene—in which humans are the most powerful influence on global ecology. Since the mid-twentieth century, the accelerating pace of energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, and population growth has thrust the planet into a massive uncontrolled experiment. The Great Acceleration explains its causes and consequences, highlighting the role of energy systems, as well as trends in climate change, urbanization, and environmentalism. More than any other factor, human dependence on fossil fuels inaugurated the Anthropocene. Before 1700, people used little in the way of fossil fuels, but over the next two hundred years coal became the most important energy source. When oil entered the picture, coal and oil soon accounted for seventy-five percent of human energy use. This allowed far more economic activity and produced a higher standard of living than people had ever known—but it created far more ecological disruption. We are now living in the Anthropocene. The period from 1945 to the present represents the most anomalous period in the history of humanity’s relationship with the biosphere. Three-quarters of the carbon dioxide humans have contributed to the atmosphere has accumulated since World War II ended, and the number of people on Earth has nearly tripled. So far, humans have dramatically altered the planet’s biogeochemical systems without consciously managing them. If we try to control these systems through geoengineering, we will inaugurate another stage of the Anthropocene. Where it might lead, no one can say for sure.
Author: Edited by the Human Animal Research Network Editorial Collective
Publisher: Sydney University Press
ISBN: 1743324391
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 297
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Book Description
Much of the discussion on the Anthropocene has centred upon anthropogenic global warming and climate change and the urgency of political and social responses to this problem. Animals in the Anthropocene: critical perspectives on non-human futures shows that assessing the effects of human activity on the planet requires more than just the quantification of ecological impacts towards the categorisation of geological eras. It requires recognising and evaluating a wide range of territories and terrains, full of non-human agents and interests and meanings, exposed to the profound forces of change that give their name to the Anthropocene. It is from the perspective of ‘the animal question’ – asking how best to think and live with animals – that Animals in the Anthropocene seeks to interrogate the Anthropocene as a concept, discourse, and state of affairs. The term Anthropocene is a useful device for drawing attention to the devastations wreaked by anthropocentrism and advancing a relational model for human and non-human life. The effects on animals of human political and economic systems continue to expand and intensify, in numerous domains and in ways that not only cause suffering and loss but that also produce new forms of life and alter the very nature of species. As anthropogenic change affects the more-than-human world in innumerable ways, we must accept responsibility for the damage we have caused, and the debt we owe to non-human species.
Author: Erle C. Ellis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192511386
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
The proposal that the impact of humanity on the planet has left a distinct footprint, even on the scale of geological time, has recently gained much ground. Global climate change, shifting global cycles of the weather, widespread pollution, radioactive fallout, plastic accumulation, species invasions, the mass extinction of species - these are just some of the many indicators that we will leave a lasting record in rock, the scientific basis for recognizing new time intervals in Earth's history. The Anthropocene, as the proposed new epoch has been named, is regularly in the news. Even with such robust evidence, the proposal to formally recognize our current time as the Anthropocene remains controversial both inside and outside the scholarly world, kindling intense debates. The reason is clear. The Anthropocene represents far more than just another interval of geologic time. Instead, the Anthropocene has emerged as a powerful new narrative, a concept through which age-old questions about the meaning of nature and even the nature of humanity are being revisited and radically revised. This Very Short Introduction explains the science behind the Anthropocene and the many proposals about when to mark its beginning: the nuclear tests of the 1950s? The beginnings of agriculture? The origins of humans as a species? Erle Ellis considers the many ways that the Anthropocene's "evolving paradigm" is reshaping the sciences, stimulating the humanities, and foregrounding the politics of life on a planet transformed by humans. The Anthropocene remains a work in progress. Is this the story of an unprecedented planetary disaster? Or of newfound wisdom and redemption? Ellis offers an insightful discussion of our role in shaping the planet, and how this will influence our future on many fronts. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Author: Akeel Bilgrami
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231550901
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
Today, as we confront an unprecedented environmental crisis of our own making, it is more urgent than ever to consider the notion of nature and our place within it. This book brings together essays that individually and as a whole present a detailed and rigorous multidisciplinary exploration of the concept of nature and its wider ethical and political implications. A distinguished list of scholars take up a broad range of questions regarding the relations between the human subject and its natural environment: when and how the concept of nature gave way to the concept of natural resources; the genealogy of the concept of nature through political economy, theology, and modern science; the idea of the Anthropocene; the prospects for green growth; and the deep alienation of human beings in the modern period from both nature and each other. By engaging with a wide range of scholarship, they ultimately converge on a common outlook that is both capacious and original. The essays together present a revaluation of the natural world that seeks to reshape political and ethical ideals and practice with a view to addressing some of the fundamental concerns of our time. Nature and Value features widely known scholars in a broad swath of disciplines, ranging from philosophy, politics, and political economy to geology, law, literature, and psychology. They include Jonathan Schell, David Bromwich, James Tully, Jedediah Purdy, Robert Pollin, Jan Zalasiewicz, Carol Rovane, Sanjay Reddy, Joanna Picciotto, Anthony Laden, Nikolas Kompridis, Bina Gogineni, Kyle Nichols, and the editor, Akeel Bilgrami.
Author: Simon L. Lewis
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300243030
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 480
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Book Description
An exploration of the Anthropocene and “a relentless reckoning of how we, as a species, got ourselves into the mess we’re in today” (The Wall Street Journal). Meteorites, mega-volcanoes, and plate tectonics—the old forces of nature—have transformed Earth for millions of years. They are now joined by a new geological force—humans. Our actions have driven Earth into a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. For the first time in our home planet's 4.5-billion-year history a single species is increasingly dictating Earth’s future. To some the Anthropocene symbolizes a future of superlative control of our environment. To others it is the height of hubris, the illusion of our mastery over nature. Whatever your view, just below the surface of this odd-sounding scientific word—the Anthropocene—is a heady mix of science, philosophy, history, and politics linked to our deepest fears and utopian visions. Tracing our environmental impacts through time, scientists Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin reveal a new view of human history and a new outlook for the future of humanity in the unstable world we have created.
Author: Edward Burtynsky
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783958294899
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 236
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Book Description
Anthropocene is the newest book by Edward Burtynsky to document human destruction of the earth on a geological scale. In photos as beautiful as they are disconcerting, Burtynsky explores issues such as extinction (large-scale burning of elephant tusks to disrupt illegal trade and the black market, the plight of the last white rhino), technofossils (Nigerian landfi ll sites entirely of plastic, massive concrete tetrapods to protect Chinese coastline from erosion), and terraforming (mines and industrial agriculture). Conta ining specially commissioned poems by Margaret Atwood published here for the fi rst time, a statement by Burtynsky and a range of essays, Anthropocene presents compelling artistic and scientifi c responses to these urgent topics. The book is one part of the larger "Anthropocene" project, a multi-disciplinary body of work with fi lmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nick de Pencier which includes a major traveling exhibition, documentary fi lm and interactive website. Its starting point is the research of the Anthropocene Working Group, an international body of scientists advocating to change the name of our present geological epoch, Holocene, to Anthropocene--the period where human activity dominates climate and environmental change. Including images of the video components and augmented reality experiences from the exhibition, the book, like the overall project, combines traditional and new lens-based media in an innovative and dynamic expression of humanity's profound and lasting changes on the planet.
