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VIII. Earth Earns: An Open Participatory Earthropocene to Astropocene CoCreative Future

1. An Anthropocene Age: Human Civilization Takes Over and Changes Every Feature

Gaffney, Owen and Will Steffen. The Anthropocene Equation. Anthropocene Review. Online February, 2017. Senior Stockholm University and Australian National University environmentalists attempt to quantify the present fluid, perilous state of our human industrial proliferation over the finite biosphere. In regard, four main factors – A for astronomical forcings, G for geophysical effects, I as the internal dynamics of the Earth system, and especially H for the increasingly prime driver of human activities – are set in a mathematical form. A conclusion is obvious: We deduce that astronomical and geophysical forcings in the Holocene and into the entire Quarternary approximate to zero compared with the impact of current human pressures on the rate of change of the Earth System.

The dominant external forces influencing the rate of change of the Earth System have been astronomical and geophysical during the planet’s 4.5-billion-year existence. In the last six decades, anthropogenic forcings have driven exceptionally rapid rates of change in the Earth System. This new regime can be represented by an ‘Anthropocene equation’, where other forcings tend to zero, and the rate of change under human influence can be estimated. Reducing the risk of leaving the glacial–interglacial limit cycle of the late Quaternary for an uncertain future will require, in the first instance, the rate of change of the Earth System to become approximately zero. (Abstract)

Glikson, Andrew. Evolution of the Atmosphere, Fire and the Anthropocene Climate Event Horizon. Springer Briefs, 2014. An Australian National University Earth and paleoclimate scientist argues that our human use of combustion in many forms is a prime reason for global environmental stress. We also note this work for its Epilogue: The Life Force which alludes that the human intelligence able to learn and do all this appears to be written into the very physical laws from which it evolved and emerged. See also Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene (Springer, 2016) by Glikson and Colin Groves.

Unique among all creatures, further to the increase in its cranial volume from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens, the use of tools and cultural and scientific creativity, the genus Homo is distinguished by the mastery of fire, which since about two million years ago has become its blueprint. Through the Holocene and culminating in the Anthropocene, the burning of much of the terrestrial vegetation, excavation and combustion of fossil carbon from up to 420 million years-old biospheres, are leading to a global oxidation event on a geological scale, a rise in entropy in nature and the sixth mass extinction of species. (Publisher)

Glikson, Andrew and Colin Groves. Climate, Fire and Human Evolution: The Deep Time Dimensions of the Anthropocene. Berlin: Springer, 2016. An Australian National University earth systems geologist and a biological anthropologist explain that the latest appearance of homo sapiens is much due to the presence, and usage of oxygenated combustion over the past billion and million years. A closing chapter Rare Earth goes on to say that intelligence is written into the laws of nature, but avoids an “anthropocentric” view.

The book outlines principal milestones in the evolution of the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere during the last 4 million years in relation with the evolution from primates to the genus Homo – which uniquely mastered the ignition and transfer of fire. The advent of land plants since about 420 million years ago ensued in flammable carbon-rich biosphere interfaced with an oxygen-rich atmosphere. Born on a flammable Earth surface, under increasingly unstable climates descending from the warmer Pliocene into the deepest ice ages of the Pleistocene, human survival depended on both―biological adaptations and cultural evolution, mastering fire as a necessity. Once the climate stabilized in the early Holocene, since about ~7000 years-ago production of excess food by Neolithic civilization along the Great River Valleys has allowed human imagination and dreams to express themselves through the construction of monuments to immortality. Further to burning large part of the forests, the discovery of combustion and exhumation of carbon from the Earth’s hundreds of millions of years-old fossil biospheres set the stage for an anthropogenic oxidation event, affecting an abrupt shift in state of the atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere system.

Hamilton, Clive. Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2017. This latest work by the Charles Sturt University, Canberra environmental ethicist brings a novel viewpoint by proposing a “new anthropocentrism.” Rather than avoiding or denying our global presence, a respectful acceptance and avail of human biospheric agency can rightly mitigate and sustain.

Hamilton, Clive, et al. The Anthropocene and the Global Environmental Crisis. London: Routledge, 2015. With co-editors Christophe Bonneuil and Francois Gemenne, an Australian-French nexus tries to get a bead and read on what is happening with regard to the state and future of a planetary civilization. Initial chapters address how a prior Holocene era is now taken over by profligate, industrious human beings, such as The Anthropocene and the Convergence of Histories by Dipesh Chakrabarty. A next section entitled Catastrophism contains Eschatology in the Anthropocene: from the Chronos of Deep Time to the Kairos of the Age of Humans by Michael Northcott. Rethinking Politics proceeds with essays such as Accepting the Reality of Gaia by Isabelle Stengers and Bruno Latour’s Telling Friends from Foes in the Time of the Anthropocene. And for the record Clive Hamilton is the 2006 coauthor of Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough.

Hofman, Courtney, et al. Conservation Archaeogenomics: Ancient DNA and Biodiversity in the Anthropocene. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Online July, 2015. Smithsonian Institute archaeobiologists press on with genome reconstructions of precursor creatures to the extent that understandings of past environmental stresses can provide a vital perspective to guide future natural and social sustainability endeavors.

There is growing consensus that we have entered the Anthropocene, a geologic epoch characterized by human domination of the ecosystems of the Earth. With the future uncertain, we are faced with understanding how global biodiversity will respond to anthropogenic perturbations. The archaeological record provides perspective on human–environment relations through time and across space. Ancient DNA (aDNA) analyses of plant and animal remains from archaeological sites are particularly useful for understanding past human–environment interactions, which can help guide conservation decisions during the environmental changes of the Anthropocene. Here, we define the emerging field of conservation archaeogenomics, which integrates archaeological and genomic data to generate baselines or benchmarks for scientists, managers, and policy-makers by evaluating climatic and human impacts on past, present, and future biodiversity. (Abstract)

Jorgensen, Peter, et al. Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis. Philosophical Transactions B. November, 2023. PJ, Stockholm University, Vanessa Weinberger, Center for Resilience, Adaptation and Mitigation, Chile and Timothy Waring, University of Maine introduce and scope out a dedicated Evolution and Sustainability: Gathering the Strands for an Anthropocene Synthesis issue with 19 papers across PAST - HOW DID THE ANTHROPOCENE EVOLVE?; PRESENT - EVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS OF THE ANTHROPOCENE and FUTURE - ANTHROPOCENE TRANSITIONS AND EVOLVABILITY FOR SUSTAINABILITY sections. See also the editor’s own paper Evolution and Sustainability: Gathering the Strands for an Anthropocene Synthesis for more overview content. Here next are some select entries:

PART I: PAST - Agentic processes in cultural evolution: relevance to Anthropocene sustainability by Peter Richerson, et al and Spread of the cycles: a feedback perspective on the Anthropocene by Lenton, Timothy and Marten Scheffer, and Positive feedbacks in deep-time transitions of human populations by Mauricio Lima, et al.

PART II: PRESENT - Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability by Peter Jørgensen; Cities of the Anthropocene: urban sustainability in an eco-evolutionary perspective by Marina Alberti; and Continuities and discontinuities in the cultural evolution of global consciousness by Robert Zhang, et al.

PART III: FUTURE - Characteristic processes of human evolution caused the Anthropocene and may obstruct its global solutions by Timothy M. Waring, Zachary Wood and Eörs Szathmáry (see review); The Anthropocene condition: evolving through social–ecological transformations by Erle C. Ellis and a summary article Integrating evolutionary theory and social–ecological systems research to address the sustainability challenges of the Anthropocene by Thomas Currie, et al.

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How did human societies evolve to become a major force of global change? What dynamics can guide them toward global sustainability? This theme issue pulls together a variety of traditions, fields and options to address these questions. In this Introduction, we review and arrange the major strands of work on how the Anthropocene evolved, how evolutionary dynamics are influence sustainability efforts, and what principles, strategies and capacities will be important in the future. (Excerpt)

Kemp, Luke, et al. Climate Endgame: Exploiting Catastrophic Climate Change Scenarios. PNAS. 119/34, 2022. Eleven senior authorities from the UK, China, Germany, the USA, the Netherlands and Australia, such as Johan Rockstrom, Tim Lenton, Marten Scheffer, Hans Schellnhuber and Will Steffen, post a thoroughly researched, deeply insightful, and globally graphic alarm to date. While the USA just passed a major climate bill by a 51 to 50 vote, in late August this critical life support (kinder or cinder) peril competes with barbaric warlords, political egos, polar gridlock, nuclear superpowers, economic chaos, the litany goes on. Yet women, the visionary, life affirming, half of the universe (warriors and worriers) are brutalized by male governments. Our resource website ever tries to gather, document and offer practical resolutions such as (ubuntu) ecovillages.

Prudent risk management requires inclusion of bad-to-worst-case scenarios. Yet, for climate change, such perils are poorly understood. Could anthropogenic climate change result in worldwide societal collapse or even human extinction? If these issues can be cogently identified, an awareness could galvanize action, improve resilience, and inform emergency responses. Our agenda covers four main aspects: 1) Can climate extremes drive mass extinction events? 2) Could a further consequence be human mass mortality and morbidity? 3) How vulnerable are human societies' to risk cascades, such as conflict, political instability, and financial collapse, 4) How can these many global dangers be phrased as “integrated catastrophe assessment” response? (Abstract excerpt)

Knoll, Andrew, et al, eds. Fundamentals of Geobiology. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. A literally landmark volume that represents another union of physical matter and proactive life. It also stands as a 21st century affirmation of the dynamic earth systems vision, especially from Vladimir Vernadsky and James Lovelock. Initial chapters review environmental effects of Global Carbon, Nitrogen, Sulfur, Iron, and Oxygen Cycles. Bacterial Biomineralization, Microbe Interfacial Chemistry, Plants and Animals as Geobiological Agents, and like contributions further document. And as if a Noosphere retrospective of how we came to arise, the Geobiology of the Archean (2.5–4 bya), Proterozoic (2.5bya-500mya), and Phanerozoic (500mya-now) Eons is next described. Of more interest are Geochemical Origins of Life (noted in that section) and Mineralogical Co-evolution of the Geosphere and Biosphere by Robert Hazen. A final chapter, Geobiology of the Anthropocene, looks at sudden, drastic impacts of human civilization, to which this earthly organic vista is seen to help find a viable remediation.

Geobiology is a scientific discipline in which the principles and tools of biology are applied to studies of the Earth. (1) In short, Earth surface processes once considered to be largely physical in nature – for example weathering and erosion – are now known to have key biological components. Life plays a critical role in the Earth system. (2)

Lewis, Simon and Mark Maslin. The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. University College London environmentalists track this accelerant Earthsphere phase as industrial technologies take over, unawares, at once to construct better habitats, which now trash land, sea and air. Our interest is a closing section A New Way of Life? for it alludes at this global apocalyptic or transfiguration moment, that only a whole scale, intentional, agreed reconception of our human abide in balanced harmony with natural ecologies can save and foster us.

Lorimer, Jamie. The Anthropo-scene: A Guide for the Perplexed. Social Studies of Science. Online October, 2016. We cite this paper by an Oxford University geographer for its survey of eclectic perceptions upon this global advent of a novel, humanzoic age. Five aspect are noted: Earth systems, intellectual zeitgeist, ideologies, new ontologies, and science fiction.

Miraldo, Andreia, et al. An Anthropocene Map of Genetic Diversity. Science. 353/1532, 2016. A team from Denmark, China, and England provide a global graphic to depict how this human age has come to impact and change the variety and distribution animal species.

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