Anthropocene is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal answering questions about the nature, scale and extent of interactions between people and Earth processes and systems. The scope of the journal includes the significance of human activities in altering Earth's landscapes, oceans, the atmosphere, cryosphere, and ecosystems over a range of time and space scales - from global phenomena ... Anthropocene is a term that has been used to refer to the period of time during which humanity has become a planetary force of change.

Understanding the Context

It appears in scientific social discourse, especially with respect to accelerating geophysical and biochemical changes that characterize the 20th and 21st centuries on Earth. Originally a proposal for a new geological epoch following the Holocene, it was ... The word Anthropocene comes from the Greek terms for human ('anthropo') and new ('cene'), but its definition is controversial. It was coined in the 1980s, then popularised in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul J Crutzen and diatom researcher Eugene F Stoermer.

Key Insights

The duo suggested that we are living in a new geological epoch. It is widely accepted that our species, Homo sapiens, has had such a ... The Anthropocene describes a proposed new geological epoch shaped by human activity — here’s what it means and why scientists voted against making it official. The Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. The meaning of ANTHROPOCENE is the period of time during which human activities have had an environmental impact on the Earth regarded as constituting a distinct geological time interval.

Final Thoughts

How to use Anthropocene in a sentence.