Over the previous two centuries, the human race has proven itself a force of nature. So radical are the impacts that it only remains logical to state that we have moved out of the Holocene and into a new geological era; the Anthropocene.
We seem to relish in the notion that we are a force of nature, but deny the necessary responsibility that should go with it. We must face the fact that we are now the true custodians of the world around us and have great potential to both destroy and more interestingly produce. The sooner we acknowledge this, the greater our prosperity. The sooner we admit to our new role, the easier we can provide guidelines for something we can truly be proud to hand on to future generations.
The limited conversations desperately required and flat out rejection of all things unpleasant will only make us look foolish in the history books and that’s something many of us simply cannot accept.
Welcome to the New Anthropocene; the next step for the age of the human storm. Here is a collection of work for people ready to face our responsibly and discuss the often uncomfortable topics.
If you have any ideas, or wish to contribute, you can submit posts here.
Comment Policy
New Anthropocene encourages all thoughtful, stimulating debate about the topic material offered. What will not be tolerated will be off topic or misinformation. We certainty do not expect all reader to agree with all said and cherish valid criticism in the pursuit of approaching the new era with as much wisdom and forethought as possible.
While no comments will be blocked or moved under the alfoil hat as of 2013, I would hope readers can maintain the following guidelines.
newanthropocene.wordpress.com 
Nice to communicate with Way-Down-Underland — not to be confused with Down-Right-Under- Hand, the capital of Capitalism-Run-Amok. I’m up here in the U.S. state of Maryland. However, I use the words “up” and “down” in a relative sense. I used to pass the Embassy of Australia every day when I worked in Washington, DC and had a thought. I dashed off a note to then President (George Bush the First) suggesting he (as a nice gesture) could present the Aussie Embassy with a globe, but with the southern Hemisphere atop. This would put Renmark way up there in the eyes of the world — just a ‘short flight” from this spot to Antarctica for a moth that happened to land on the globe. I never got a reply from the White House. Perhaps G.H.W. Bush didn’t want to lose his upper berth — which he did to Bill Clinton, in 1992.
Now to the point. On Experimentation. The problem is not in the experimentation, in fact evolution is based on just that phenomena. Species and systems that work, that are efficient and resilient stay afloat, last for millions of years are —- so yesterday.
The problem is really big experiments that suck all the air out of the air — the too-big-to-fails. I live in a little rural pocket of Maryland about 30 miles southeast of Washington, DC, not too far from the Chesapeake Bay, an amazingly wonderful estuarine paradise under threat from over-development and mega-mono chicken and pig farms.
Lots of small organic farms are cropping up. So my neighbor, Jane, not a farmer, decided that the prominently located historic St. Thomas Church (Anglican) should in the parking lot have a Saturday farm market. I’m hoping it will succeed. It serves up veggies and good laughs, fresh gossip. (Not so much gospel). Will it succeed? I hope so. But what if it doesn’t? We’ll have to clean house instead and cry in our beer come Saturday. But will it bring down the economy? Perhaps a new one will spring up at a somewhat better location. Or perhaps a second try next summer, with time to get commitments from more farmers.
The last sentence underscores your point about learning and information. In nature it takes place through trial and error. If we use our (collective) intelligence and technology wisely (I don’t know how to underline the word wisely) we can accelerate our so far struggling attempts at resilience and wellbeing. We don’t have 3.something billion years ( or do we?)
Regards
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Oops, I detected a blooper in the second paragraph. The last sentence should read,
The problem is not in the experimentation, in fact evolution is based on just that phenomena. Species and systems that work, that are efficient and resilient stay afloat, last for millions of years are —- THOSE THAT DON’T — so yesterday.
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I couldn’t agree more.
I’m a big fan of the whole weekend farmers markets. I’ve just moved to the Adelaide hills for the sake of my fiancée’s career and I’ve found that almost every town in the Mt Lofty region has some sort of farmers market at least once a month. It’s a wonderful idea that can help to re-establish a sense of community which is fading and incredibly important to social health.
I’ve only just started on this aspect on my blog, but following on from my innovation series, I will be developing on a call for both higher density city regions and the return of productive land where low density exists.
One consequence of cheap and abundant energy is multiple examples of simplification of land use; massive mono-culture farms, sprawling suburbs with limited services, small and separated reserves that don’t allow species transfers etc.
The most appropriate way to increase sustainable practices is to return to multiple/mixed service land use. Part of this will require encouraging low density regions to use their land productively to re-establish corridors for species movements and at the least low-level backyard farming. I don’t think it matters if this is just a few chickens, a few fruit trees or the more labour-intensive vegetable garden – there just needs to be some productive value to low density regions. Done properly, it would without a doubt stimulate local economies, foster increased sense of community, teach younger generations a number of rewarding and beneficial lessons, and give communities greater connection to their land and awareness of impacts.
Cheers,
Tim
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A big Hello to both of you, Tim and Henry!
I very much enjoy your comments, and have subscribed to your blogs respectively.
I read the ten commandments of logic with glee and titillation, as I too have to wade through and swim against the great tide of irrationalities and fallacies encountered almost daily, even in such a ubiquitous and indispensable matter as quotation, which I have attempted to discuss exhaustively in a very long post at soundeagle.wordpress.com/2017/10/18/the-quotation-fallacy/
Should you decide to pay my said post a visit, I look forward to your feedback and your suggestions on what else I may also include in the post.
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Tim I presume you’ve seen this Kunstler video at some stage?
He has some useful things to say about designing spaces so that people want to be in them rather than just drive through or past them. Or is this one of your links that I didn’t click?
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Thanks for the head’s up 🙂
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Hi, nice to meet you !
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AGI announces the publication of ‘Dawn of the Anthropocene: Humanity’s Defining Moment’:
//www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-11/agi-aat112912.php
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Thanks Dave. A little while ago I found a group of papers studying the validity of this claim – which now form part of the 400+ papers. I wish we could become moral geo-egineers rather than remain myopic resource degraders (at the expense of fututre generations)
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