The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature

By Will Steffen, P. Crutzen, J. McNeill. Ambio, 2007

2,904 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract We explore the development of the Anthropocene, the current epoch in which humans and our societies have become a global geophysical force. The Anthropocene began around 1800 with the onset of industrialization, the central feature of which was the enormous expansion in the use of fossil fuels. We use atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration as a single, simple indicator to track the progression of the Anthropocene. From a preindustrial value of 270–275 ppm, atmospheric carbon dioxide had risen to about 310 ppm by 1950. Since then the human enterprise has experienced a remarkable explosion, the Great Acceleration, with significant consequences for Earth System functioning. Atmospheric CO2 concentration has risen from 310 to 380 ppm since 1950, with about half of the total rise since the preindustrial era occurring in just the last 30 years. The Great Acceleration is reaching criticality. Whatever unfolds, the next few decades will surely be a tipping point in the evolution of the Anthropocene.

Subfields: Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e23bed8947f0ef70a93583081bdfd67d13bcca88

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Citations in the corpus

Sustainable development goals and inclusive development (2016, background): “A scalar perspective requires understanding and addressing the multi-level drivers of inequality, exclusion and vulnerability (see e.g. Laven 2010; Ros-Tonen et al. 2015).”
Assessing the degrowth discourse: A review and analysis of academic degrowth policy proposals (2017, background): “Humans have become a global geophysical force, leading humanity into the Anthropocene, an age of uncertain global changes caused by anthropogenic activities (Steffen et al., 2007).”
The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene (2016, background): “Proposals for marking the start of the Anthropocene have included (i) an “early Anthropocene” associated with the advent of agriculture, animal domestication, extensive deforestation, and gradual increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) andmethane (CH4) levels thousands of years ago (3, 4); (ii”
A socio‐metabolic transition towards sustainability? Challenges for another Great Transformation (2011, background): “On the contrary, it was a rapid transition that continues today and has enabled humankind for the first time to trigger processes of environmental change on a global scale, having lead to calling this era the Anthropocene (Steffen et al., 2007).”
Human Capital and Sustainability (2011, background): “The central role of human beings prompted Paul Crutzen to label the current period in the evolution of earth as the Anthropocene Epoch [14,15].”
The Anthropocene: From Global Change to Planetary Stewardship (2011, background): “…early agricultural activities may have had an appreciable effect on the functioning of the Earth System via an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration (Ruddiman 2003), but any increase was not enough to raise the CO2 concentration beyond the envelope of natural variability (Steffen et al. 2007).”
A Conceptual Framework for Range-Expanding Species that Track Human-Induced Environmental Change (2019, background): “From the late eighteenth century onward, the beginning of the industrial revolution led to an exponential increase of human population size, agricultural industrial activities and the release of pollutants and fertilizers into the environment, a trend that became particularly pronounced after World ”
A Theory of Transformative Agency in Linked Social-Ecological Systems (2013, background): “INTRODUCTION Humanity is facing major environmental challenges (Steffen et al. 2007).”