Anthropocene Debate

Question 1

What is the Anthropocene?

Answer 1

A proposed geological epoch where humans have significantly altered Earth’s systems, especially climate, beyond Holocene variability

Question 2

What evidence supports early agriculture influencing climate?

Answer 2

CO2 increases from deforestation
Methane from rice farming / livestock, ~5,000 years ago

Question 3

What is the ‘Orbis Hypothesis’?

Answer 3

1610
A theory that forest regrowth in the Americas after Indigenous depopulation due to colonisation.
Because Indigenous people were not farming or managing the land
Caused a CO2 drop, leaving a geological marker in Antarctic Ice records, marking the start of the Anthropocene

Question 4

Why might 1492 be considered the start of the Anthropocene?

Answer 4

Due to European colonisation, mass deaths, land abandonment, global trade and resulting ecological changes

Question 5

What are other possible start points for the Anthropocene?

Answer 5

Early agriculture ~10,000 years ago
European colonisation ~1500
Industrial revolution ~1750
Great acceleration ~1945

Question 6

What marks the great acceleration in the Anthropocene timeline?

Answer 6

Post WWII surge in population, fossil fuel use, industrial agriculture and globalised trade

Question 7

What are the geological indicators used to date the Anthropocene?

Answer 7

Ice and sediment cores
Carbon isotopes
Extinction events

Question 8

Why do people argue the Anthropocene began with agriculture?

Answer 8

Agriculture caused large scale land use changes, early CO2 and methane emissions

Question 9

What impact did the Silk Road and early empires have on the Earth system?

Answer 9

Spread of crops, technology and trade networks that began shaping global food systems and ecological footprints

Question 10

How is the Anthropocene linked to global inequality?

Answer 10

Those who contributed the least (global south, indigenous communities) often face the worst effects, while the wealthiest emit the most

Question 11

Why do some resist using the term Anthropocene?

Answer 11

It generalises responsibility to ‘humanity’ without recognising that not all humans equally contributed to environmental damage
Whereas, Capitalocene argues capitalism and economic systems are the true root cause

Question 12

What role did technological innovations play in triggering the Anthropocene?

Answer 12

Tools like ploughing, irrigation, fossil fuelled machines
Enables exponential resource extraction and landscape transformation