The Anthropocene is not about climate change

Books have been written about it that have won prizes. Our most prodigious scientific societies and journals tell us it’s already here. Journals are devoted to its signs and impacts. Leading scientists tell us with certainty it’s a fact. In popular culture it’s a given always associated with catastrophic climate change. Even poets have been marshalled to confront it and save the planet.

What is it? The Anthropocene of course – the first geological epoch in the history of planet’s 4.5 billion years that is influenced, even dominated, by humans. Even the Astronomer Royal proclaims, “We have entered the Anthropocene”. The US National Academy of Science says we have left stable Holocene conditions and are moving deeper into the Anthropocene, and a new framework is needed to restore and strengthen planetary resilience and justice.

But it’s not as simple as that. It exists, yet it doesn’t, and that is the problem. Officially it hasn’t been decided yet, but it might soon be.

The remote Crawford Lake in Canada has been chosen as the site to look for the official start of the Anthropocene. Scientists will look for plutonium isotopes from nuclear weapons fallout at the bottom of the lake. The International Commission on Stratigraphy – the body which oversees how we define the history of Earth – decides on the timing and very existence of geological epochs. They are still debating the proof for the Anthropocene and are looking for a marker in the fossil record which could demarcate it from the Holocene.

Many, especially the media, equate the Anthropocene with recent climate change. This focus on climate change is distorting, showing us that we are approaching the scientific case for the Anthropocene wrongly. Some scientists are unhappy about equating the discussion about whether we have entered the Anthropocene with fealty to anthropogenic climate change.

Older than we think

The start of a new epoch is often considered as a change in the deposited sequence of sedimentary rock when a group of animals largely disappears, allowing a new group to evolve, usually evidenced by fossils. By that definition, the Anthropocene began in Australia some 50,000 years ago with the demise of the large marsupials. Or perhaps it began some 11,000 years ago?

If we consider not geology but climate, a case could be made using glacial-interglacial cycles, in which case perhaps it began about 8000 years ago.

Focusing on climate change ignores the overwhelming evidence of Earth’s long-term anthropogenic transformation. This is bad for science and for the public understanding of science.

A precise date for the start of Anthropocene will bring a distorting and divisive narrative. It will divide humans into two groups; those born in the Holocene and those in the Anthropocene. In reality we are all Anthropocenians.