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What does the Anthropocene Mean? (2024) Nature

Published Dec 02, 2024

Members of the Centre of Excellence for Anthropocene History have contributed to a newly published comment in the journal Nature on why the idea of the Anthropocene is so useful.

Members of the Centre of Excellence for Anthropocene History have contributed to a newly published comment in Nature on how the idea of the Anthropocene is useful across many disciplines, expert areas and in culture & the arts.

"Even without a formal geological definition, the idea of a major planetary transition dated to the mid-twentieth century remains useful across many disciplines."

Read the full Comment paper with co-signatories list (pdf 1.7 MB)

Online article (with alternate title): Jan Zalasiewicz, Julia Adeney Thomas, Colin N. Waters, Simon Turner & Martin J. Head (2024) The meaning of the Anthropocene: why it matters even without a formal geological definition, Nature 632, 980-984

Publications List

Academic Publications

What does the Anthropocene Mean? (2024)

Members of the Centre of Excellence for Anthropocene History have contributed to a newly published comment in the journal Nature on why the idea of the Anthropocene is so useful.

Read the full Comment paper with co-signatories list (pdf 1.7 MB)

Online article (with alternate title): Jan Zalasiewicz, Julia Adeney Thomas, Colin N. Waters, Simon Turner & Martin J. Head (2024) The meaning of the Anthropocene: why it matters even without a formal geological definition, Nature 632, 980-984

Laying Waste to the Deep: Parallel narratives of marine carbon dioxide removal and deep-seabed mining (2024)

Centre researcher Susanna Lidström has co-authored a piece in Nature's npj Ocean Sustainability journal that warns of potential dangers of "marine carbon dioxide removal" (mCDR), an idea some have proposed as a climate solution.

Lidström, S., Levin, L.A. & Seabrook, S. , Nature - npj Ocean Sustain 3, 36 (2024).

Computation, Data and AI in Anthropocene History (2024)

Center for Anthropocene History Co-director Adam Wickberg has co-authored an article on how Data and AI play a role in Anthropocene History, not least in efforts at monitoring and managing nature.

A. Wickberg and J. Gärdebo, " ," History & Technology, pp. 1-19, 2024.

2024 Wider-Audience Publications

In the financial sector the green hype is over. Can capitalism ever solve the climate crisis?

In an opinion article in Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet from Centre Co-Director Adam Wickberg writes about COP29 and the failures of the market to end fossil dependency: “there is, in other words, a big foundational problem in how capitalism will ever be able to solve the climate crisis”. He also discusses the new book by Andreas Malm & Wim Carton Overshoot: How the world surrendered to the climate crisis (Verso 2024)

Read the
full article here on Aftonbladet's website.

Policy Brief: Considerations for Deep-Sea Environmental Impact Research on Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal

Centre researcher Susanna Lidström is co author on a newly released policy brief on deep ocean carbon removal.

DOSI (2024) “ ”, Policy Brief, Deep-Ocean Stewardship Initiative.

The Jury is Still Out on the Question of the Anthropocene

Co-director Adam Wickberg has written a piece for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, discussing the recent decisons and debates around the Anthropocene as a geological time period, and the future of the Anthropocene concept.

A. Wickberg, " ," Dagens Nyheter, vol. 2024-04-13, 2024.