1 - Facing the Anthropocene

Summary

In recent years, Earth system scientists have acknowledged humanity’s Earth- and life-altering powers by calling our epoch the Anthropocene. This chapter explores the logic at work in this designation and argues that its roots go further back than the origins of industrialism and war capitalism in modernity (the Capitalocene). The essential and enduring issue is whether people can learn to live charitably within a world of limits. The origins of agriculture and the formation of city-states indicate what can be called a “thin Anthropocene” at work in the earliest civilizations evident around the globe. Examining this history, and the logic at work within it, enables us to see how people have thought about Earth and humanity’s place within it.