Anthropocene

Does important work and hides important politics. Formally rejected as a geological classification in 2024, but its cultural and political life continues. Not all humans drove fossil-fuel industrialisation; not all are equally responsible for ecological breakdown. In philanthropic and policy contexts, it can function as a depoliticised substitute: saying 'Anthropocene challenges' is easier than saying 'the consequences of extractive capitalism.' Worth asking: whose 'humanity' does the 'anthropos' refer to?

In natural science, a stratigraphic proposal. In the humanities and social movements, a narrative device for urgency. Progressive critics worry it universalises blame while obscuring the specific actors, systems, and histories -- colonialism, fossil capital, industrial agriculture -- that drove planetary change.

The age of human impact