Forget jokes about crossing the road. New research identifies chickens as a vivid symbol of the transformation of the biosphere in our time
Metabolic rift
Archive | Anthropocene
New thinking needed
Why the Anthropocene is not ‘climate change’ — and why that matters
Climate is just one part of the Earth System. If we focus on that alone, we will misunderstand the complexity of the danger posed by unprecedented planetary change.
1.5 degrees
IPCC report puts global warming crisis in Anthropocene framework
Implicitly challenging the weak 2016 Paris Agreement, scientists say climate change is part of the broader global emergency and any responses must reflect that.
Review
Climate change in the Anthropocene: An unstoppable drive to Hothouse Earth?
Can the global climate be stabilized before runaway change creates conditions that are too hot for human civilization and deadly for most species?
Science
Studying the health impacts of global environmental change
Planetary Health, a new field of scientific research, focuses on the human health impacts of the growing disruption of Earth’s metabolic systems
Le Devoir
Uniting ecology and revolution: ‘Facing the Anthropocene’ featured in leading Québec newspaper
Le Devoir, the francophone newspaper of record in Canada, reviews new French translation of Facing the Anthropocene, and interviews its author, Ian Angus
Facing the Anthropocene
‘A contribution to a genuinely materialist ecology’
Éric Pineault’s preface to the French edition of Facing the Anthropocene: “Ian Angus offers a critique of capitalist modernity based on a vision of liberation shaped by the recognition of substantial and real ecological limits”
Book announcement
Face à l’anthropocène: Le capitalisme fossile et la crise du système terrestre
Facing the Anthropocene, by Ian Angus, will soon be available in French, published by Éditions Écosociété
Facing the Anthropocene
“An accessible and convincing case for ecosocialism”
“This necessary book details the full spectrum of environmental issues facing us today, demonstrates their scientific and political causes, and delivers a sobering warning”
reading, red and green
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, December 2017
Six new books on democratic eco-socialism, war and the environment, genes and intelligence, climate change and the Roman Empire, the little ice age in North America, and views of the Anthropocene
Biodiversity
Is mass extinction unimportant? (Updated)
A biology professor says the sixth mass extinction is no big deal because other species will evolve to fill in the gaps. History, ecology and ethics say he’s dead wrong.
Book review
Science & Society reviews Facing the Anthropocene
‘Required reading for people trying to understand not only how the Anthropocene arrived on the scene, but why left-leaning people everywhere need to understand it’
Book Review
In the Anthropocene, environmentalists must join wider battles
In ‘Facing the Anthropocene’ Ian Angus shows that the earth system crisis originated in specific developments in late capitalism arising out of WWII. He also tells us who our enemies are.
Reading from green to red
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, August 2017
Six new books on climate change and neoliberalism, movement strategy, surviving the Anthropocene, science and religion, Gaia, and energy security
Global crisis
Video: Ian Angus on the Anthropocene and ecosocialism
We now face the challenge of changing the world in the context of impending environmental disaster on a global scale. That’s reality in our time.
A planet transformed
New research shows irreversible changes in England in the Anthropocene
Scientists find irreversible changes that have no precedent in the 4.54 billion years of Earth history, caused by new human-made materials
Debating global change
Anthropocene scientists reply to critics
A comprehensive response to scientific objections to formally recognizing a new unit of geological time shows that the Anthropocene cannot be dismissed as a scientific fad
Book Review
An interesting but flawed take on the Anthropocene
Martin Empson says The Shock of the Anthropocene is a interesting account of the global environmental crisis, but it fails to offer to offer any alternative to the current system
Facing the Anthropocene
CO2, oceans, and atmosphere: a correction
Thanks to positive feedback from a geochemist reader, I can correct my description of the global carbon dioxide cycle.
Ecosocialist Notebook
I know I shouldn’t brag, but …
‘Facing the Anthropocene’ is now in its second printing, and Paul Burkett’s brilliant new article is is essential reading for everyone who is concerned about changing and saving the world.