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.
Biodiversity
Archive | Anthropocene
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.
Essential Debates
John Bellamy Foster answers five questions about Marxism and ecology
Can Marxism strengthen our understanding of ecological crises? The author of Marx’s Ecology replies to a critic on metabolic rift, sustainable human development, degrowth, population growth, and industrialism.
emissions crisis
Carbon dioxide levels now rising at record speed
CO2 growth rate sets new record in 2015-16. Increase in the past ten years is 100 to 200 times as fast as the increase that ended the last ice age
The Anthropocene Formula
The terrifying mathematics of the Anthropocene
For four billion years, one formula summarized global change. That has changed in just four decades, and if we don’t act quickly, human civilization may not survive.
Protecting business as usual
Another attack on Anthropocene science
A new conservative campaign aims to discredit efforts to define the new and dangerous stage of planetary history, by driving a wedge between social scientists and the Anthropocene Working Group.
Deadly devotion
Why capitalism is hopelessly addicted to fossil fuels
With Donald Trump in the White House the future for our climate looks bleak, but capitalism’s love affair with fossil energy runs much deeper than the desires and personalities of individual politicians.
Geology
The Age of Garbage
How will future geologists recognize the beginning of the Anthropocene in rock records? Quite possibly by an unprecedented accumulation of fossilized trash.
Book Review
Victor Wallis reviews ‘Facing the Anthropocene’
‘Ian Angus’s distinctive contribution is to underscore, with his geologically grounded perspective, the need to combine immediate measures of relief with a long-term agenda of transformation.’
Book Review
‘Anthropocene or Capitalocene?’ misses the point
The authors of this book have very little to say about the Anthropocene, the crisis of the Earth System, or the new global epoch, and most of what they do say is misleading or wrong.
Global change
Two more radical precursors of Anthropocene science
Long before the Anthropocene Working Group reported on the new epoch, Yrjö Haila and Richard Levins argued that global ecohistory entered a new stage sometime after World War II
Book Launch Events
Facing the Anthropocene: September book launch events
Mark your calendars: Ian Angus speaks on ‘Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System,’ at public meetings in Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa