The term “Anthropocene” was coined in the 1980’s, although it wasn’t until 2000 that Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer suggested that we are living in a new geological epoch marked by the impact of humans on the Earth and its inhabitants. Geological epochs are determined by profound and measurable changes in the rock layers and changes in the fossil record. For example, the end of the last ice age marks the beginning of the Holocene, in which we find an explosion of a new and different fossils and profound changes in the composition of rock layers. There is no question that since that time, humans have expanded their presence and increased their populations. During that time, we have hunted various species of animals to extinction, turned millions of acres of forests, wetlands, and plains into farmland. The burning of fossil fuels has altered our climate in drastic and perhaps irreversible ways. Many scientists and scholars have argued this is why we are in a new geologic epoch. 

There are, however, reasons to push against this label. Many scholars have pointed out that it is not all of humanity that has had this profound impact, but mostly the well off (mostly white) countries of the global north. Others have argued that the changes are due to capitalism and not human existence as such and have proposed we call it the “capitalocene.” This week, we’re rolling up our sleeves to dig into the sediment of the Anthropocene.

In this episode, we discuss the following thinkers/texts/ideas/etc.:

• The series Arctic Ascent with Alex Honnold
• Jonathan Glazer and his now famous Oscar speech
• The “golden spike” in geology and the changing of geologic epochs
• The animal origins of contagious diseases
• The “invisible gorilla” experiment
• The stegosaurus
• Jason Moore on anthropocene vs. capitalocene
• Karl Marx on the capitalist epoch
• Colonialism in Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (sections 246-48 and 267-69)
• Kohei Saito, Slow Down
• Accelerationism
• Davi Gunkel, “AI is Thirsty” (former guest on the podcast)
• Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, The Ends of the World
• The author Kim Stanley Robinson
• Scurvy and the gin and tonic
• The energy use of data centers

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