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Authors:Péter Szabó, Přemysl Bobek, Lydie Dudová, Radim Hédl Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. Grasslands above the timberline in European high mountains, such as the Alps, have been used as summer pasture for millennia, creating diverse ecosystems of high conservation value. However, the historical ecology of natural grasslands in middle mountains is much less known. We combined archival and palaeoecological sources to understand the management history of subalpine grasslands in the Hrubý Jeseník Mountains (Czechia) and evaluated the results in view of current nature conservation efforts. The analysis showed that people managed these grasslands for at least seven centuries in a highly dynamic system. Following the abandonment of management in the mid-20th century, this socioecological knowledge was lost and current nature conservation relies on non-intervention to protect areas seen as analogues to nordic tundra. While this is justified for some parts, the encroachment of shrubby vegetation in other parts signifies that the reintroduction of management based on historical parallels can be a valid approach in nature protection. Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-07-26T06:30:39Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196241266227
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Authors:Mauricio Lima Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. Our present world is the consequence of the size of the human population and its domination of the biosphere through the combustion of fossil fuels. Since ~1950, there has been a sudden increase in the rate of human global energy consumption, economic productivity, and population growth. This abrupt departure of the system dynamics has been defined as the “Great Acceleration.” The accelerated population and economic expansion during the past 70 years would have been impossible without using fossil fuels. However, no studies have made an explicit connection between human population dynamics on a global scale and historical changes in energy consumption growth rates, economic growth, and the energy return on investment of fossil fuels (EROI). In this study, I apply a simple population dynamic model of cooperation/competition to decipher the effects of changes in these factors on the dynamics of the human population during the period (1800–2020). Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-06-10T04:51:44Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196241255081
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Authors:Patrick Flamm, Daniel Lambach, Urs Schaefer-Rolffs, Claudia Stolle, Vitali Braun Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. Space debris is a major issue for space safety as any collision of a space object with even a small piece of debris can have catastrophic consequences. The most recent dramatic increase of the number of satellites in Earth’s orbit is clearly exacerbating the risks. In this context there is a growing norm of disposal of orbital debris through atmospheric re-entry: space debris is to ‘burn up harmlessly in the atmosphere’, in order to provide for a ‘clean space’. Unfortunately, there is very little data on the environmental impact of deorbiting on atmospheric chemistry and in-situ data collection is practically impossible. The few existing studies – our own modelling included – agree that while the current impact of deorbiting is likely negligible, the projected exponential growth of satellites in LEO could exacerbate the risks. In consequence, space sustainability may come at the expense of damaging the health of the middle and upper atmosphere, with potentially unforeseeable consequences. Against this backdrop, we argue that in order to manage LEO sustainably, we must overcome this – what we call – ‘atmosphere-blindness’: our limited understanding of space-Earth system links through orbital disposal practices and their atmospheric impacts. While there is growing environmental consciousness with regard to outer space, we need to acknowledge that space sustainability is embedded in a wider context of outer space geopolitics, where the benefits and risks of the space infrastructure are distributed highly unequally. In our view it is thus crucially important to undertake more interdisciplinary research on the issue of de-orbiting, as it is not merely a technical environmental problem to be fixed but also an inherently political matter of planetary scale environmental justice. Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-06-07T05:00:19Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196241255088
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Authors:Olivier Hamant Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. Unstoppable feedback loops and tipping points in socio-ecological systems are the main threats to sustainability. These behaviors have been extensively studied, notably to predict, and arguably deviate, dead-end trajectories. A core group of repeated and predictable patterns in all systems, called systems archetypes, has been identified. For instance, the archetype of escalation is made of two positive feedback loops fueling one another. Interestingly, none of the known archetypes provide sustainability: they all trigger endless amplification. In parallel, systems biologists have made considerable progress on the role of incoherent loops in molecular networks in the past 20 years. Such patterns in biological networks produce stability and a form of intrinsic autonomy for all functions, from circadian rhythm to immunity. Incoherence is the fuel of homeostasis of living systems. Here, I bridge both conclusions and propose that incoherence should be included in the list of systems archetypes, and considered as an operational way to buffer socio-ecological fluctuations. This proposition is supported by the well-known trade-off between robustness and efficiency: adaptability requires some degree of internal contradiction. This applies to both technical and social systems: incoherent strategies recognize and fuel the diversity of solutions; they are the essential, yet often ignored, components of cooperation. Building on these theoretical considerations and real-life examples, incoherence might offer a counterintuitive, but transformative, way out of the Great Acceleration, and possibly, an actionable lever for decision makers. Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-05-08T11:07:51Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196241249680
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Authors:Matthew Conte, Jennifer Bates Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. In delineating the Anthropocene, the Holocene is being redefined as the formative epoch of human development leading to the Anthropocene. This has led to a diversity of views of the Holocene and Holocene humanity in the Anthropocene, the extremes of which may be described as “Holocene utopianism” and “Holocene dystopianism.” The former views the Holocene as a solution to the predicament of the Anthropocene, as an idealized past of human activities and stable climate that must be aspired to. The latter perceives the Holocene and Holocene humanity as the root cause of the ills of the Anthropocene that must be avoided in the future. These views reflect a gross simplification of human activities and the environment of the Holocene. Human activity in the Holocene is characterized by diverse human behaviors that can be perceived as both destructive and sustaining to the earth’s ecological systems, and in many cases, emerged as a response to fluctuations in the Holocene climate. The Holocene does not provide an escape from the Anthropocene, as a solution or as a cautionary tale. Nonetheless, future human endeavors must necessarily draw from the diversity of human activities and systems of organization observed in the Holocene, but do so carefully. Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-04-12T10:35:31Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196241245650
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Authors:Nandita Biswas Mellamphy, Jacob Vangeest Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. What role do contemporary narratives and counter-narratives play in policy regarding the Anthropocene crisis' Given the centrality of the anthropos in the Anthropocene, what conditions might make possible a “post-anthropocentric” or “non-anthropocentric” narrative' Tracing the production of both dominant and counter-narratives, the struggle for narrative power centers the role of the anthropos in the Anthropocene. The standard narrative—“strong anthropocentrism”—maintains humanist assumptions relating to the “control” and “cultivation” of the non-human. In contrast, counter-narratives, from both alter-humanist eco-centric and post-humanist positions, attempt to de-center human-centrism toward more egalitarian responses to the Anthropocene. Despite these attempts at de-centering human spheres of influence, this article argues that these counter-narratives maintain a “weak anthropocentrism,” given their maintenance of human volition and intentionality. The production of “post-anthropocentric” or “non-anthropocentric” narratives of the Anthropocene crisis would require speculative moves beyond the human: toward human abolition and disconnection. Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-03-07T11:13:44Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196241237249
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Authors:Gregory Ferguson-Cradler Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. The transition to a zero-emissions world entails vast political economic restructuring. How resources are mobilized, what sorts of technological infrastructures are constructed, who funds, controls and has claim to profits from investments contributing to the green transition will shape political economies for generations to come. This article suggests that early 20th-century American institutionalism and subsequent legal institutionalist literatures provide a valuable resource for energy transitions scholars and other social scientists, activists, and policy-makers of the energy transition. The article summarizes some of the major lines of thought in classical and legal institutionalism and briefly outlines three areas in which they can inform thinking about political economies of the Anthropocene. First, these literatures are generative of creative thinking on how business activity is organized and help overcome reductionist public-private dichotomies. Second, the history of institutionalist and progressive thought in the New Deal-era runs parallel, in revealing ways, to thinking based on environmental, social and governmental (ESG) principles in the present. Lastly, the article discusses radical proposals for transformation of private property and investment in the thought of institutionalist Adolf Berle relevant to simultaneously addressing both climate and inequality crises. Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-03-07T11:05:05Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196241227641
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Authors:Benjamin Johnson Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. The striking influence humans are exerting on their environment will likely result in the stabilization of a new climatic equilibrium of the Anthropocene, possibly without historical precedent. Many conceivable outcomes would reshape the planet’s biodiversity. If the Earth-human interaction is to endure in its current state, which still shares characteristics with the Holocene, one necessary development is that humans close the various biogeochemical cycles (C, N, P, K, etc) they have fundamentally altered (i.g. Haber-Bosch). Many of the technologies required to close the chemical cycles, such as the emissions-free production of methanol from industrial exhaust, already exist. Historical examples show, however, that deployment of technology can lag behind innovation resulting in an implementation gap that hinders our ability to mitigate climate change. However, assuming we close this gap, biogeochemical cycles can act as a gage for a “successful” Anthropocene in which mitigation strategies stave off much of what will otherwise become widespread forced adaption to a new, possibly hostile climate. Closed chemical cycles supporting human consumption can be causally linked to human action and precisely marked in time; they will leave an indelible global stratigraphic record, namely in that human influence decreases. Such a development would be a sign that humans had achieved a managed, stable (or at least steady) state within acceptable planetary boundaries of the Earth-human system. This article focuses on closing the carbon cycle over the following decades and proposes, as a measure of progress, the flattening of the Suess effect, a well-known indicator of human impact. Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-02-14T04:49:25Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196231184777
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Authors:James Angus Fraser, Ariane Cosiaux, Gretchen Walters, Adeniyi Asiyanbi, Prince Osei-Wusu Adjei, Patrick Addo-Fordjour, James Fairhead, Paulin Kialo, Nestor Laurier Engone Obiang, Richard Oslisly Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. How natural and cultural forces shaping tropical forested landscapes are conceptualised is of vital importance to Anthropocene debates. We examine two concepts: disturbance and landscape domestication. From the perspective of disturbance, humans – whether ancient or modern – are a priori negative for tropical forests, outside of and alien to nature. From this view, the Anthropocene is a planetary scale aggregation of disturbance. A more just vision of tropical forests, accepting anthropogenic influence on biodiversity, would combine ‘disturbance’ with other concepts that capture human agency and intentionality. Landscape domestication proposes that humans can shape ecology and plant and animal population demographics, making the landscape more productive and congenial for humans, upgrading or degrading the biodiversity of tropical forests. Herein, forest peoples shape the Anthropocene itself through their ‘domestication’ of the forest. Yet this approach can overdetermine culture, ignoring non-human agency, whilst human impacts can be seen as the outcome of intentional modifications to increase landscape productivity, at worst a disavowed projection of ‘economic man’. Using the convivial scholarship framework of Nyamnjoh, we argue that these ideas give incomplete views of tropical forests in the Anthropocene and can be enriched by concepts derived from African worldviews with ‘relationality’ and ‘wholeness’ at their core. These are expressed in ohanife, deriving from Igbo language, ubuntu, from the Nguni language and ukama, a notion from Shona culture. Together these concepts evince an ‘eco-bio-communitarianism’ embracing humans, God, spirits, ancestors, animals and inanimate beings in a ‘community of beings’ irreducible to the culture-nature divide (moving beyond disturbance) and allowing for the agency and personhood of non-humans (moving beyond historical ecology). This is consonant with Indigenous Amazonian worldviews, such as that of Kopenawa. Approaching human-nature relations from Nyamnjoh’s idea of conviviality, we elaborate a less incomplete and more just perspective on the cultural and natural shaping of Anthropocene tropical forests. Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-02-01T12:05:30Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196231226307
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Authors:James Sedalia Peters Abstract: The Anthropocene Review, Ahead of Print. Relationships between nature and society are made manifest in the production of landscapes. Consequently, landscape changes indicate changes in the relationships between nature and society. Forged at regional scales over long periods of time, nature/society relationships, like natural and social systems, exhibit periods of equilibrium, stability, and incremental change that eventually give way to new periods of equilibrium, stability, and incremental change in which causal relationships have changed. The paper presents a landscape changebased, grounded theory periodization of the New England (USA) region’s Anthropocene history. Its intent is to provide temporal boundaries within which processes, events, records, and artifacts can be examined within shared socio-ecological frames of reference, a first step in the development of new socio-ecologically-based historical narratives. Locating the “inaugural moment” of New England’s Anthropocene epoch at the establishment of Plymouth Colony in 1620, the beginning of England’s colonialization of this forested North American region, the paper presents and interprets regularity analyses of population density, land-use/land cover, and other data related to landscape shaping processes, identifying socio-ecological regime shifts from the aboriginal Late Woodlands regime to the English Colonial regime and subsequent shifts to the American Industrial regime in 1830 and the American Post-Industrial regime in 1970 along with their nested, subsidiary regimes. Previous periodizations of the region’s history are discussed, and a narrative of the region’s Anthropocene history is outlined based on the paper’s periodization. It is observed that displacements of a socio-ecological regime serve as resources for the next regime, that ghosts of past regimes are present in today’s environmental challenges, but that socio-ecological regime shifts are difficult to forecast. Citation: The Anthropocene Review PubDate: 2024-01-13T11:28:48Z DOI: 10.1177/20530196231218484
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