The Holocene, as depicted in Figure 1 below, is formally the current geological epoch and represents the previous ∼11,500 calendar years to present. During the Holocene, environmental change occurred naturally and Earth’s regulatory capacity maintained the conditions that enabled human development. Regular temperatures, freshwater availability and biogeochemical flows all stayed predominately in a narrow range. Now, in the primeval stages of the Anthropocene, human activities have reached Continue reading
Earth, Life, and Time: What is Natural?
Life on Earth has always altered its environment.1 “Deep” time records major shifts in atmospheric composition, for example, as life evolved photosynthesis, leading to a massive transfer of CO2 from the atmosphere to the biosphere. Given this, is the large-scale injection into the atmosphere of anthropogenically released carbon a completely natural consequence of biotic activity?
Atmospheric levels of CO2 have always changed, attributable in part to life — and well before the influence of humans. On geologic time scales such fluctuation results from Continue reading
A creation myth for the Anthropocene
Stephen’s post on Lynn White helped me focus on an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while: the need for a new creation myth suited to the Anthropocene.
White’s argument reminds us that creation myths derive their power from their status as fundamental texts within the religious tradition that underlies a society’s moral life; a key strategy for justifying a course of action is Continue reading
“Hidden order: How complexity builds adaptation”
CITATION:
Holland, John H. 1995. Hidden order: How complexity builds adaptation. Reading, MA: Helix Books, Addison-Wesley.
ABSTRACT:
Relatively high and often extreme levels of variability and unpredictability currently characterize the amplitudes of Continue reading
“Some Reflections on Heritage and Archaeology in the Anthropocene”
CITATION:
Solli, B., M. Burström, E. Domanska, M. Edgeworth, A. González-Ruibal, C. Holtorf, G. Lucas, T. Oestigaard, L. Smith and C. Witmore. 2011. Norwegian Archaeological Review. Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 40-88.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
Publisher’s site: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00293652.2011.572677
ABSTRACT:
Are we now living in a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene? Geo-scientists discuss whether there is Continue reading
“Why ‘Nature’ Has No Place in Environmental Philosophy”
CITATION:
Steven Vogel. 2011. In The Ideal of Nature: Debates About Biotechnology and the Environment, ed. Gregory E. Kaebnick, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
At Academia.edu: http://www.academia.edu/3134899/Why_Nature_Has_No_Place_in_Environmental_Philosophy
ABSTRACT:
Vogel holds it is essential to develop a “postnaturalist” environmental philosophy—an environmental philosophy after Continue reading
“Niche Construction”
CITATION:
F. John Odling-Smee, Kevin N. Laland, Marcus W. Feldman. 1996. The American Naturalist, Vol. 147, No. 4, pp. 641-648.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2463239
Laland Lab Niche Construction site publications page: https://nicheconstruction.com/resources/reading/
ABSTRACT:
Organisms, through their metabolism, their activities, and their choices, define, partly create, and partly destroy Continue reading
“The Historical Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis”
CITATION:
Lynn White, Jr. 1967. Science, Vol. 155, No. 3767, pp. 1203-7.
ON-LINE AVAILABILITY:
JSTOR Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.ou.edu/stable/1720120
ABSTRACT:
This article claims that the modern ecological crisis arose out of an ethic derived from Continue reading
Why “habitability?”
Environmentalism has plenty of buzzwords already–sustainability and resiliency come right to mind. Does it make sense to propose another? In a sense that is what we are doing by making habitability the focus of this blog. In this initial post I’d like to try to suggest why that theme is worth exploring—with the acknowledgment from the outset that its content is not well developed.
In a very obvious way discussions of the Anthropocene immediately raise the question of the future habitability of the planet. The Anthropocene idea was linked early to Continue reading
Inhabiting the Anthropocene 