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This paper takes its departure from Cooper's paper 'The culture of information', written in 2006 but first published in this issue of ephemera. This is an exemplary text that calls out to current organization studies with passion and urgency, in part because it has no obvious evidence of commercial journal publishers over-zealous editorial or reviewer lobotomising. In this paper, we follow in unadulterated form a writing that invites its readers to experience what Cooper calls unformation which he shows shadows and subverts our attempts to order the world with information. We carefully trace the textual work of Cooper's paper and discover the work of a contemporary Hermes, a trickster who deploys secret meanings and erratic signs that demand something close to an apprenticeship in what we call here the cult of information. Via an 'ontological turn' he borrows from contemporary anthropology, we show how Cooper takes us to the brink of what is possible to think or say in organization studies, a point where originary thinking might begin again and in ways vital and responsive to the precarity of our existential condition in the epoch of the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One was the Planetary Boundaries framework, introduced by Johan Rockström and colleagues in 2009, which aims to provide a natural-science based framework for describing a Holocene-like state of the Earth System and the intrinsic boundaries of the Earth System that should not be transgressed if such a stable state is to be maintained (Rockström et al. [10]). Introducing the Anthropocene: The human epoch: This article belongs to Ambio's 50th Anniversary Collection. The other is the polycentric governance systems approach introduced by the late Elinor Ostrom ([9]), which, in the context of the S et al. paper, was proposed as a more appropriate governance system for the Anthropocene than the present governance systems that are driving us deeper towards a planetary crisis. The SCM paper foreshadowed the debate on the start date for the Anthropocene, which became prominent from 2009 with the formation then of the Anthropocene Working Group to explore the Anthropocene as a potential new interval in the Geologic Time Scale (AWG [1]). [Extracted from the article]

One key aspect of the Anthropocene is the inherent disparities between the Global North and the Global South. These differences manifest in the causes and impacts of pollution, climate change, and species extinctions, but are they also present in the ways we write about the Anthropocene? We examine 77 peer‐reviewed papers spanning 2009–2019 that explicitly feature conservation in an Anthropocene context. We compare these papers to a control group of papers that feature conservation but do not engage specifically with the Anthropocene literature. We found that both "Anthropocene" and "conservation" papers include a disproportionately large number of authors with affiliations in the Global North, despite half of the research taking place in the Global South. Moreover, this overrepresentation occurs regardless of author position or journal impact factor. We find that 84% of Anthropocene articles and 91% of conservation articles occurring in the Global North had a first author from the country of study, as opposed to only 55% of Anthropocene articles and 62% of conservation articles from the Global South. Studies occurring in the Global North almost always had at least one coauthor from the country of study (96% of Anthropocene articles and 97% of conservation articles). In contrast, only 81% of Anthropocene articles and 83% of conservation articles occurring in the Global South had any local coauthors. We used two text‐mining algorithms to characterize the authorship networks and topics occurring in Anthropocene and conservation papers. These analyses showed that while both groups are interdisciplinary, Anthropocene papers had more distributed authorship networks and greater linkages across topics, and therefore have a flatter "topic surface" than the conservation papers. Our work suggests that conservation research programs that are explicitly grounded in the Anthropocene as a theoretical framework are more likely to reach across disciplinary lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intense human pressures in the Anthropocene epoch are causing an alarming decline in marine coastal ecosystems and an unprecedented loss of biodiversity. This situation underscores the urgency of making ecological restoration a global priority to recover degraded ecosystems. Meadows of the endemic Mediterranean seagrass Posidonia oceanica have lost more than half of their original extent in the last century, necessitating immediate conservation and management measures, supported by active restoration interventions. This paper explores new opportunities and provides specific recommendations to enhance restoration as a fundamental strategy for reversing the decline of P. oceanica ecosystems in the Mediterranean Sea. When a return to a historical pristine reference condition may not be feasible in the short term or desirable given current environmental conditions and uncertainty, transplanting the tolerant and fast-growing seagrass species Cymodocea nodosa could facilitate natural recolonization. This would occur through secondary ecological succession, benefiting the sensitive and slow-growing species P. oceanica. Future global and local efforts should primarily focus on proactive management to prevent further alterations by planning appropriate conservation measures in a timely manner to mitigate and reverse global changes. As a secondary step, restoration programs can be implemented with a focus on 'target-oriented' rather than 'reference-oriented' conditions, aiming to establish ecosystems capable of sustaining the future rather than replicating the historical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive amounts of anthropogenic radiocaesium 137Cs that was released into the environment by the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant accident on March 2011 are widely known to have extensively migrated to Pacific oceanic sediment off of east Japan. Several recent reports have stated that the sedimentary 137 Cs is now stable with a remarkably heterogeneous distribution. The present study elucidates ocean dynamic processes causing this heterogeneous sedimentary 137Cs distribution in and around the shelf off Fukushima and adjacent prefectures. We performed a numerical simulation of oceanic 137Cs behaviour for about 10 months after the accident, using a comprehensive dynamic model involving advection-diffusion transport in seawater, adsorption and desorption to and from particulate matter, sedimentation and suspension on and from the bottom, and vertical diffusion transport in the sediment. A notable simulated result was that the sedimentary 137Cs significantly accumulated in a swath just offshore of the shelf break (along the 50-100m isobath) as in recent observations, although the seabed in the entire simulation domain was assumed to have ideal properties such as identical bulk density, uniform porosity, and aggregation of particles with a single grain diameter. This result indicated that the heterogeneous sedimentary 137Cs distribution was not necessarily a result of the spatial distribution of 137Cs sediment adsorptivity. The present simulation suggests that the shape of the swath is mainly associated with spatiotemporal variation between bottom shear stress in the shallow shelf (< 50m depths) and that offshore of the shelf break. In a large part of the shallow shelf, the simulation indicated that strong bottom friction suspending particulate matter from the seabed frequently occurred via a periodic spring tide about every 2 weeks and via occasional strong wind. The sedimentary 137Cs thereby could hardly stay on the surface of the seabed with the result that the simulated sedimentsurface 137Cs activity tended to decrease steadily for a long term after the initial 137Cs migration. By contrast, in the offshore region, neither the spring tide nor the strong wind caused bottom disturbance. Hence, the particulate matter incorporated with 137Cs, which was horizontally transported from the adjacent shallow shelf, readily settled and remained on the surface of the sediment just offshore of the shelf break. The present simulation also clearly demonstrated that the bottom disturbance influenced the sedimentary 137Cs distributions not only horizontally but also vertically. In particular, within a part of the near-shore off the nuclear power plant, the simulation indicated that large amounts of the sedimentary 137Cs were present in both upper and deeper sediments. As a result, total sedimentary 137Cs in the entire simulation domain (1.4×105 km²) at the end of 2011 was 3.2×1015 Bq, more than 10 times that in previous estimates using samples of upper sediments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human induced range expansions of invasive dreissenid bivalves are of great concern. However, the underlying biological processes are only poorly understood, partly due to the lack of information on natural expansion events. Here we use the extinct bivalve species Sinucongeria primiformis as a model organism for testing natural (i.e. non- Anthropocene) blooms of dreissenid species in a lacustrine system of Lake Pannon during the Tortonian (~ 10.5 Myr; Late Miocene). 600 samples from a consecutive core were evaluated for the relative abundance of this pavement-forming mollusc, which cover about 8 millennia of Late Miocene time with a decadal resolution. Our data indicate that the settlement by bivalves in the offshore environment was limited mainly by bottom water oxygenation, which follows predictable and repetitive patterns through time. These population fluctuations might be related to solar cycles: successful dreissenid settlement is re-occurring in a frequency known as the lower and upper Gleissberg cycles with a 50-80 and 90-120 yr period. These cycles appear to control regional wind patterns, which are directly linked to water mixing of the lake. This is modulated by the even more prominent 500 yr cycle, which seems to be the most important pacemaker for Lake Pannon hydrology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of information literacy (IL) research, the Anthropocene age offers an opportunity for researchers to explore to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the complexity of information literacy which result from rapid and complex social, political and economic change; to address the risk of societal fragmentation which is created by misinformation/disinformation; and to understand the risk to democratically encouraged information environments that will come with increasing incorporation of AI and opinion-driven social platforms into everyday life. For library practitioners who provide instruction or education, challenges exist in relation to scaffolding and encouraging sustainable, transferrable information and technological practices, not only in our own inward facing professional practice but in our outward facing practice with the myriad communities we support. Against this problematisation, this brief, but broad ranging paper aims to identify a range of questions for thinking about the practice of IL in the Anthropocenic age. No attempt is made to answer these questions, instead they act as an impetus for future researchers and practitioner researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What stories of religion matter in the age of the Anthropocene? This paper begins by situating the Abundance Crochet Coral Reef, an installation of crocheted coralline landscapes exhibited at the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town, as a methodological motif and enactment to think creatively about and with the study of religion in the Anthropocene. Journeying through the current trends in various fields in the study of religion that are responsive to Anthropocene concerns, I argue that there is a growing body of scholarly work that troubles the dualisms and hierarchies of humannature and nature-culture that have informed, and indeed, dominated, conceptualizations about religion and the study of religion. Finally, I turn to feminist theory to continue to in-tune religion storytelling (the study of religion) to the challenges of the Anthropocene. Drawing inspiration from the Abundance Crochet Coral Reef, I explore the concept of kinship to open creative vistas for methodological enrichment in the study of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical Zone Science (CZS) explores the deep evolution of landscapes from the base of the groundwater or the saprolite‐rock interface to the top of vegetation, the zone that supports all terrestrial life. Here we propose a framework for CZS to evolve further as a discipline, building on 1st generation CZOs in natural systems and 2nd generation CZOs in human‐modified systems, to incorporate human behaviour for more holistic understanding in a 3rd generation of CZOs. This concept was tested in the China‐UK CZO programme (2016–2020) that established four CZOs across China on different lithologies. Beyond conventional CZO insights into soil resources, biogeochemical cycling and hydrology across scales, surveys of farmers and local government officials led to insights into human‐environment interactions and key pressures affecting the socio‐economic livelihoods of local farmers. These learnings combined with the CZS data identified knowledge exchange (KE) opportunities to unravel diverse factors within the Land‐Water‐Food Nexus, that could directly improve local livelihoods and environmental conditions, such as reduction in fertilizer use, contributing toward Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and environmental policies. Through two‐way local KE, the local cultural context and socio‐economic considerations were more readily apparent alongside the environmental rationale for policy and local action to improve the sustainability of farming practices. Seeking solutions to understand and remediate CZ degradation caused by human‐decision making requires the co‐design of CZS that foregrounds human behavior and the opinions of those living in human modified CZOs. We show how a new transdisciplinary CZO approach for sustainable Earth futures can improve alignment of research with the practical needs of communities in stressed environments and their governments, supporting social‐ecological and planetary health research agendas and improving capacity to achieve SDGs. Plain Language Summary: Critical Zone Science (CZS) explores how landscapes evolve from below the Earth's surface to the top of trees, supporting life on Earth. CZS was established by studying pristine landscapes, with little or no human modification of the land, water and soil. These pristine natural systems are rare in our modern world. In this paper, we have proposed a new approach to CZS for studying the human‐modified landscapes that dominate our world. To help explain why this is needed, we have re‐drawn a diagram explaining how the critical zone works to show the role of humans. We also give examples of research in three regions of China where we learned from local farmers living in our study areas, to improve our scientific understanding and to try to align our research process to address the biggest pressures affecting their lives. This new approach to CZS can help focus research to directly support local people and improve our ability to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Key Points: Integrating local knowledge with critical zone science can improve interpretation of scientific findings and delivery of Sustainable Development GoalsThird generation science can improve alignment of research with the practical needs of communities and governmentsA new conceptual diagram for human‐modified critical zones is produced to illustrate transdisciplinary Critical Zone Observatories for sustainable Earth futures [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine from a philosophical perspective the relationship between nature and property (whether public, private or communal). The way our fossil-based societies inhabit the world clashes with the biophysical limits of the planet, which has led to the current socioecological crisis. Against this background, it is essential to rethink some classic problems also in the field of humanities. First, we outline the notion of nature as biosphere. Second, we identify some milestones in the discussion on common goods in the Western tradition. Finally, we review different approaches to the ownership of natural resources or goods (understood as the basis for human life) and highlight the importance of treating them as commons--especially in the context of the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human society, as an integral part of the environment, is subject to the consequences of the various specific natural phenomena and processes. Similarly, human intervention exerts its own impact on the environment, the influences being reciprocal. In the Anthropocene, the current geological period of Earth's existence, some phenomena, through their way of manifestation, can produce dramatic changes in certain environments, consequently being categorized as dangerous by humans. In the temperate zone, these include: earthquakes, landslides, large-scale storms, floods, prolonged droughts, fires, pollution, epidemics, etc., with various causes, from natural to anthropogenic or mixed. In the context of the increasingly significant phenomena related to climate change, the concerns in the field of the cultural landscape were naturally joined by those related to the study of the impact of various risks within it. As a research area, the surface of the city of Ocna Mureș, closely linked to the middle course of the Mureș River, lends itself to the investigation of the impact of these types of risks connected with the evolution of the local cultural landscape. Numerous floods have occurred over time causing immense damage to the city and, at the same time, brought substantial changes to the elements of the environment and the cultural landscape as a whole. The perpetual decline of the local economy, especially of the mining and processing industry, starting from the 1990s until recently, can facilitate the emergence of the opportunity for tourism capitalization of the cultural landscape, marked to a large extent by the existence of the salt resource; all this in accordance with the principles of sustainable development and careful management of potential environmental risks. These basic aspects regarding the risk of floods and the opportunity for the tourism exploitation of the local cultural landscape, stated previously, shall be analysed, argued and highlighted in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social construction of the agri-food market has undergone revolutionary changes throughout history since the Anthropocene. This conceptual paper discusses the embeddedness of institutions in this market construction. To do so, this work analyses the geographical indication (GI) of agri-food market formation through the lens of critical theory. Through dialectics, it analyzes the historical process of agrarian systems' shape according to their complexity, and the origins and effects of hegemonic interests in the construction of agri-food markets. Furthermore, this work shows how the market has evolved from different trade types as the capitalist system also evolved, changing the mechanics of trade and functions of food production. The results indicate that as agrarian systems evolved, food became more homogeneous and standardized in order to meet the demands of urban masses in capitalist economies. Regions where less complex systems predominate tend to hinder the creation, maintenance, and perpetuation of products such as GI, which may compromise their existence in the long run. Moreover, nations reproduce ideologically oriented interests according to the formation of dominant groups in each place, as also expressed in the agri-food market. This paper aims to provide new conceptual and theoretical insights into the institutional mechanisms and historical processes of agri-food market construction in terms of power interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper considers whether the twenty-first-century resurgence of H. P. Lovecraft and weird fiction can be read as a conceptual parallel to the Anthropocene epoch, taking Carl H. Sederholm and Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock's The Age of Lovecraft as a starting-point. The assumption is that the two 'ages' are historically and thematically linked through the 'monsters' that inhabit them; monsters that include-- but are not limited to--extensions, reproductions, and evolutions of Lovecraft's writings. Preoccupied with environmental issues such as global climate change, the twenty-first-century imaginary has conjured monsters that appear to have much in common with early twentieth-century cosmic horror stories. Considering the renewed interest in Lovecraft and the weird, such developments raise the question: what can (weird) monsters tell us about the Anthropocene moment? This paper maps the 'monstrous' in the discourses emerging from the Anthropocene epoch and 'The Age of Lovecraft' by considering (new) weird narratives from contemporary literature, graphic novels, film, TV, and video games. Mindful of on-going discussions within ecocriticism, philosophy, and critical theory, the paper discusses a handful of unconventional texts to investigate the potential of the weird for expressing Anthropocene anxieties and for approaching nonhuman realities from new angles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current and continuing climate change in the Anthropocene epoch requires sustainable agricultural practices. Additionally, due to changing consumer preferences, organic approaches to cultivation are gaining popularity. The global market for organic grapes, grape products, and wine is growing. Biostimulant and biocontrol products are often applied in organic vineyards and can reduce the synthetic fertilizer, pesticide, and fungicide requirements of a vineyard. Plant growth promotion following application is also observed under a variety of challenging conditions associated with global warming. This paper reviews different groups of biostimulants and their effects on viticulture, including microorganisms, protein hydrolysates, humic acids, pyrogenic materials, and seaweed extracts. Of special interest are biostimulants with utility in protecting plants against the effects of climate change, including drought and heat stress. While many beneficial effects have been reported following the application of these materials, most studies lack a mechanistic explanation, and important parameters are often undefined (e.g., soil characteristics and nutrient availability). We recommend an increased study of the underlying mechanisms of these products to enable the selection of proper biostimulants, application methods, and dosage in viticulture. A detailed understanding of processes dictating beneficial effects in vineyards following application may allow for biostimulants with increased efficacy, uptake, and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human activity is affecting and transforming the natural environment, changing the ecosystem mosaic and natural biogeochemical processes in urban-industrial landscapes. Among the anthropogenic ecosystems, there are many present features of Novel Ecosystems (NE), e.g., the de novo created habitats on post-mineral excavation sites. The biological nature of the functional mechanisms of Novel Ecosystems is mostly unknown. In natural and semi-natural ecosystems, biodiversity is considered as the primary element influencing ecosystem processes and functioning. The preliminary studies conducted on post-mineral excavation sites have shown that, in poor oligotrophic habitats, the species composition of the assembled vascular plants is non-analogous, distinctive, and not found in natural and semi-natural habitats. This paper aims to present the gaps between scientific identification of the biological mechanisms driving ecosystem processes and functioning (including the expanding areas of Novel Ecosystems created de novo). Among the identified gaps, the following issues should be listed. The detailed identification and understanding of the processes and biodiversity-dependent functioning of Novel Ecosystems is crucial for proper environmental management, particularly when facing the challenges of ecological constraints and of global change. The ecology of Novel Ecosystems is a social and economic issue because of the relationships with densely populated urban-industrial areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Anthropocene is a multifaceted phenomenon. One aspect that is often overlooked is that it constitutes a heritage. Heritage is itself a complex notion that manifests in different ways depending on subjective and/or ideological positions taken towards it. The picture is further complicated if we attempt to take non-, pre- or post-human perspectives into account. This paper attempts to unravel various aspects of Anthropocene heritage through a case study of a small area of Sydney's inner harbour. The area concerned is one explored and experienced on a daily basis by the author as a resident engaged in auto-ethnographic contemplation of the locale and aware of the contradictions of living in such an urban space whilst advocating and campaigning for various Green concerns. The paper thereby addresses the entanglement of human and nonhuman, urban and ecological ways of living, and various senses and perceptions of space in a particular terrestrial/marine interzone. More particularly, it examines the manner in which mangroves are an active agent and key marker of space within this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the long-term development of human geography we can observe a tendency to combine ideas from an intradisciplinary debate and those imported from outside the discipline. It is profoundly influenced by a number of impulses from the rapidly changing world. This paper provides a brief survey of challenges for human geography setting them within the context of paradigmatic development and economic, social, cultural, environmental, political, and technological changes. It briefly focuses on the debates of human geographers what their discipline could or should study in the near future and how it could be done. Part of the paper is devoted to a few reflections of authors from the Visegrad Four countries concentrating attention to further direction of human geography. Human geography is unlikely to be characterised by a mono-paradigm dominance in the next few decades, but a discussion on how to find a common base for the integration of paradigms in geography is likely to continue. Changing hierarchical structures, significant modernization processes, as well as local, regional and global changes influencing space-time behavioural patterns of humans can be expected among the main sources of inspiration for the human geographic research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to contribute to the debate on the origins of Anthropocene, this paper analyzes the transformations of the Basin-Valley of Mexico during the 16th and 17th centuries as an early instance of the changes produced in the Anthropocene period. More specifically, this case is studied as an example of the impact of the Iberian colonization of the Americas on local environments by focusing on the geohydrological alterations caused by natural and cultural innovations introduced by the Europeans into the basin. It shows how the confrontation between different ways of living and understanding the city, the lakes, and their relationship originated different proposals for water management. Transforming the basin into a valley was close to geological process rather than a mere outcome of political decisions; therefore, this occurred much slowly than the urban elites intended. While this was a problem for the city, it allowed the indigenous way of life, linked to the lakes, to persist and continue for a longer period of time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes use of feminist posthumanism to outline how a range of heritage policies, practices and strategies, partly through their base in social constructivism have a clear anthropocentric focus. Not only do they risk downplaying materiality, but also a number of human and non-human others, driving a wedge between nature and culture. This may in turn be an obstacle for the use of heritage in sustainable development as it deals with range of naturalized others as if they have no agency and leaves the stage open for appropriation and exploitation. This paper probes into what heritage could be in the wake of current climate and environmental challenges if approached differently. It explores how a selection of feminist posthumanisms challenge the distinction between nature:culture in a way that could shift the approach to sustainability in heritage making from a negative to an affirmative framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nature's imagination has been conceived in an allegorical or humanist fashion. This paper argues for a natural imagination in actuality as a radical counterpoint to status-quo concepts of sustainability. The self-hood of non-human beings and the necessity of connection in the natural world are addressed and related to a philosophy of becoming. This paper insists on a material semiotics constituted through the willful aspect and imaginative capacity of all life forms. Maintaining the primacy of relationship, terra-consciousness may provide an imaginative antidote to our all-too-human alienation from non-human entanglement in the Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the implications of global emissions budget distribution between three large geographical areas (China, OECD countries, and the rest of the world) in the context of Anthropocene and the structural crisis of the capitalist world system. Two plausible emissions distribution principles are considered. Under neither the inertia principle nor the equity principle, can continuing economic growth be made compatible with requirements of climate stabilization in all three regions. This conclusion does not change significantly when plausible acceleration of emissions intensity reduction in the future is taken into account. To limit global warming to not more than 2 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, at least two of the three large regions need to reorganize their economies to operate with zero or negative growth. Such a reorganization cannot be achieved under a capitalist economic system given the inherent tendency of capitalism towards endless accumulation. Neither is it likely to be achieved under any conceivable economic system dominated by market relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including praxis innovations in the Anthropocene, ecosystem approaches to health and well being, and practice of systemic change for acknowledging social complexity in project management.

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Environmental Education is the property of Canadian Journal of Environmental Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Catalana de Dret Ambiental is the property of Universitat Rovira I Virgili and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Current debate on the status and character of the Anthropocene is focussed on whether this interval of geological time should be designated as a formal unit of epoch/series rank in the International Chronostratigraphic Chart/Geological Time Scale, or whether it is more appropriate for it to be considered as an informal 'event' comparable in significance with other major transformative events in deeper geological time. The case for formalizing the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphical unit with a base at approximately 1950 CE is being developed by the Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy. Here we outline the alternative position and explain why the time‐transgressive nature of human impact on global environmental systems that is reflected in the recent stratigraphical record means that the Anthropocene is better seen not as a series/epoch with a fixed lower boundary, but rather as an unfolding, transforming and intensifying geological event. The case for formalising the Anthropocene as a chronostratigraphic unit with a base at approximately 1950 CE is being developed by the Anthropocene Working Group of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy. Here we outline the alternative position and explain why the time‐transgressive nature of human impact on global environmental systems is more accurately reflected by defining the Anthropocene as a continuing event, with no fixed basal boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the "Anthroposcenic", this paper explores how landscape becomes emblematic of processes deemed to mark an Anthropocene epoch, beginning with a detailed discussion of Simon Roberts' photography of Somerset floods. The Anthropocene, whereby the human species is held to have made a distinctive mark on the geological record, has received extensive scientific and public commentary, and the Anthroposcenic indicates a potential point of correspondence with landscapes, both real and representational. The paper discusses the temporality of the Anthropocene, and forms of image work carried out around it. The paper then examines various forms of contemporary Anthroposcenic landscape imagery concerned with coastal erosion. Recent years have seen a proliferation of coastal art practice, with the meeting point of land and sea being an apt site for reflection on the Anthropocene and climate change. The paper also discusses imagery evoking undersea lost lands, including the North Sea's former "Doggerland". The paper sets current art practice alongside the imagery of scientific research, and within a genealogy of narratives of coastal change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tlingit and Tagish First Nation peoples of the circumpolar north celebrate a rich, sophisticated, 9,000 year old storytelling culture. The Tlingit and Tagish consider themselves "part of the land, part of the water," within which is the recognition and respect for the sentience of glaciers, rivers, lakes, trees, salmon and other animals. This paper focuses on glaciers within the context of the Anthropocene and other colonial terracentric histories maintained by the dominant mono-cultural imaginary. How might thinking with glaciers, powerful agents in the forging of human and more-than-human identities, work to address new types of climate change realities? Looking at decolonizing realities through place-name and counter-mapping work with Carcross/Tagish First Nation, we showcase and question the rhetoric of the Anthropocene. We suggest that the "slow activism" and "narrative ecologies" embedded within Tlingit and Tagish glacial narratives have the ability to disrupt increasingly entrenched notions and narrow definitions of the Anthropocene(s) that continue to reproduce this mono-cultural imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the turn of the millennium, the humanities have been progressively forced to come to terms with the materiality of a warming world, in particular the entanglement of natural environments with technical infrastructures that lies at the heart of anthropogenic environmental change, and its implications for the hithertofore seemingly impenetrable ontological wall of separation between natural and human history. In an effort to address the concomitant insufficiency of remaining solely at the discursive level, some scholars have sought to reorient the interpretative concerns of the humanities by submerging the modern subject into geological registers of deep time. This paper cautions that along with such a reorientation, any sense of a limit - such as a horizon of understanding belonging to human history - recedes into the modal void of deep time, with the unfortunate side effect that questions of human agency and responsibility have a tendency to get lost in the more-than-human networks of the earth's geophysical forces. This is ironic, given that the purported novelty of the so-called 'Anthropocene' condition is to highlight the anthropogenic dimension of global environmental change, and thus the deep time consequences of human action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unpredictable Anthropocene poses the challenge of imagining a radically different, equitable and sustainable world. Looking 100 years ahead is not easy, and especially as millennials, it appears quite bleak. This paper is the outcome of a visioning exercise carried out in a 2-day workshop, attended by 33 young early career professionals under the auspices of IPBES. The process used Nature Futures Framework in an adapted visioning method from the Seeds of Good Anthropocene project. Four groups envisioned more desirable future worlds; where humanity has organised itself, the economy, politics and technology, to achieve improved nature-human well-being. The four visions had differing conceptualisations of this future. However, there were interesting commonalities in their leverage points for transformative change, including an emphasis on community, fundamentally different economic systems based on sharing and technological solutions to foster sustainability and human-nature connectedness. Debates included questioning the possibility of maintaining local biocultural diversity with increased connectivity globally and the prominence of technology for sustainability outcomes. These visions are the first step towards a wider galvanisation of youth visions for a brighter future, which is often missing in the arena where it can be taken seriously, to trigger more transformative pathways towards meeting global goals [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I develop three models for understanding plastic in the Plasticene epoch through readings of Arendt, Barthes, and Massumi. In the Ardentian model, plastic is made intransitive. It is withdrawn so far into the background of human experience as that which enables social and individual life of humans that it becomes the unthinkable. It can be argued that it is pushed to the background and made intransitive because of a certain image of the human and cyclical image of nature. The second model is Barthesian, and in it plastic becomes a signifying matter understood through a semiotic model. Plastic and products of plastic become signifiers in the ideological work of discourse. In the Massumian model, plastic is affective; it is a relational body in the process of becoming, simultaneously intensive and multiple in its eventfulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A product of Modernity, utopian and dystopian thought has always hinged upon an assessment as to whether humanity would be able to fulfil the promise of socio-economic, political and techno-scientific progress. In this paper, I argue that the predominantly dystopian outlook of the past century or so marked a move away from former views on human progress. Rather than commenting on humanity's inability to build a better society, current dystopianism betrays the view that the human species as such is an impediment to harmonious life on Earth. I discuss the shift from utopia to dystopia (and back) as a result of regarding humans as a force that does more harm than good, and I consider the possibility of human extinction within the framework of dystopian and utopian visions. The final section of the chapter turns to Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy as a fictional example that plays out the prospect of a world in which humans have all but become extinct. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artists and scholars alike are turning to plants as key allies in our attempts to go beyond colonial modes of engaging with the environment through extraction, control, categorization and the human-centric discourse of Anthropocene thinking. This paper will adopt the methods of "critical plant thinking" and "multispecies ethnography" to investigate creative modes of telling "lively stories" about two particular species of plants made nomadic during colonial seed scattering - Bitou Bush (Chrysanthemoides monilifera) and Aloe (Aloe ferox). Both plants moved through botanical/colonial conquest from South Africa to Australia for ornamental reasons, yet have become a vilified weed and economically promising respectively. Turning to embodied and humble practices of composting, foraging, crafting and care, this article feels through recent practices of tactical and food based art, combining theory with ethnographic narrative that details the making of actual jam with two plant protagonists. Developing the concepts of "multispecies jamming" and "DIY violence," this paper grapples with the presumption that difference translates to ontological separation, and ultimately asks for a valuing of plants beyond human use, opening ourselves up to embodied, vulnerable ways of ingesting stories and cross species relationships. How do practices of grounded care intersect with violence in ways that may develop tools and methods to compost the Anthropocene with plants front of mind? How might this help us to unseal ourselves from complexity and separation in times of mass extinction and destruction? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short paper introduces the special section of three articles under the general heading of 'Civilisation and the Construction of the Human Niche', organised by the 'Domestication, Niche Construction and the Anthropocene' research network at the UCL Institute of Archaeology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers how some well-documented deficiencies of mental models make it difficult to create effective policies, and suggests that systems modelling can begin to address this issue. To illustrate the argument, three short cases are presented. These relate to specific domains but demonstrate how systems modelling can illuminate different general phenomena: effects on labour costs (unintended consequences and feedback), fishery management (accumulation and non-linearity) and child protection (worldviews and sense-making). Six levers for increasing the use of systems modelling in the policy arena are then discussed. The paper closes by emphasising the opportunities for systems modellers in the Anthropocene Era. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World-systems scholars are increasingly engaged in issues at the intersection of ecological and economic concerns since the proliferation of debates on the Anthropocene. Recently, the alternative concept of Capitalocene--age of Capital--has emerged to draw attention to the world-ecological disruption of capitalism founded on cheap nature appropriation at ever-emerging extraction zones. This paper extends these discussions to the oceanic frontier, as the latest trend in the abstraction of value from the environment. Based on original archival research conducted in the context of a larger ethnographic project on the politics of industrial desalination--creating potable water from the sea--the article analyzes how this practice emerged in two phases. First, the Cold War opened the ocean as a commodity frontier during the pax Americana. Then, when this technopolitical agenda stagnated, financialization techniques were deployed to appropriate seawater, utilizing a mode of financial engineering--desalination via financialization reinstates the cultural hegemony of the Capitalocene that privileges infrastructure for water supply management solutions. As such, the article highlights the co-production of nature with financial capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the epoch of the Anthropocene change, complexity, and uncertainty create a demand for new systems of water management and governance. One such management model that is rapidly gaining traction amongst both scholars and practitioners is the concept of water resilience. Although increasing attention has been paid to the overarching theoretical and applied issues surrounding water resilience, few have examined individual attitudes and perceptions towards this concept. In this paper, we examine to what extent individuals endorse – that is, agree with and see the importance of using - social-ecological resilience as a framework for management and governance of water resources. We approach the problem and promise of water governance in this way because individuals' mindsets (and shifts in mindsets) offers one of the most effective leverage points for larger system change. To explore water resilience endorsement, we developed a scale (i.e., a water resilience scale) that was designed to capture individual endorsement of each of the seven principles of social-ecological water resilience. Three additional sets of questionnaires were also used to examine whether individual characteristics (i.e., demographics, psychological factors, and environmental attitudes) predict water resilience endorsement. Overall, there was considerable societal endorsement of water resilience. However, the degree to which individuals endorsed the concept of water resilience differed as a function of demographics, psychological characteristics, and attitudes toward the environment. Future research should examine the nuances of endorsement and consider targeted approaches to influence endorsement levels by using the predictor variables as a basis for engaging and shifting mindsets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Design is low on theory of transformation, which becomes problematic as the practices and outputs of design need to contribute to a culture of planetary adaptation for sustainability. In fact, design itself needs to be (re)designed to enact culture change. To make these shifts, design research can learn from cultural theory that positions culture as evolving and performative. Adopting these ideas helps to reveal the designed-therefore-designable nature of the world, which is a necessary prelude to mobilizing publics. The paper concludes with participatory collaborative thought experiments, influenced by cultural theory, that offer directions for changing design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his lifetime, Gilbert Simondon was known as a philosopher of technical objects. After 1989, interest in his metaphysical work grew, leading to a study of its ontogenetic, psychosocial and ethical-political implications. Yet these two takes are not exclusive: Simondon's philosophy of technics is also an ethics and contains the seeds of a politics, which unfolds into proposals with pedagogical and formative import. This paper describes and examines Simondon's ethical and pedagogical concerns through his concepts of "technicity", "technical mentality", "technology" and "encyclopedism". The paper explores the question of how Simondon's contributions can help to shed light over contemporary problems that have technical, pedagogical, ethical and political significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is an undeniable fact that human beings have made an unalterable impact on earth in this era and hence the present era has come to be called as the Anthropocene era. The expectation is that literature which reflects life should also project man's negative impact on the environment. Environmental literature and by extension ecocriticism have dealt with man's relationship with ecological systems. However, ecocriticism has not managed to occupy the top rungs of the literary canon. The first part of this paper analyses the possible reasons for the relegation of ecocriticism and also gives an overview of the seminal texts published by eminent critics with an aim to bring ecocriticism to the forefront. The second part of the paper throws light on climate change fiction, the role it could play in spreading awareness about global warming. The advantages and disadvantages with which climate change fiction claims its place in mainstream fiction genre are pointed out. The fact that the climate change novelist travels the extra mile to make the story believable and real is underscored. The final part of the paper gives an outline of Barbara Kingsolver's novel Flight Behaviour as an illustration of how the author creates awareness about extinction of butterflies due to climate change by superimposing her story on a realist and mundane backdrop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oxbows, once an abundant and natural feature of the landscape, have been nearly eliminated due to the effects of the Anthropocene, consequently impacting water quality, flood storage capacity, and the wildlife that depend on this habitat. These depressional basins within floodplains naturally accumulate sediment over time, but the sedimentation rate of oxbows over the last 100 years has greatly increased. The primary sources of sediment are from human activity, including erosion from agricultural fields and urban developments, drainage alterations, precipitation changes associated with climate change, and disconnection from their rivers and natural river hydraulics. Outlined in this manuscript is a step-by-step guide for restoring oxbows, based on 20 years of experience and lessons learned implementing oxbow restorations in Iowa on first-, second-, and third-order streams. Our goal is to provide conservation services providers and others interested in restoring degraded oxbows with the tools and expertise to confidently restore oxbows to achieve conservation goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper details and discusses Material Journey (2018), an art project by the author that was exhibited at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland (UK) from 9 June to 2 September 2018. This research project sought to interrogate the material impact of one art project made of glass by carefully considering the different stages of making—from design to production to the exhibition phase. The carbon footprint of an energy intensive material such as glass is often considered anathema to sustainable making practices in the field of applied arts. Whilst this paper makes the case that the material impact of individual art practices is negligible in the global context of carbon footprints, it nevertheless argues that the craft of 'making' has a critical role to play in the Anthropocene. Critically, this project is one of the first art projects in glass that critically examines the carbon footprint of a material practice. It is argued that this conversation is long overdue but makes the case that the tools for understanding and calculating the carbon footprint of a material practice are currently lacking and need more development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper offers a new model of politics adequate for the Anthropocene epoch. It uses the concept of 'heterotopia' to argue for the environmental potential of Arendtian political philosophy. The adopted meaning of heterotopia combines its Foucauldian (as interpreted by L. De Cauter and M. Dehaene) and medical sources. It is argued that, thus understood, the concept can be applied to the Arendtian idea of judgment. In this capacity, the concept of heterotopia is both politically foundational and environmentally relevant. It helps us maintain the idea of politics as humanely construed activity, while recognising that political actors are also natural beings, whose actions draw on and affect the non-human world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"What is a person?" ask Short et al. (2018) when they embark on a cross-disciplinary investigation around notions of personhood and how these apply to field education. This article affirms the significance of this investigation in light of the Anthropocene, which confronts people across the globe with ethical questions as to how, and for what purposes, we do the work we do. Human beings have taken over and transformed the world as if we are disconnected from it. The "person-centred approach" is widely adopted in human services work and promoted in government discourse, but the definition of "personhood" remains unclear. Moreover, there are two opposing poles of thought that influence the definition of personhood and person-centred care. To date, the literature has been silent around these opposing thought-systems. After a discussion on the need for practitioners and educators engaged in human services industries to reflect on those opposing perspectives in light of the Anthropocene, this paper homes in on the philosophical incongruities between the neoliberal idea of person-centredness and the original, Rogerian notion of person-centred care, to provoke dialogue in the community around the purpose and ways of doing human services work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our future effects on the earth, in light of the Anthropocene, are all dire expressions of a depleted world left in piles of detritus and toxic ruin--including the diminished human as an assemblage of impoverished existence, yet adumbrating that handicapped existence with an ersatz advanced technology. In the cyberpunk films, these expressions are primarily visual expressions--whether through written prose thick with densely dark adjectives describing the world of cyberpunk, or more widely known, the comic books and films of cyberpunk, whose representations have become classically understood as SF canon. The new films of the cyberpunk redux however, represent an evolution in cyberpunk visuality. Despite these debatable issues around this term, it will provide this paper with its primary object of visuality, that of the "rich sight", a further term that arose from the allure created in the late 19th century development of department stores that innovated the display of the goods laid out in a spectacular view, presenting the shopper with a fantasy of wealth and fetishized objects which excited shoppers to purchase, but more paradoxically, creating the desire to see a fantasy that was at the same time also a reality. This particular and enframed view--so deeply embedded and beloved in our commodity-obsessed culture--is what I suggest so profoundly typifies the initial cyberpunk postmodern representation in the Blade Runner films, and its continuing popularity in the early part of the 21st century. Both films are influenced by Ridley Scott's initial vision of the cinematic cyberpunk universe and organized as sequential narratives. Consequently, they serve as excellent examples of the evolution of this visual spectacular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011 Jennifer Wilby proposed a new framework for viewing the philosophy, principles and practice of systems thinking, in furtherance of research and practice into transdisciplinary forms of intervention. This new framework reveals the effect of the interactions between systems principles and system structure in producing complex systems behavior, demonstrates why such methodologies are classed as systemic and anticipates how these systemic methodologies can be used to support transdisciplinarity in exploration, design and management. In this light Alexander Laszlo's call for building a thrivable global system, presented at the 57th Conference of the ISSS, represents a concrete example of the problems and opportunities foreseen in the general call Wilby made in 2012 for developing and using transdisciplinary methods that can nurture complex systems to function effectively and harmoniously. Exploring the underpinning philosophy, principles and practice for a new era of systemic intervention that meets the challenges of the Anthropocene is the aim of the work presented in this paper, focused on linking the transdisciplinary nature of thrivable systems with the development of transdisciplinary systems research and practice. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable education and education for sustainable development (ESD) have witnessed a deserved number of research studies in the recent years. The present article proposes a holistic research framework for the research on sustainable education and education for sustainable development in the 21st century. The article aims to choose a more holistic research perspective by avoiding a piecemeal approach in education research. Moreover, it proposes some strategically important ideas about the use of approaches and methods for sustaining the generational readiness for sustainable development. The paper proposes a general framework for pedagogy and practice for ESD research which is open, holistic, strategic, sustainable, and integrated. A broader perspective has been developed as the relation of the ecological-cultural-social environment aspects seen in a broader adaptive evolutionary sense as a condition necessary for the development of a human species and the development of these conditions in the evolutionary process. The choice of a broader perspective is proposed by relating it to an observational study on Generation Z that many educators, social scientists and the populations have already started recognising as one of the participants in the intergenerational process. The phenomenon of Generation Z is new; its features have not fully revealed in their apparent form, yet. Furthermore, the generation has not reached its maturity yet, but the development of this phenomenon is inextricably related to the issue of generational commitment, which is also related to the evolutionary development. The observational study has been carried out by involving participants from VECC Daugavpils Vocational School. The evaluation of the participants' real experience in a wider and broader framework has been used to draw strategic conclusions, which will help keep focus on the need to sustain generational readiness for sustainable development in the harmonisation of the choice of pedagogical approaches and methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over thirty years since Jean-Francois Lyotard declared the death of metanarratives, we currently find two apparently incompatible discourses that dominate imagined planetary futures. On the one hand, we encounter a metanarrative of technological progress has been fuelled by decades of advances in computational, networked, mobile and pervasive technologies. On the other, we find the apocalyptic discourse of the Anthropocene, whereby human activity is understood to be responsible for precipitating the sixth mass extinction of life in Earth's geological record. This paper explores how the divergent futures of technological solutionism and ecological catastrophism encounter one another, focusing on Tesla as a case study where technological consumerism is posited as the solution to ecological catastrophe. Critically examining the materiality of digital technoculture challenges the immaterialist rhetoric of technological solutionism that permeates both neoliberal and leftist discourses of automation, whilst questioning the 'we' that is implicit in the problematic universalisation of Anthropocenic catastrophism, instead pointing to the deeply entrenched inequalities that perpetuate networked capitalism. Ultimately, the paper asks whether it is possible to move beyond bleak claims that we must simply "work within our disorientation and distress to negotiate life in human-damaged environments" (Tsing 2015: 131), to assemble the fragile hope that Goode and Godhe (2017) argue is necessary to move beyond capitalist realism. Hope suggests an optimism that sits uncomfortably with the reality of mass extinctions, however, the scale of the ecological crises means that we cannot afford the fatalism associated with losing hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rate of global eustatic sea-level rise during the Holocene Epoch has been identified as the principle cause of observed changes or inferred evolution of nontectonic coastal systems in mid- to low-latitude areas. The rate of rise is now three times faster than it was for the past several thousand years and similar to values associated with the middle Holocene marine transgression. This acceleration can be attributed to human-caused global warming. In this investigation, the effects of accelerating sea-level rise on coastal sedimentary environments of the SE Saline Everglades were quantified. The results reveal historic changes to coastal habitat, sedimentation, and stratigraphy that are transgressive. These changes initiated during the early 20th century and are attributed to accelerating sea-level rise. As this acceleration and the resulting geologic record is a suspected consequence of human-induced global warming, the paper concludes with a discussion of the relevance of these observations, in tandem with others, to the current debate over the utility and use of the proposed Anthropocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]