Definition
In 2002, Paul Crutzen claimed that we have left the Holocene, and humans have entered a new epoch – the Anthropocene (Zalasiewicz et al. 2008). The term “Anthropocene” has since gained popularity across disciplines like life and earth sciences, philosophy, geology, communication, sociology, politics, or law. It is discussed as a geologic epoch characterized by the global impact of human activities on the Earth Systems. In politics, it is contemplated as a logical consequence of global capitalism or the decoupling between environmental health and human welfare. In philosophy, it has become an expression of modernity, an attack on Earth and the biosphere, or a biological imperative inherent for human existence (Autin 2016).
The idea of human activities’ impact on the earth is not new. Past scholars have suggested the concept of a transformation of the biosphere into the noosphere, that is, the anthropogenic transformation of the Earth System. One of the earliest mentions of...
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Roka, K. (2020). Anthropocene and Climate Change. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A.M., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P.G., Wall, T. (eds) Climate Action. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95885-9_26
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