Concluding Remarks: The Organic Anthropocene

Abstract

This article argues that the early modern period plays a pivotal role in global ecological history. It makes the case for a long “Organic Anthropocene” emerging from the Neolithic and gathering momentum after 1500 in the early modern era. This Organic Anthropocene is characterized by increasing agricultural carbon dioxide and methane emissions. The state-driven expansion of world empires into frontier zones accelerated global land use and catalyzed extinctions, biotic exchange, resource depletion, and deforestation. Since 1800 the Organic Anthropocene has been overlaid and occluded by a more extreme Mineral Anthropocene, culminating in the post-1945 Great Acceleration. While the concept of an Organic Anthropocene has strong historical support, the scientific climate modeling that seeks to provide a rigorous quantitative description has been in great contention in recent years. Here we spell out both the historians’ understanding and the scientists’ debate.