Anthropocene Era Research Articles

Academic mobility in the Anthropocene era: a comparative study of university policy at three New Zealand institutions

Anthropogenic climate change is a wicked problem, requiring fundamental behavioural and technological responses now, in the Anthropocene, a term denoting the current era of human dominance of biological, chemical and geological processes on Earth. Travel and transport policies are key to effective responses, confronting both leisure and business travellers, including academics. This paper explores in detail the factors that promote or suppress academic travel, examining institutional policies which frame academic mobility practices at three New Zealand universities; University of Otago, University of Auckland and Victoria University of Wellington. It finds evidence of little congruence between sustainability statements, with their wide discourses on environmental sustainability, and the institutional policies governing academic mobility. Three overriding themes emerging from the analysis are presented: hollow words (describing a lack of meaningful commitment to sustainability, with disconnections between sustainability rhetoric and key policies), unspoken words (assumptions about the necessity of travel) and facilitating mobilities (promoting travel, rewarding those who travel). These themes highlight varying degrees of divergence between the sustainability imperatives of these universities and the carbon emissions of institutionalised academic mobilities. Concluding remarks highlight opportunities for New Zealand's academic institutions to align travel policies with growing sustainability imperatives and discuss future research directions.

Anthropocene as an evolving paradigm

At some point during the Holocene, human action began to accelerate or redirect landscape and biospheric evolution. Basic questions for this preface are whether we should define this new dynamism as an ‘Anthropocene era’ and how might it be delimited with respect to absolute time or to the Holocene. Traditional geo-stratigraphic nomenclature developed through accretion of field observations, vetted by theoretical discussion, to facilitate four-dimensional reference to lithology, topography, space, and time. Current notions for an Anthropocene carry additional connotations: (1) the focus is on a more dynamic agenda that is far from being synthesized; (2) this revolves around the increasingly salient role of cultural agents that selectively shape a multitude of small and large specific areas, so as to favor divergences and disjunctures; (3) the result is a non-normative dynamic of changing spatial configuration and temporal scales that was superimposed on non-cultural Holocene processes predominantly steered by ‘natural’ forces; and (4) this would argue for a flexible, time-transgressive concept, rather than a firm time-frame, that should stimulate identification and investigation of centers of early or unusual human disturbance. The amplified energy and amplitude of these culturally modified divergences are formidable, but Pleistocene glaciation posed a more severe test for biotic evolutionary success than did past or current global change driven by human actions. This would suggest that instead of proclaiming alarmist schedules, we should concentrate on constructive research and university instruction that better emphasizes environmental and sociocultural resilience, adaptation, and the interplay of buffering feedbacks with systemic micro-evolution.

English

Modern Western states have a history of the thinking tradition, where the development of human societies is seen as independent from ecological constraints. Our thinking is a social construction, a product of the human mind. It can be changed. In this article we describe a new approach to well-being called an Ecosocial Approach to Well-Being (EAW). It is a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to well-being that will facilitate the analysis and management of the world’s complexity from a socio-ecological perspective. The EAW is based on the fact that without the well-functioning biosphere there can be no society and without a society there can be no societal functions, including an economy. Fundamentally all wicked problems in the era of Anthropocene are global and have social and environmental backgrounds. A more holistic and multi-disciplinary systems thinking is needed to analyze and manage the causal complexity of the world in which we live. The EAW asks us to focus on post-material values because they are only loosely coupled with resource consumption. On the finite planet that is the question of what is enough and what is good for us. The EAW leads us maximizing psychological well-being and nurturing social harmony and cohesion. The EAW holds promise not only for solving social and ecological problems but also for helping people to be happier. It emphasizes human relationships and the meaningfulness of people’s unique lives. If people properly reflected on their values, especially what is ultimately good for those they care about, most of the wicked problems would be resolved. How to reference this article Salonen, A. O., & Konkka, J. (2015). An Ecosocial Approach to Well-Being: A Solution to the Wicked Problems in the Era of Anthropocene . Foro de Educacion , 13(19), 19-34. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.14516/fde.2015.013.019.002

Anthropogenic burning and the Anthropocene in late-Holocene California

This paper examines the hypothesis that human landscape modifications involving early agriculture contributed to greenhouse gas emissions in preindustrial times, a proposal that has significant implications for the timing of the Anthropocene era. In synthesizing recent papers that both advocate and challenge this hypothesis, we identify a major bias in the ongoing debate, which focuses on the land clearance practices of agrarian people, with insufficient consideration of a diverse range of hunter-gatherer societies who regularly utilized landscape-scale burning for various purposes. Employing California as a case study, we examine how the exclusion of hunter-gatherers from this debate may have shortchanged estimates of human biomass burning in preindustrial times. We also suggest that human population size may be a poor proxy for the degree of land clearance and anthropogenic burning, and we describe how previous approaches to these questions may have underplayed the importance of variation in the timing and magnitude of depopulation in different regions of the Americas.

Institutional Theory and the Natural Environment: Research in (And on) the Antropocene

This review article summarizes the main tenets of institutional theory as they apply to the topic of the Anthropocene in the domain of organization and the natural environment (O&NE). But our review is distinctive for two reasons: first, it is focused on providing avenues researching the Anthropocene Era. Second, while based on the trajectory of current, accumulated theory and research, our review is forward-looking in its orientation and thus aimed at guiding future work to explore the emergence of a new social reality in Anthropocene Society. We begin by summarizing the scientific research on the Anthropocene Era, then move to its implications for grand and mid-range institutional theory principles, and, of institutional principles for the study of it. We end with a call to reenergize and re-radicalize the O&NE field to properly address the magnitude and scope of this shift to the Anthropocene.

Institutional Theory and the Natural Environment

This review article summarizes the main tenets of institutional theory as they apply to the topic of the Anthropocene in the domain of organization and the natural environment. But our review is distinctive for two reasons: First, it is focused on providing avenues researching the Anthropocene Era. Second, while based on the trajectory of current, accumulated theory and research, our review is forward-looking in its orientation and thus aimed at guiding future work to explore the emergence of a new social reality in Anthropocene Society. We begin by summarizing the scientific research on the Anthropocene Era, then move to its implications for grand and midrange institutional theory principles, and of institutional principles for the study of it. We end with a call to reenergize and reradicalize the organization and the natural environment field to properly address the magnitude and scope of this shift to the Anthropocene.

Anthropogenic Poetics

“Anthropogenic Poetics” considers the new implications for conceiving literary tropes such as personification, apostrophe, and prosopopoeia in light of the ecological relations of the Anthropocene Era, where the nonhuman environment is imbued with signs of human determination. The essay examines one contemporary mode, ecopoetics, as an emergent literature of the Anthropocene and highlights the new questions of voice, relation, and address that it explores. Through readings of poems by Brenda Hillman, Juliana Spahr, Evelyn Reilly, and Michael Leong, “Anthropogenic Poetics” argues that these texts illuminate the intensified problem of anthropocentrism under ecological crisis, pointing, via the mediating work of poetic language, to the ways in which this anthropogenic agency extends into and reshapes nonhuman forms.

Quantifying flooding regime in floodplain forests to guide river restoration

Determining the flooding regime needed to support distinctive floodplain forests is essential for effective river conservation under the ubiquitous human alteration of river flows characteristic of the Anthropocene Era. At over 100 sites throughout the Connecticut River basin, the largest river system in New England, we characterized species composition, valley and channel morphology, and hydrologic regime to define conditions promoting distinct floodplain forest assemblages. Species assemblages were dominated by floodplain-associated trees on surfaces experiencing flood durations between 4.5 and 91 days/year, which were generally well below the stage of the two-year recurrence interval flood, a widely-used benchmark for floodplain restoration. These tree species rarely occurred on surfaces that flooded less than 1 day/year. By contrast abundance of most woody invasive species decreased with flooding. Such flood-prone surfaces were jointly determined by characteristics of the hydrograph (high discharges of long duration) and topography (low gradient and reduced valley constraint), resulting in increased availability of floodplain habitat with increasing watershed area and/or decreasing stream gradient. Downstream mainstem reaches provided the most floodplain habitat, largely associated with low-energy features such as back swamps and point bars, and were dominated by silver maple (Acer saccharinum). However, we were able to identify a number of suitable sites in the upper part of the basin and in large tributaries, often associated with in-channel islands and bars and frequently dominated by sycamore (Platanus occidentalis) and flood disturbance-dependent species. Our results imply that restoring flows by modifying dam operations to benefit floodplain forests on existing surfaces need not conflict with flood protection in some regional settings. These results underscore the need to understand how flow, geomorphology, and species traits interact to produce characteristic patterns of floodplain vegetation, and that these interactions should form the basis of effective river restoration and conservation.

Weakening density dependence from climate change and agricultural intensification triggers pest outbreaks: a 37-year observation of cotton bollworms.

Understanding drivers of population fluctuation, especially for agricultural pests, is central to the provision of agro-ecosystem services. Here, we examine the role of endogenous density dependence and exogenous factors of climate and human activity in regulating the 37-year population dynamics of an important agricultural insect pest, the cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera), in North China from 1975 to 2011. Quantitative time-series analysis provided strong evidence explaining long-term population dynamics of the cotton bollworm and its driving factors. Rising temperature and declining rainfall exacerbated the effect of agricultural intensification on continuously weakening the negative density dependence in regulating the population dynamics of cotton bollworms. Consequently, ongoing climate change and agricultural intensification unleashed the tightly regulated pest population and triggered the regional outbreak of H. armigera in 1992. Although the negative density dependence can effectively regulate the population change rate to fluctuate around zero at stable equilibrium levels before and after outbreak in the 1992, the population equilibrium jumped to a higher density level with apparently larger amplitudes after the outbreak. The results highlight the possibility for exogenous factors to induce pest outbreaks and alter the population regulating mechanism of negative density dependence and, thus, the stable equilibrium of the pest population, often to a higher level, posing considerable risks to the provision of agro-ecosystem services and regional food security. Efficient and timely measures of pest management in the era of Anthropocene should target the strengthening and revival of weakening density dependence caused by climate change and human activities.

Recent unprecedented warming and oligotrophy of the eastern Mediterranean Sea within the last millennium

AbstractThe Mediterranean region is a climatic transitional zone between the subtropical/monsoon regime and the temperate westerlies and is subject to forces acting upon the global climate system. Much knowledge about its climate over the last millennium is derived from terrestrial records, whereas changes in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and in the dissolved inorganic carbon pool (DIC) are poorly known. We present continuous high‐resolution reconstructions of SST and δ13CDIC in the eastern Mediterranean (EM) Sea, as inferred from oxygen and carbon isotope records from the skeletons of the reef builder gastropod Dendropoma sp. Spanning the past millennium, the SST reconstruction reveals a 250 year persistent warming trend during which the twentieth century was the warmest on record. Coupled with a distinct trend of 13CDIC depletion and superimposed upon decreased primary production, this climate reconstruction reflects a new state of the EM over the Anthropocene era that exceeds the natural variability of the last millennium.

Changing Paradigms: A Sketch for Sustainable Wellbeing and Ecosocial Policy

We live in the Anthropocene era, where human action has an unforeseen impact on global ecosystems. This is visible, for instance, in climate change, in the loss of biodiversity and in the acidification of the oceans. Little attention is given to the fact that the Anthropocene is related to anthropocentric thinking that also guides our policies. Therefore, we argue that ecologically and socially sustainable policies will not be achieved by incidental policy measures alone, but a change of paradigm is needed. In our article, we lay out the tenets of a relational paradigm resting on holistic thinking and deep ecology. On the basis of this paradigm, the principles, conceptions and goals specific to any given policy can be formulated, giving them a common ground. In this article, we apply the relational paradigm to social policy in order to contribute to the quest for sustainable wellbeing in the overconsuming welfare states. Here, we formulate a multidimensional and relational conception of wellbeing, the HDLB-model (Having-Doing-Loving-Being), which is a modification of sociologist Erik Allardt’s theory. We illustrate how this model could provide the foundation of a sustainable ecosocial policy.

Limitations of uniformitarianism in the Anthropocene

Abstract For many decades, studies in physical geography, geomorphology, sedimentology and stratigraphy have used uniformitarianism as a guiding principle by which to interpret environmental and land surface changes over different spatial and temporal scales. In this paper we argue that, as the Anthropocene proceeds and Earth systems increasingly move away from the mix of geomorphological processes typical of interglacial periods, significant limitations arise regarding the use of uniformitarianism as a principle by which to interpret Earth surface systems of the present and future. We argue that looking to changes in linked climate and land-surface processes of past interglacial periods is increasingly inappropriate in evaluating the impacts of ongoing climate change on Earth surface processes of the Anthropocene in which complex human-induced land surface feedbacks are increasingly important. We argue that all geoscientists need to critically reconsider whether the long-held assumptions of uniformitarianism are useful in the Anthropocene era.

Modeling and Monitoring Terrestrial Primary Production in a Changing Global Environment: Toward a Multiscale Synthesis of Observation and Simulation

There is a critical need to monitor and predict terrestrial primary production, the key indicator of ecosystem functioning, in a changing global environment. Here we provide a brief review of three major approaches to monitoring and predicting terrestrial primary production: (1) ground-based field measurements, (2) satellite-based observations, and (3) process-based ecosystem modelling. Much uncertainty exists in the multi-approach estimations of terrestrial gross primary production (GPP) and net primary production (NPP). To improve the capacity of model simulation and prediction, it is essential to evaluate ecosystem models against ground and satellite-based measurements and observations. As a case, we have shown the performance of the dynamic land ecosystem model (DLEM) at various scales from site to region to global. We also discuss how terrestrial primary production might respond to climate change and increasing atmospheric CO2and uncertainties associated with model and data. Further progress in monitoring and predicting terrestrial primary production requires a multiscale synthesis of observations and model simulations. In the Anthropocene era in which human activity has indeed changed the Earth’s biosphere, therefore, it is essential to incorporate the socioeconomic component into terrestrial ecosystem models for accurately estimating and predicting terrestrial primary production in a changing global environment.

Embedding built environments in social–ecological systems: resilience-based design principles

Globalization, the process by which local settlements and ecosystems are becoming linked in a global network, presents policy scientists and planners with difficult design challenges. Coping with either natural or built environments in isolation is extremely challenging in its own right (e.g. built environments at different scales: a single building, a collection of buildings, a neighbourhood or a city are in themselves very complex). In the Anthropocene era, where human activities shape the planetary system in which built and natural environments are becoming more tightly linked across scales, these complex systems need to be considered as elements in a global network, i.e. as a coupled social–ecological system (SES) at the global scale. In the context of this spiralling complexity, multi-scale and multilevel processes become more important and design/management problems become extraordinarily difficult. Preliminary ideas are explored for how research on this multilevel design problem might proceed. Specifically, based on combining insights from a collection of theories and models based on resilience and robustness concepts, the basic elements of a new approach are presented that recognizes the importance of self-organizing processes at multiple scales and emphasizes the use of feedbacks to link these processes across scales.

Politics of Climate Change: Meeting the Challenge and Making the Change

The scientific consensus is clear – climate change is happening, and fast. Successfully tackling the challenge of the new ‘anthropocene era’ will require a different kind of politics and a different kind of economics, says Hugh Atkinson.

Assessing sediment toxicity: Past, present, and future

Assessing sediment toxicity: Past, present, and future

'Another Generation Cometh': Apocalyptic Endings and New Beginnings in Science Fictional New London(s)

This article looks at the sub-genre of apocalyptic science fiction and explores the ways that a range of contemporary writers engage with natural, climatic disasters and the damage wrought to the planet in the Anthropocene era. The novels under discussion are Maggie Gee's The Flood and The Ice People, Adam Roberts's The Snow, Stephen Baxter's Flood and Stephen Jones's creative compilation Zombie Apocalypse. The novels are analysed as examples of revelatory eschatological and apocalyptic literature that implicitly borrow from canonical religious writings of the past. The article analyses the apocalyptic narratives as predictors of both the end of the world and the coming of a new age. It focuses primarily on the novels' relationship to apocalyptic discontinuity and to end-of-the-world scenarios that are predicated on the forces of nature.

Not Symbiosis, Not Now: Why Anthropogenic Change Is Not Really Human

Despite first appearances it is the early work of Derrida, less concerned with questions of ethics, politics and justice, that is most pertinent for the anthropocene era. Only an attention to what Derrida provisionally referred to as 'text,' has the capacity to take the environmental imagination beyond homely conceptions of the earth as a horizon of sense and human projects, allowing for the anthropocene's imagination of the human scarring of the planet to be both read and misread. This misreading will be most fruitful when the thought experiment of the anthropocene allows us to imagine the human archive from an inhuman (and impossible) point of view.

Sustainable Economic Development in the Face of Climate Change in Latin America: A Path Forward

Sustainable Economic Development in the Face of Climate Change in Latin America: A Path Forward

Humanity's Footprint: Reading Rings Of Saturn and Palestinian Walks in an Anthropocene Era

Through readings of two "walking memoirs"—W. G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn and Raja Shehadeh's Palestinian Walks —this article considers the implications of the geological concept of the Anthropocene era for the field of life writing studies and its understanding of the human. It considers the ways these and other authors imagine the human, and the costs of the human pursuit of freedom for other species and things, from a planetary perspective.