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I think the etymology offered for Homogenocene must be wrong. There is no way that "homo" Latin for man would be used in this way. "Homo" appears in compounds as "homini-," not "homo," which form is only used as an independent word ("Homo sapiens"). Homogenocene probably is constructed from the word "homogeneous" + "cene"; the article in which the term first occurred was referring to the homogenization of life across the planet because of transfers of organisms by humans. Homogeneous comes from "homo" "same" and "gen" "kind" in Greek. Metrodorus ( talk)
I've removed the further reading list, as I don't think such a long list is adding any value here. If any of the publications are very important, they should be used for inline citations.
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link)EMsmile ( talk) 08:45, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
The current image for the lead showing light pollution is not really suitable for the lead image. Can someone propose a better one? Should we go for a 2 x 2 collage like at climate change mitigation? EMsmile ( talk) 09:07, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I have taken this out because it's digressing and not WP:DUE here. It would be very much a minority view to say that the anthropocene started that early. At the most, this could be condensed into two sentences. But overall, I don't think we need it. Likely a student addition at some point.
European colonization of the Americas:
Professor of Earth System Science Mark Maslin and Professor of Global Change Science Simon L. Lewis argue that the start of the Anthropocene should be dated to the Orbis Spike, a trough in carbon dioxide levels associated with the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Reaching a minimum around 1610, global carbon dioxide levels were depressed below 285 parts per million, largely as a result of sequestration due to forest regrowth in the Americas. This was likely caused by indigenous peoples abandoning farmland following a sharp population decline due to initial contact with European diseases – around 50 million people or 90% of the indigenous population may have succumbed. For Maslin and Lewis, the Orbis Spike represents a GSSP, a kind of marker used to define the start of a new geological period. They also go on to say that associating the Anthropocene to European arrival in the Americas makes sense given that the continent's colonization was instrumental in the development of global trade networks and the capitalist economy, which played a significant role in initiating the Industrial Revolution and the Great Acceleration. [1] [2]
A number of other anthropologists, geographers, and postcolonial, settler colonial, and Indigenous theorists, including
Métis anthropologist
Zoe Todd and
Potawatomi philosopher
Kyle Powys Whyte have also linked the Anthropocene to the rise of European colonialism.
[3]
[4]
[5]
[2]
[6]
[7]
[8] Because of these arguments, it has been suggested that the epoch should instead be called "The Kleptocene" to call "attention to colonialism's ongoing theft of land, lives (both human and nonhuman), and materials" that are "in large part responsible for contemporary ecological crisis."
[9]
[10]
[11]
EMsmile (
talk) 09:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
EMsmile ( talk) 09:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I've taken out this long paragraph that goes into too much detail. We have a sub-article for this on biodiversity loss. I guess the content could be moved to there if it's not already in there. I think we are better off with using an excerpt from biodiversity loss. Pinging User:C.J. Griffin and User:ASRASR for their information and comment.
++++++++
In a pair of studies published in 2015, extrapolation from observed extinction of Hawaiian snails of the family Amastridae, led to the conclusion that "the biodiversity crisis is real", and that 7% of all species on Earth may have disappeared already. [1] [2] Human predation was noted as being unique in the history of life on Earth as being a globally distributed 'superpredator', with predation of the adults of other apex predators and with widespread impact on food webs worldwide. [3] A study published in May 2017 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences noted that a "biological annihilation" akin to a sixth mass extinction event is underway as a result of anthropogenic causes. The study suggested that as much as 50% of animal individuals that once lived on Earth are already extinct. [4] [5] A different study published in PNAS in May 2018 says that since the dawn of human civilization, 83% of wild mammals have disappeared. Today, livestock makes up 60% of the biomass of all mammals on earth, followed by humans (36%) and wild mammals (4%). [6] [7] According to the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by IPBES, 25% of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction. [8] [9] [10] According to the World Wildlife Fund's 2020 Living Planet Report, 68% of wildlife populations have declined between 1970 and 2016 as a result of overconsumption, population growth and intensive farming, and the report asserts that "the findings are clear. Our relationship with nature is broken." [11] [12] However, a 2020 study, by Leung et al. including Maria Dornelas, disputed the findings of the Living Planet Report, finding that the 68% decline number was being influenced down by a very small amount extreme outliers and when these were not included, the decline was less steep, or even stable if other outliers were not included. [13] A 2021 paper published in Frontiers in Conservation Science, which cites both of the aforementioned studies, says "population sizes of vertebrate species that have been monitored across years have declined by an average of 68% over the last five decades, with certain population clusters in extreme decline, thus presaging the imminent extinction of their species." [14] EMsmile ( talk) 09:53, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
References
Much less frequently mentioned are, however, the ultimate drivers of those immediate causes of biotic destruction, namely, human overpopulation and continued population growth, and overconsumption, especially by the rich. These drivers, all of which trace to the fiction that perpetual growth can occur on a finite planet, are themselves increasing rapidly.
EMsmile ( talk) 09:53, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I've just done some edits on this article. My approach is that this article is better off short and snappy, rather than going into excessive details for topics that have good sub-articles, such as biodiversity loss and climate change. Some of the content in the section on debates needs further trimming: one can see that this article has been the subject of numerous student assignments... Parts of is are written more like an essay or academic literature review than an encyclopedic entry. EMsmile ( talk) 09:55, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
And so the proposed era has been put in the rubbish bin: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/climate/anthropocene-vote-upheld.html 182.239.146.143 ( talk) 05:02, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Anthropocene article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1Auto-archiving period: 365 days |
This
level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Daily pageviews of this article
A graph should have been displayed here but
graphs are temporarily disabled. Until they are enabled again, visit the interactive graph at
pageviews.wmcloud.org |
|
This article links to one or more target anchors that no longer exist.
Please help fix the broken anchors. You can remove this template after fixing the problems. |
Reporting errors |
I think the etymology offered for Homogenocene must be wrong. There is no way that "homo" Latin for man would be used in this way. "Homo" appears in compounds as "homini-," not "homo," which form is only used as an independent word ("Homo sapiens"). Homogenocene probably is constructed from the word "homogeneous" + "cene"; the article in which the term first occurred was referring to the homogenization of life across the planet because of transfers of organisms by humans. Homogeneous comes from "homo" "same" and "gen" "kind" in Greek. Metrodorus ( talk)
I've removed the further reading list, as I don't think such a long list is adding any value here. If any of the publications are very important, they should be used for inline citations.
{{
cite web}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (
link)EMsmile ( talk) 08:45, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
The current image for the lead showing light pollution is not really suitable for the lead image. Can someone propose a better one? Should we go for a 2 x 2 collage like at climate change mitigation? EMsmile ( talk) 09:07, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I have taken this out because it's digressing and not WP:DUE here. It would be very much a minority view to say that the anthropocene started that early. At the most, this could be condensed into two sentences. But overall, I don't think we need it. Likely a student addition at some point.
European colonization of the Americas:
Professor of Earth System Science Mark Maslin and Professor of Global Change Science Simon L. Lewis argue that the start of the Anthropocene should be dated to the Orbis Spike, a trough in carbon dioxide levels associated with the arrival of Europeans in the Americas. Reaching a minimum around 1610, global carbon dioxide levels were depressed below 285 parts per million, largely as a result of sequestration due to forest regrowth in the Americas. This was likely caused by indigenous peoples abandoning farmland following a sharp population decline due to initial contact with European diseases – around 50 million people or 90% of the indigenous population may have succumbed. For Maslin and Lewis, the Orbis Spike represents a GSSP, a kind of marker used to define the start of a new geological period. They also go on to say that associating the Anthropocene to European arrival in the Americas makes sense given that the continent's colonization was instrumental in the development of global trade networks and the capitalist economy, which played a significant role in initiating the Industrial Revolution and the Great Acceleration. [1] [2]
A number of other anthropologists, geographers, and postcolonial, settler colonial, and Indigenous theorists, including
Métis anthropologist
Zoe Todd and
Potawatomi philosopher
Kyle Powys Whyte have also linked the Anthropocene to the rise of European colonialism.
[3]
[4]
[5]
[2]
[6]
[7]
[8] Because of these arguments, it has been suggested that the epoch should instead be called "The Kleptocene" to call "attention to colonialism's ongoing theft of land, lives (both human and nonhuman), and materials" that are "in large part responsible for contemporary ecological crisis."
[9]
[10]
[11]
EMsmile (
talk) 09:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
References
{{
cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
EMsmile ( talk) 09:30, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I've taken out this long paragraph that goes into too much detail. We have a sub-article for this on biodiversity loss. I guess the content could be moved to there if it's not already in there. I think we are better off with using an excerpt from biodiversity loss. Pinging User:C.J. Griffin and User:ASRASR for their information and comment.
++++++++
In a pair of studies published in 2015, extrapolation from observed extinction of Hawaiian snails of the family Amastridae, led to the conclusion that "the biodiversity crisis is real", and that 7% of all species on Earth may have disappeared already. [1] [2] Human predation was noted as being unique in the history of life on Earth as being a globally distributed 'superpredator', with predation of the adults of other apex predators and with widespread impact on food webs worldwide. [3] A study published in May 2017 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences noted that a "biological annihilation" akin to a sixth mass extinction event is underway as a result of anthropogenic causes. The study suggested that as much as 50% of animal individuals that once lived on Earth are already extinct. [4] [5] A different study published in PNAS in May 2018 says that since the dawn of human civilization, 83% of wild mammals have disappeared. Today, livestock makes up 60% of the biomass of all mammals on earth, followed by humans (36%) and wild mammals (4%). [6] [7] According to the 2019 Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services by IPBES, 25% of plant and animal species are threatened with extinction. [8] [9] [10] According to the World Wildlife Fund's 2020 Living Planet Report, 68% of wildlife populations have declined between 1970 and 2016 as a result of overconsumption, population growth and intensive farming, and the report asserts that "the findings are clear. Our relationship with nature is broken." [11] [12] However, a 2020 study, by Leung et al. including Maria Dornelas, disputed the findings of the Living Planet Report, finding that the 68% decline number was being influenced down by a very small amount extreme outliers and when these were not included, the decline was less steep, or even stable if other outliers were not included. [13] A 2021 paper published in Frontiers in Conservation Science, which cites both of the aforementioned studies, says "population sizes of vertebrate species that have been monitored across years have declined by an average of 68% over the last five decades, with certain population clusters in extreme decline, thus presaging the imminent extinction of their species." [14] EMsmile ( talk) 09:53, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
References
Much less frequently mentioned are, however, the ultimate drivers of those immediate causes of biotic destruction, namely, human overpopulation and continued population growth, and overconsumption, especially by the rich. These drivers, all of which trace to the fiction that perpetual growth can occur on a finite planet, are themselves increasing rapidly.
EMsmile ( talk) 09:53, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
I've just done some edits on this article. My approach is that this article is better off short and snappy, rather than going into excessive details for topics that have good sub-articles, such as biodiversity loss and climate change. Some of the content in the section on debates needs further trimming: one can see that this article has been the subject of numerous student assignments... Parts of is are written more like an essay or academic literature review than an encyclopedic entry. EMsmile ( talk) 09:55, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
And so the proposed era has been put in the rubbish bin: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/climate/anthropocene-vote-upheld.html 182.239.146.143 ( talk) 05:02, 23 March 2024 (UTC)