Welcome to the Anthropocene - The Earth in Our Hands. Extended abstract for keynote at EOS-1 Geosciences Informations for Teachers (GIFT)-Workshop, European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2018, Vienna

Abstract

Extended Abstract: The geochronological epoch of the Holocene, commencing at ca. 11,700 years before present, provided humans with stable environmental conditions, having allowed them to settle down in the Neolithic Revolution, living from agriculture, and enabling further differentiation into modern societies, as characterized by e.g. urban settlements, division of labour, infrastructures, as well as regional and – later – global trade. All this also laid a foundation for the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th century.
However, both the Neolithic Revolution and especially the Industrial Revolution had a huge, and since the mid-20th century exponentially increasing influence on the Earth system. Today, humans have become a dominant Earth system factor by changing biomes into anthromes – 77 % of the ice free terrestrial area is not pristine any more (Ellis 2011); accelerating erosion and sediment transport by a factor of 10-30 relative to the average of the last 500 million years (Wilkinson 2005); controlling and regulating most of the fluvial water systems (e.g. Meybeck & Vörosmarty 2005), trapping sediments through tens of thousands of dams (Syvitski & Kettner 2011); causing climate change by consuming copious amounts of fossil energy resources within a few 100 years which took 400 million years to form - and in response raising sea levels and acidity of the oceans (e.g. WBGU 2011). We accelerate species extinction rates at least by a factor 10 to 100, if not 1000 times greater than during the life span of Earth history, and we dominate biota by producing vast amounts of biomass through crop plants, pets and livestock, with 24% of NPP and up to 90 % of mammal biomass being anthropogenic - the latter including living humans, living pets and living farmed animals (Williams et al. 2016, Steffen et al. 2016, also for further refs.). In addition, we dominate the reactive nitrate and phosphate cycles, created fallout of radioactive particles as well as industrial fly ash (Steffen et al. 2015, Waters et al. 2016), and produced about 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics, from which we dumped about 60% into the environment (both in waste dumps and uncontrolled, incl. oceans) (Geyer et al. 2017). In total, we have so far created the incredible amount of ca. 30 trillion tons of technosphere, including concrete and brick houses, machines, elementary aluminium, plastics, glass, artificial grounds and much more (Zalasiewicz et al. 2017a). This legacy attributes about 4000 metric tons of technosphere to every single human presently living on Earth. All this identifies humankind not only as an Earth system factor, but also as a very influencial geological force, completely changing depositional patterns and composition of sediments. Both together, i.e. the Earth system shift away from the stable state of the Holocene, and the new and globally spread array of new technofossils and geosignals makes it plausible to terminate the Holocene in the mid 20th century, and have it followed by the Anthropocene, the "human-made New" (see Crutzen & Stoermer, 2000, Crutzen, 2002, Waters et al. 2016, Zalasiewicz et. al. 2017b).
Such a new distinction of an Anthropocene Earth history epoch is not only feasible and appro- priate when seen in the focus of sedimentary characteristics and Earth system change, but it also allows for a more integrative, systemic view on Earth system development and processes by adding an Anthroposphere to the Earth system spheres, and by reflecting mutual interactions of all spheres. The Anthropocene concept also fosters interdisciplinary cooperation outside the field of geoscientists, e.g. with historians, archaeologists and biologists, by jointly evaluating human- recorded, calendar-based historical archives and geologically recorded sedimentary and
biological archives. In addition, the state of the present Anthropocene as well as the knowledge on how it has been caused, is a strong instigation for better monitoring Earth system changes as well as for developing a polyspectric array of possible and desirable societal and economic pathways into the future within a safe operating space that would be compatible with a fully functionable and habitable future Anthropocene Earth system (Leinfelder 2016a, Zalasiewicz et al. 2017c).
On the search for such polyspectric futures, a systemic view onto the Anthropocene sees the extent, interaction, temporal and spatial dynamics of today's processes not only as challenges, but also as chances for new conceptual approaches in school and life-long education (cf. Leinfelder 2013). Such approaches could include new narratives of our embedding in the Earth system, such as the one on the importance of environmental stability of the Holocene for societal development (as highlighted above), or the "Hall of Fame"-narrative of Earth history: Humans are not the first organisms causing paradigm shifts in the Earth system. Among these are (1) archaic methane bacteria warming up the climate of the early Earth which suffered from a still weak solar insolation; (2) iron bacteria depleting oceans from masses of dissolved iron, thus producing the vast majority of all iron ores (banded iron formations) around 3-2,5 billion years before present; (3) cyanobacteria producing accelerated amounts of oxygen from 2,5 billion years onwards and removing surplus of calcium ions from the oceans by calcifying their microbial sheaths to form stromatolites, both of which allowed for the evolution of metazoan lives. (4) Metazoans with calcareous skeletons, such as reef corals, removed enormous amounts of CO2 from the oceans and the atmosphere by producing limestones, thus stabilizing the climate. (5) Early forests producing large masses of coals, removed CO2 from the atmosphere and thus triggered an ice age about 320 million years ago; (6) plankton and their predators, being trapped in anoxic waters also transferred huge amounts of CO2 as organic matter into sediments which converted to oil and gas, as well as phosphates; and (7) grass started (still in the age of the dinosaurs, but especially after their extinction) to become the number one feed, since it was the first to simply keep on growing when grazed on, unlike bushes or trees, which either would die or would have to wait for the next vegetation period when eaten bare. Grass was the prerequisite not only for the long gathering and hunting episodes of early humans in savanna lands but especially necessary to settle down to cultivate crops and feed livestock. Without the evolutionary origin of grass and without all the non-renewable resources provided from ancient life activities, our present human societies would be very different.
This is yet another example how Earth history could be retold in an Anthropocene context, embedding us much better into Earth history by understanding that it is not only the present landscape which feeds us, but it is the non-renewable resources, including iron, copper, RE, sand, limestones, phosphates etc. that enable our technology and our modern way of life (cf. Zalasiewicz et al. 2017a). In this way, the Anthropocene view not only allows for localising ourselves within Earth history and the present Earth System, it also highlights our interconnectivity both on an economic and a societal scale, can raise awareness and, given suitable education projects, self-efficacy. On a metalevel the concept might also have the capacity to open views towards a, culturally and societally very complex, world citizenship and raise the responsibility level towards integrating humanity in a symbiontic way into the Earth system rather than using it up like a parasite (Leinfelder 2016b).
The complex concept of the Anthropocene hence represents a multilevel concept, with two scientific base levels, i.e., the Earth system analysis, and the geological analysis. However, it triggers a superimposed consequential metalevel of new integrated views, responsibilities and
ethical aspects, interconnectedness, societal transformation, and knowledge-based careful design of the future Earth. It is certainly not necessary to see the Anthropocene as another one of the grand humiliations to the human world view (such as the Copernican, Darwinian and Freudian humiliations), as some see it. On the contrary, Anthropocene studies and metalevel reflections are expected to help develop a much better view of our influence on and interaction with this planet, and change this influence from harmful to one of mutual symbiotic benefit. Having the world in our hands, and better understanding this world should indeed allow us to welcome the Anthropocene.

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