Anthropocene
The world has been facing several challenges ranging from melting glaciers, rising temperatures, a lot of contaminations in the oceans, radioactive wastes, loss of species, and many other calamities all as a result of human activities. These concerns made Paul Crutzen, an atmospheric scientist to coin the word Anthropocene to simply define a geologic era full of the human race. Many other scientists including Engelke, McNeil, and McCalman have also tried to fine-tune the details associated with the term. However, many geologists have failed to agree on when the era of the Anthropocene began. On the other hand, stratigraphers still find it hard to conclude whether we are really in a geologic era. Even so, it is important to look at the strengths and weaknesses of the term Anthropocene in representing the relationship between human beings and nature.
Anthropocene derives its strength from the fact that the human race contributes majorly in influencing the planet earth and therefore engineers and scientists are tasked with the difficult role of guiding the society through what is termed as geoengineering of projects. Anthropocene is, therefore, a vital concept in explaining the magnitude of the current situation. In other words, the term can be seen as a revelation that drives home the fact that human beings have greatly contributed to the changes in the earth’s systems, as a result, destabilizing it calling for immediate action.
However, the term has been criticized in what is termed as the Anthropocene discourse. This concept tends to believe that all human beings including their human nature are responsible for the problems facing the planet. This is totally against the belief of anthropologists who claim that human beings have always figured out how to adapt to their ecological means. Others including social scientists tend to believe that the environmental issues we are facing are a result of human culture rather than their nature. It would, therefore, be prudent to give the era a name that mainly looks at the problem’s cultural and historical roots so that we would be able to understand what took place and that would act as a reminder that whatever happened was a choice and not an inevitability.
With all these debates around the Anthropocene concept, it is important for scientists from major sectors involved to come together and look critically at it and forge a way forward that they would all agree and have faith in. we need an intervention that will not force us to sacrifice the wealth of life that we have.