Abstract The Anthropocene is regarded as a unique geological era dominated by humans. Over more than 20 years since the concept was proposed,the Anthropocene has not only been increasingly used within the Earth Science,but also rapidly adopted by many disciplinaries such as society and humanities. This paper aims to review the Anthropocene,regarding the similarities,differences and interrelationships in understanding the Anthropocene among the disciplinaries,from three perspectives of Earth System Science, Geology and Humanities. It has been suggested that the 1950s was the beginning of the Anthropocene, when was called the Great Acceleration of human activities that has changed the Earth System dramatically. The Anthropocene from an Earth System Science perspective focuses on the new Earth System state driven by humans. The Anthropocene from a geological perspective focuses on the geological signals in the strata indicating the start of a new geological era. The Anthropocene from a social and humanistic perspective focuses on human responsibility to cope with the global environment crises by industrial civilization and to make a hopeful promise to the human future. No matter the Anthropocene to be into the geochronological system,it will be an issue focused by the Earth Science and the Social Sciences in the long-term future.
Fund:Financially supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the Research Funds of Renmin University of China(No.20XNL011)
About author: About the author FANG Xiuqi,born in 1962,is a professor in Beijing Normal University. He is mainly engaged in research on environment change. E-mail: xfang@bnu.edu.cn.
Cite this article:
FANG Xiuqi. On perspectives of the Anthropocene[J]. JOPC, 2024, 26(6): 1287-1304.
FANG Xiuqi. On perspectives of the Anthropocene[J]. JOPC, 2024, 26(6): 1287-1304.
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