Towards a better understanding of the Anthropocene

TL;DR

This paper analyzes new anthropogenic data, challenging the idea of the Anthropocene as a distinct epoch, and suggests it is a long-term historical process with no clear start, showing a deceleration in human impact.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of anthropogenic data, questioning the concept of the Anthropocene as a geological epoch and proposing it as a historical continuum.

Findings

Deceleration of human-induced global change processes.

No systematic acceleration around 1950 CE.

The Anthropocene is a historical event, not a geological epoch.

Abstract

(1) Results of analysis of new sets of anthropogenic data are presented. They confirm earlier results of similar analyses. The expected and inevitable massive deceleration of human-induced global change process is demonstrated as an ongoing phenomenon. Human activities and impacts on the Earth System, while in general remaining strong, are now systematically slowing down. (2) It is now clearly stated, by supporters of the concept of the Great Acceleration, that the so-called Great Acceleration is not acceleration and that this term is open to misinterpretation. (3) There was no systematic sharp increase in anthropogenic growth trajectories around 1950 CE (Common Era) or around any other recent time. (4) Close inspection of data suggests that the Anthropocene is not a geological epoch, but a historical event, also reflected as a geological event. (5) The Anthropocene has no convincingly determinable beginning. What is described as the Anthropocene appears to be an integral part of a long process transcending the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs, a natural continuation of the past developments of human interaction with nature. (6) Using the concept of the Jinji unconformity, the embryonic beginning of human (hominid) interaction with the environment could be placed at the time of the first use of stone tools millions of years ago. Gradually the intensity of this interaction was increasing and culminated monotonically in an event described as the Anthropocene.