ABSTRACT
Recent debate among geologists about whether or not a new geological era has dawned provides a helpful entry point for a chapter that aims to unpack the different ways in which a notion of ‘human modification’ (or anthropogenic effect) allows us to query nature/society separations. The sticking point in this debate concerns whether or not the ‘scale of human modification of the earth’ in the past century or so has been comparable to the kinds of meteorite strikes, tectonic collisions, and volcanic eruptions that are deemed to have punctuated previous geological eras. That is to say, the ‘Anthropo-cene’—if there indeed is such a ‘-cene’—is the result, not of geological events, but rather, of ‘human activity’, ‘human influence’, ‘human impact’, ‘human modification’, or ‘human intervention’ and therefore scientists have been busy deliberating whether or not a ‘human imprint’ can be perceived in sedimentation, carbon dioxide levels, rates of biotic change, sea levels, etc. An Anthropocene Working Group has been formed “to critically compare the current degree and rate of environmental change, caused by anthropogenic processes, with the environmental perturbations of the geological past” with a call to include botanists, zoologists, atmospheric scientists, ocean scientists, as well as geologists in this task (Zalasiewicz et al. 2010: 2230).
