May 2024

Humankind’s transformation of the Earth is embodied in the idea that we are living in the “Anthropocene”. Most people who have heard of this concept were probably unaware that it describes a specific unit of geological measurement - an epoch. A debate has been ongoing for more than a decade about whether to make that designation official - for the Anthropocene to take over from the Holocene epoch. This debate concluded just a few weeks ago with a definitive “no”.

In this episode of The Case for Conservation Podcast renowned Anthropocene expert Erle Ellis explains what happened to the Anthropocene… and why it doesn’t really matter that it was rejected as an epoch. Erle is an environmental scientist who divides his academic time between the university of Maryland in the US, and Oxford University in the UK. He is a prolific author and public commentator on this and related topics.

Links to resources

• Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction - 2018 book authored by Erle.

• The Anthropocene is not an epoch − but the age of humans is most definitely underway - A recent update from Erle in "The Conversation".