Anthropocene

noun

An·​thro·​po·​cene ˈan(t)-thrə-pə-ˌsēn 

an-ˈthrä-

: the period of time during which human activities have had an environmental impact on the Earth regarded as constituting a distinct geological time interval

In the long history of this planet, our current time, the human age known as the Anthropocene, is the first in which a single species will so rapidly reshape the future of Earth's climate and all the other conditions that make life as we know it livable.

—Erle C. Ellis

Most scientists agree that humans have had a hand in warming Earth's climate since the industrial revolution—some even argue that we are living in a new geological epoch, dubbed the Anthropocene.

—Betsy Mason

Examples of Anthropocene in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The late-Quaternary megafauna extinctions: Patterns, causes, ecological consequences and implications for ecosystem management in the Anthropocene Jack Knudson is an assistant editor at Discover with a strong interest in environmental science and history. —Jack Knudson, Discover Magazine, 18 Feb. 2025

Humanity’s firepower underpins the Anthropocene, which is the outcome not just of anthropogenic meddling but of a particular kind of meddling, made possible by humans’ species monopoly over fire. —Stephen Pyne, Smithsonian Magazine, 29 Jan. 2025

There have been many proposals for what to name our particular era: the Anthropocene, the Capitalocene, the Trumpocene. —Elizabeth Rush, New York Times, 21 Jan. 2025

Climate Cat Fox Neutrino Thomas Wharton Searching for a new literary realism in the Anthropocene. —Max Ufberg, hazlitt.net, 10 Jan. 2025

This connectedness is part of the value in viewing the Anthropocene through a pyric prism. —Stephen Pyne, Scientific American, 16 Apr. 2024

Learning to live in nuclear exclusion zones might be the one best skill for surviving the Anthropocene. —Thomas Bass author, Newsweek, 19 Dec. 2024

The characters—ebony, sandalwood, ceiba, redwood and so on—quickly come to feel like old friends, their long life histories carefully told and the stakes of their uncertain futures in the Anthropocene clearly laid out. —Joe Spring, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 Dec. 2024

These interests have inspired Green’s creative pursuits, including the podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed and its follow-up book, both of which grapple with the world as humanity has made it. —Dylan Scott, Vox, 21 Nov. 2024

Word History

Etymology

anthropo- + -cene

Note: The name was formally proposed by the Dutch chemist Paul J. Crutzen and the American biologist Eugene F. Stoermer in "The 'Anthropocene'," Global Change Newsletter (newsletter of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, International Council for Science), No. 41 (May, 2000), pp. 17-18. According to his own recollection, Stoermer employed the word earlier ("I began using the term 'anthropocene' in the 1980s, but never formalized it until Paul [Crutzen] contacted me." —J. Grinevald, La Biosphère de l'Anthropocène [Geneva, 2007], p. 243, cited in Will Steffen, et al., "The Anthropocene: conceptual and historical perspectives," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, vol. 369 [2011], p. 843).

First Known Use

2000, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for Anthropocene

• acetylene
• adenosine
• amphetamine
• antipyrine
• apomorphine
• apoprotein
• aquamarine
• arsphenamine
• azobenzene
• buprenorphine
• chlorobenzene
• chlorpromazine