The Anthropocene: an Australasian perspective and survey.

Abstract

In 2000, Crutzen and Stoermer suggested that the Holocene (the geological period of time since 11,700 years ago: Walker et al., 2009) had finished and that humanity had now entered the “Anthropocene”. As summarised by Steffen et al. (2011) and Wolfe et al. (2013), these scientists were referring to the Anthropocene as the interval of demonstrable human alteration of global biogeochemical cycles, beginning subtly in the late 18th Century following James Watt’s invention of the coal-fired steam engine, and accelerating markedly in the mid-20th Century (called “The Great Acceleration”).