The Anthropocene became part of the zeitgeist after Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen launched the idea in 2000. This is the notion that a crescendo of human impacts has recently propelled the Earth out of the relatively stable climatic conditions of the Holocene epoch, during which human civilisation developed and flourished, to produce a new kind of planet.
Then, the idea seemingly crashed to earth in 2024 when the International Commission on Stratigraphy rejected its incorporation into the official geological timescale. So where are we now? Has our planet not changed? Is the Anthropocene idea dead? One can be forgiven for being confused.
