There is an old Chinese proverb perhaps you have heard before: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second-best time is now.

              The best time to act on climate change was more than twenty years ago, but the second-best time is now. The time we have to work with now is what we call the Anthropocene.

What is the Anthropocene? Besides a mouthful to say, that I regularly stumble over, despite having talked and worried over it for years. What is the Anthropocene besides a garble of sounds that sound simultaneously too formal to be within reach and so personal it burns a little?

The Anthropocene is the current geological age we are living in. Some argue we are still in the Holocene, which started around 11,700 years ago after the last major Ice Age.[1] However, the officially unofficial label of the Anthropocene was popularized in 2000 to mark the major ways humans have changed the Earth, especially since the Industrial Revolution. It is a new epoch. A world inarguably altered by the hands, feet, cars, and worse of human beings.

In a book by Christophe Bonneuil and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz called The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us, the authors begin, “What exactly has been happening on Earth in the last quarter of a millennium? The Anthropocene. Anthropo-what? We already live in the Anthropocene, so let us get used to this ugly word and the reality that it names.” It isn’t just an environmental crisis, they argue, but “a geological revolution of human origin” (11).

Bonneuil and Fressoz explain,

It is an Earth whose atmosphere has been damaged by the 1,500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide we have spilled by burning coal and other fossil fuels. It is the impoverishment and artificializing of Earth’s living tissue, permeated by a host of new synthetic chemical molecules that will even affect our descendants. It is a warmer world with a higher risk of catastrophes, a reduced ice cover, higher sea-levels and a climate out of control. (11)

How did we get here? Look all around. Humanity has built its empire on Earth’s back without stopping long enough to think about the damage left in its wake. Cars criss-cross countries and idle being anything but idle; factories pump thousands of tons of emissions into the air to produce the goods we demand and corporations decide we need[2]; we know the harms of fracking and overfishing and deforestation, yet the cycle continues. Margaret Atwood referred to Planet Earth as “the Goldilocks planet we’ve taken for granted” in a 2015 article titled “It’s Not Climate Change, It’s Everything Change.” The planet is altering much more quickly than anticipated because humans will not relent. “The shift towards the warmer end of the thermometer that was once predicted to happen much later, when the generations now alive had had lots of fun and made lots of money and gobbled up lots of resources and burned lots of fossil fuels and then died, are happening much sooner than anticipated back then. In fact, they’re happening now” (Atwood). This injury to the Earth is man-made.

              The term “Anthropocene” comes from the ancient Greek ‘anthropos’ and ‘kainos.’ Anthropos- is the same you would find in “anthropology” or “philanthropist,” and it essentially means “human being.” -Kainos means recent or new. Together, this means a new epoch of humans, or age of man (Bonneuil and Fressoz 16).

              It was coined in 2000, and the story is actually a pretty funny one. It was February 2000, and scientists of all professions gathered for a conference of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme[3] in Cuernavaca, Mexico. Discussions commenced about the age of the planet and human impacts on her, and, well, things got heated (pun intended). I do not know if this is really how it went down exactly, but I like to imagine that there was a relatively civil discussion in a large auditorium full of scientists, and Paul Crutzen had had just about enough of hearing about the Holocene and suddenly yelled out, “No! We’re no longer in the Holocene but in the Anthropocene!” According to Bonneuil and Fressoz, he did say this, or something to that effect, but I think I have probably dramatized the whole affair in my head. Fine by me; the man needed to show some spunk to try and convince his colleagues of this new era. Many scientists and organizations today, twenty-four years later, still decline to acknowledge the new epoch. Nevertheless, in the face of doubters, Crutzen would publish an article in the scientific periodical Nature in 2002[4] to defend his assertions.

Crutzen. who had previously won the Nobel Prize for his work concerning the ozone layer as an atmospheric chemist,[5] would come to argue that the Anthropocene started in the 18th century. He suggested that 1784, the year James Watt received a patent for the steam engine, was a significant marker of the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. As such, 1784 marked the beginning of major carbonification of the Earth’s atmosphere, with massive amounts of coal burning and other increased emissions (Bonneuil and Fressoz 16). The Industrial Revolution was a turning point for the world in so many ways. Humans would never live the same again. We began to work differently, navigate the globe differently, eat differently, interact differently… It only makes sense that we would inflict our changes upon the Earth, too. Dubbing the Industrial Revolution as a starting point of a new historical era was not novel; marking it geologically continues to be something contested, however.

              Even so, and even though it was not until the turn of the 21st century that the Anthropocene was proposed by name,[6] we were not so blind in the past to ignore the ways in which humans had marred the planet. In fact, various scientists and scholars were privy to the fact centuries before this one.

              In the late 1850s, Irish physicist and experimental scientist John Tyndall set out to study the absorptive properties of different gases. In conducting these atmospheric studies, he proposed a very important concept. Perhaps you have heard of it? By building the world’s first ratio spectrophotometer, Tyndall was able to compare the ways in which various gases absorb and transmit radiation. He then determined that Earth is enveloped by gases that trap heat within her atmosphere. Common nitrogen and oxygen in the air were not the culprits, he was surprised to learn, but the less common carbon dioxide and water vapor were opaque on the infrared spectrum and thus reflected heat back toward the Earth. Tyndall proposed this natural greenhouse effect.[7] It altered scientists' understanding of how the Earth was warmed. As time wore on, this would become an even more pressing issue. Despite global warming being some sort of hot button issue these days, Elizabeth Kolbert points outs in Field Notes from a Catastrophe[8] that this scientific phenomenon of the greenhouse effect is indisputable: “It is not remotely controversial; indeed, it’s recognized as an essential condition of life on the planet” (Kolbert 35-37). The steps after accepting this knowledge have been interpreted as more subjective, however. There are climate change deniers in the world who do not believe that global warming as investigated through the greenhouse effect is unnatural. Or, perhaps even worse, there are those who understand the negative impact humans have had on the atmosphere and choose inaction anyway.

              Although Tyndall is often credited as “the father of climate science” and the man who discovered the greenhouse effect, one woman reached largely the same conclusions three years before his experimentations. This woman — should we call her the mother of climate science? — was Eunice Newton Foote.[9] Whereas Tyndall constructed a complicated spectrometer that heated copper to measure radiation, Foote turned to home experimentation, a common practice in her time. She filled several jars with different gases and placed them in the sunlight. When she realized that the glasses filled with carbon dioxide heated more quickly than those filled with ordinary air, she concluded that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would cause Earth to be warmer. This was a major discovery, completed in her own backyard! She submitted her findings to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS),[10] which entailed publication and presentation at a conference. However, because she was a woman and this was the 19th century, Foote was not allowed to present her own research; instead, Joseph Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, read her research while she sat in the audience. He also prefaced the presentation with acknowledging that this was the work of a woman but stating that women can sometimes do science. (Eye roll.) Her work was published, but Foote was largely forgotten until 2011 when a researcher named Ray Sorenson uncovered her contributions (Kurland and Hafner).[11] Although Foote discovered this effect around 1856, and Tyndall was possibly aware of this work before completing his own, more complex experiments, it still is not clear who exactly “discovered” the greenhouse effect.

              Even before Foote and Tyndall in the 1850s, others were discussing how Earth’s atmosphere must trap heat. According to an article written by Rudy M. Baum Sr. for the Science History Institute’s Distillations Magazine, earlier in the nineteenth century, Joseph Fourier, a French mathematician, raised the question of what determines the temperature of the Earth’s surface. It may seem simple, but based on his previous calculations of the balance of the energy coming to the surface from the Sun and the energy going out from the planet’s surface, the Earth should be much colder, well into freezing temperatures. Of course, however, it wasn’t, so Fourier knew there must be something afoot.[12] Then in 1838, French physicist Claude Pouillet speculated that CO2 and water vapor could be the cause, but there would be no experimental evidence until Tyndall and Foote came along (Baum). All of these figures contributed to the discovery of the greenhouse effect, and, as such, their conclusions would mark the beginning of the serious study of climate science, a field that would continue to grow and grow.

A Swedish chemist and physicist Svante Arrhenius would pick up the work around the 1890s. He, like Tyndall, was interested in what triggers ice ages. With some knowledge of the effects of carbon dioxide,[13] he set out on a mission of arduous calculations to see what may happen if the atmosphere experienced a significant decrease (half) or significant increase (double) of atmospheric CO2. With just the cutting-edge technology of pen and paper, Arrhenius predicted that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 could result in the Earth’s surface temperature increasing 11 to 14.5 degrees Fahrenheit, eerily close to modern calculations of 5.5 to 9 degrees (Baum). In addition to his calculations, Kolbert writes, “Arrhenius was also responsible for a key conceptual breakthrough. All over Europe, factories and railroads and power stations were burning coal and belching out smoke. Arrhenius recognized that industrialization and climate change were intimately related, and that the consumption of fossil fuels must, over time, lead to warming” (41). Though he was not overly concerned about this then, since he believed increases would take an incredibly long time, Arrhenius contributed monumental work to the field of climate science.

Yet after his death, interest in studying climate change largely dropped off. Others agreed with Arrhenius’s assumption that any global warming would not be a concern until much later. However, Kolbert writes, “Then, in the mid-1950s, for no particularly good reason, a young chemist named Charles David Keeling decided to work out a new and more precise way of measuring atmospheric CO2.” Keeling was just “having fun.” His fun would result in convincing the National Weather Bureau to constantly monitor CO2 levels at its observatory in Mauna Loa, a practice that continues to this day and has resulted in “the Keeling Curve,” probably the most widely disseminated set of natural science data ever collected (42). Without his random curiosity, we could have much less data to work with today when it comes to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. By consistently monitoring CO2, we can have a realistic outlook on what our actions do to the atmosphere and can set goals to curb the harm.

Carbon dioxide outpourings skyrocketed with the Industrial Revolution. As such, Bonneuil and Fressoz offer, “We should not act as astonished ingénues who suddenly discover they are transforming the planet: the entrepreneurs of the industrial revolution who brought us into the Anthropocene actively willed this new epoch and shaped it.” They point to Saint-Simon, a man who foresaw the effects of industrialization even as it unfolded without precedent. He said in the 1820s, “The object of industry is the exploitation of the globe, that is to say, the appropriation of its products for the needs of man; and by accomplishing this task, it modifies the globe and transforms it, gradually changing the conditions of its existence…”[14] Saint-Simon was often optimistic about the appeals of industry, but in a more glass-half-empty manner, Eugéne Huzar imagined in 1857, “In one or two hundred years, criss-crossed by railways and steamships, covered with factories and workshops, … hundreds of billions of carbonic acid and carbon oxide may indeed disturb the harmony of the world” (Bonneuil and Fressoz 11-12). Saint-Simon and Huzar were both correct in their predictions. And what they described lines up precisely with how we would grow to designate the Anthropocene.

Many may consider “climate change” as a subject to be born of the hippie era, but clearly, we have known about the dangers of climate change for centuries. Still, it is worth noting that the 1970s did bring new vigor to the issue of global warming. The story of climate change, concern, and action from the 1970s is well-documented. In the United States and elsewhere, it includes a huge amount of government failures. We wade deeper and deeper into the epoch of man’s effect on the climate, as the actions of men are matched to disastrous effect with inaction. The Charney Panel was a group of experts who investigated all we knew about climate change up to that point in the 1970s, and they warned about the looming dangers, yet the overall response was just to see if it would get bad enough to do anything. Spoiler alert, it did. Yet, through both Bush administrations and the Clinton administration, climate action was neglected in favor of profit. One not-so-fun fact is that President George W. Bush, having defeated the climate-aware Al Gore, did next to nothing for the environment in his first year but then made a big production about curbing “greenhouse gas intensity.” This was a red herring. Greenhouse gas “intensity” measured emissions versus economic output. If factory production and corporate output outpaced emissions, greenhouse gas intensity went down. So as long as more money was being made, it didn’t matter if real emissions went up. It appeared that something was being done to battle climate change. Realistically, it was a polished turd. Between 1900 and 2000, greenhouse gas intensity fell by 17%. Wow! A cause for celebration! Except… No. Actual emissions in the United States rose by 12% in that span (Kolbert 159). In the years to come, you’d have fellows like Newt Gingrich dedicated to coaching Republican politicians and followers to believe that the science was not yet settled, and many other political shenanigans (163). Through propaganda, misleading, and maybe some legitimate ignorance on the topic, years without significant climate action passed. Even now, we are left to wrestle with the effects of inaction via legislation. It’s not to say that there were no attempts to fight back during all those years — there was significant bravery and activism and action — and there is a lot of good work being done today. But we remain in a position that puts the Earth, our home, in danger.

              We face melting glaciers, rising sea levels, increased levels of natural disaster. Overfishing, whaling, and deforestation deplete Earth’s resources at break-neck speeds. Marginalized communities already see the worst of it, and they will continue to be the most impacted if something doesn’t change. People are dying. Animals are dying. We need several more Earths to keep up with the incessant demands of humans. Some of those demanding humans still don’t even believe that we ask too much of Earth or that we have changed her for the worse. There’s no Planet B, but we are earning an F grade on Planet A. I feel guilt for using a plastic straw, or driving my car, or doing anything that can leave a mark on our dear Earth. This Anthropocene business is enough to make me want to spiral into gloom and doom! But, we do not have to.

              Have you heard of Tell Leilan? It was an ancient city, formerly called Shekhna, in what is now Syria. A very advanced city, with a huge acropolis as well as neighborhoods and great storehouses. They raised wheat and used carts, writing, and rations to distribute it. Harvey Weiss studied this city for decades to reveal its story. He looked in the soil. It began as a small farming village around 5000 B.C. Then it grew to a city of 30,000 by around 2600 B.C. But soon enough, Weiss and his team found a layer of dirt from 2200 to 1900 B.C. with no signs of humans at all. There weren’t even any earthworms (Kolbert 94-95). The abandonment of Tell Leilan is yet another tale of an ancient civilization suddenly vanishing. Weiss dedicated his career in research to discovering what happened. Short answer? Climate change.

              Weiss told the world of his findings in 1993: extreme drought was the cause behind Tell Leilan’s decline and the whole Akkadian empire’s fall. Kolbert writes, “Since then, the list of cultures whose demise has been linked to climate change has continued to grow” (95). Years later, Weiss constructed a color-coded timeline of red and black to demonstrate how key cultural and key climate-related events have overlapped throughout history. “The two alternated in a rhythmic cycle of disaster and innovation,” Kolbert reports (115). The Near East has the longest, most detailed archaeological record, but this red-and-black cyclical timeline has revealed something of cause and effect worldwide. Changes to monsoon patterns four thousand years ago in the Indus Valley spelled great decline for the Harappan civilization; the Moche people in the Andes were forced to flee their homes fourteen hundred years ago due to a lack of rainfall; the colony of Roanoke’s disappearance in 1587 coincides with a major regional drought. Even the diminishment of the great Mayan civilization has a lot to do with a climatic lack of water (117). Kolbert wisely points out, “The monochromatic sort of history that most of us grew up with did not allow for events like the fight that destroyed Tell Leilan. Civilizations fell, we were taught, because of wars or barbarian invasions or political unrest" (116). We aren’t taught that civilizations could fall because of climate change. 

          Not everyone agreed at first. Peter deMenocal is a researcher who pushed back against Weiss’s theories, but he eventually had to admit the correlation between climate change and the collapses. He says of Tell Leilan, “The thing they couldn't prepare for was the same thing that we won't prepare for, because in their case they didn't know about it and because in our case the political system can't listen to it. And that is that the climate system had much greater things in store for us than we think" (115). So, perhaps, we must look at those things our climate system has in store for us. The people of Tell Leilan could not survive the climate crisis of their time. What might we do about ours now?

It was not a happy story, I know. But it is what we do with the knowledge of our past that can dictate our future. We can see what we are facing. The climate challenges in front of us are reliably well-researched. But now that we are in the Anthropocene, what can we do to continue? How can we be stewards of the Earth and care for our planet?[15]

              The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second-best time is now. History has shown us failures and victories alike, as we have learned more about our role in Earth’s changing climate. The Anthropocene being defined by human activity means that our role is crucial. If we don’t fill those shoes positively, and we’ve done so much to poison, what then? We didn’t plant a metaphorical tree twenty years ago. We have to do that now.

We can start sowing those seeds with climate fiction. Then, I hope that real action can take root.


[1] National Geographic has a nice, short explainer piece/encyclopedic entry at https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/anthropocene/.

[2] I am sure you have heard the statistic that just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. If not, take a moment to try to digest that.

[3] This program began in 1987 but ended in 2015.

[4] Crutzen, Paul J. “Geology of Mankind.” Nature, vol. 415, no. 23, 3 Jan. 2002, p. 23, https://doi.org/10.1038/415023a.

[5] He shares this prize with F. Sherwood Rowland, who is known for studying aerosols and the chlorofluorocarbons released by them. Rowland was mostly just studying how CFCs interacted with the upper atmosphere out of curiosity. He soon realized that it was a much bigger deal than he predicted, and ozone depletion theory soon came to be. He apparently came home to his wife one day after working in the lab to say, “The work is going well, but it looks like it might be the end of the world” (Kolbert 182).

[6] 19th century names included “the Anthropozoic era” and “the noosphere.”

[7] For even more context, I would recommend this bulletin published by the Environmental Chemistry Group: https://www.envchemgroup.com/john-tyndallrsquos-discovery-of-the-lsquogreenhouse-effectrsquo.html. Take a look at Figure 1, which depicts what the first ratio spectrophotometer looked like. This large operation allowed him to study gases in a way that hadn’t been done before. By the end, according to this article, he reported, “This aqueous vapour is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man. Remove for a single summer-night the aqueous vapour from the air which overspreads this country, and you would assuredly destroy every plant capable of being destroyed by a freezing temperature. The warmth of our fields and gardens would pour itself unrequited into space, and the sun would rise upon an island held fast in the iron grip of frost.”

[8] A book I absolutely adore and will be referencing frequently throughout this thingamajig.

[9] Yes, Newton as in Isaac Newton. Her father was an Isaac Newton, but not the Isaac Newton. They were distantly related.

[10] She was from Connecticut and would move to Seneca Falls, New York, too, to be at the epicenter of the Women’s Rights Movement.

[11] You should really check out this full podcast episode of Lost Women of Science: https://www.lostwomenofscience.org/episodes/the-woman-who-demonstrated-the-greenhouse-effect.

[12] Not to be confused with a Foote, whom we previously looked to.

          12a. For the ultimate footnote, this is a footnote to a footnote that makes a Foote note.

[13] Technically, Arrhenius studied carbonic acid, which is an Arrhenius acid, where carbon dioxide is dissolved into water. An Arrhenius acid is a compound that increases the concentration of hydrogen ion in an aqueous solution. Carbonic acid is represented as H2CO3.

[14] He continues to state that this point of view elevates industry to religion. Maybe take that with a grain of salt.

[15] For her benefit and our own.