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The Anthropocene: From Global Change to Planetary Stewardship (2011)

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Paul J. Crutzen and the Anthropocene: A New Epoch in Earth’s History

Part of the book series: The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science ((APESS,volume 1))

Abstract

Overthepastcentury, thetotalmaterialwealthofhumanityhasbeenenhanced. However, inthetwenty-firstcentury, we face scarcity in critical resources, the degradation of ecosystem services, and the erosion of the planet’s capability to absorb our wastes. Equity issues remain stubbornly difficult to solve. This situation is novel in its speed, its global scale and its threat to the resilience of the Earth System. The advent of the Anthropence, the time interval in which human activities now rival global geophysical processes, suggests that we need to fundamentally alter our relationship with the planet we inhabit. Many approaches could be adopted, ranging from geoengineering solutions that purposefully manipulate parts of the Earth System to becoming active stewards of our own life support system. The Anthropocene is a reminder that the Holocene, during which complex human societies have developed, has been a stable, accommodating environment and is the only state of the Earth System that we know for sure can support contemporary society. The need to achieve effective planetary stewardship is urgent. As we go further into the Anthropocene, we risk driving the Earth System onto a trajectory toward more hostile states from which we cannot easily return.

This text was first published as: Steffen, W.; Persson, Å.; Deutsch, L.; Zalasiewicz, J.; Williams, M.; Richardson, K.; Crumley, C.; Crutzen, P.J.; Folke, C.; Gordon, L.; Molina, M.; Ramanathan, V.; Rockström, J.; Scheffer, M.; Schellnhuber, H.J.; Svedin, U., 2011: “The Anthropocene: From Global Change to Planetary Stewardship”, in: Ambio, 40,7 (November): 739–761; https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-011-0185-x. The permission was granted by Springer Nature through the Copyright Clearance Center.

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Acknowledgments

The article is based on Steffen et al. (2011). The Anthropocene: from global change to planetary stewardship. Working Paper No. 2 prepared for the ‘‘3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability: Transforming the World in an Era of Global Change’’, in Stockholm, 16–19 May 2011, Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact. We acknowledge support from Ebba och Sven Schwartz Stiftelse, Kjell and Marta Beijer Foundation, Formas, and Mistra through a core grant to the Stockholm Resilience Centre, a cross-faculty research centre at Stockholm University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Will Steffen

  2. Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm, Sweden

    Åsa Persson

  3. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm, Sweden

    Lisa Deutsch & Uno Svedin

  4. Department of Geology, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LEI 7RH, UK

    Jan Zalasiewicz & Mark Williams

  5. Leader of the Sustainability Science Center, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Katherine Richardson

  6. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, CA, USA

    Carole Crumley

  7. Max-Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany

    Paul J. Crutzen

  8. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Carl Folke

  9. Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Line Gordon

  10. University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Mario Molina

  11. University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

    Veerabhadran Ramanathan

  12. Earth System Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Johan Rockström

  13. Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Martin Scheffer

  14. Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany

    Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

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  1. Will Steffen
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC), Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Susanne Benner

  2. Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany

    Gregor Lax

  3. (deceased), Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC), Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Paul J. Crutzen

  4. Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC), Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Ulrich Pöschl

  5. Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPIC), Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Jos Lelieveld

  6. Free University of Berlin (Ret.), Hans Günter Brauch Foundation on Peace and Ecology in the Anthropocene (HGBS), Peace Research and European Security Studies (AFES-PRESS), Mosbach, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Hans Günter Brauch

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Steffen, W. et al. (2021). The Anthropocene: From Global Change to Planetary Stewardship (2011). In: Benner, S., Lax, G., Crutzen, P.J., Pöschl, U., Lelieveld, J., Brauch, H.G. (eds) Paul J. Crutzen and the Anthropocene: A New Epoch in Earth’s History. The Anthropocene: Politik—Economics—Society—Science, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82202-6_13

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