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| Fleurs d'équinoxe, 2015 Francine Adam (cc) |
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto
Anthropocene workshop17 September 2015
Anthropocene from a mesological point of view
Augustin Berque
1. “Anthropocene” comes from the Greek anthropos, human being, and kainos, new. It means that we have entered an age in which humankind is transforming nature to a degree which becomes geologically significant. The suffix cene has been used, in geology, to designate a new age of life on the Earth ; hence Eocene etc. In that sense, Anthropocene might be limited to a geological meaning, the question being how to define when it begins : was it in the fifties with the so-called Great Acceleration? In 1784 with the steam engine? With the neolithic agricultural revolution? With the use of fire? Etc.