Tag Archives: Anthropocene

The Great Acceleration of the Laurentian Dairy Transition

Black and white archival photograph of a wood-shingled barn or farmhouse with a metal roof, two chimneys, and a weathervane, seen from the roadside. A wooden fence and overgrown brush line a dirt road in front of the building, with tall trees to the right. The image is labeled 'T.S. 9131' in the bottom corner.

Stéphane Castonguay and Colin Coates This is the ninth post in a series about the Great Acceleration as a framework and reconnaissance for Canadian environmental history. The posts in this series are cross-posed with NiCHE The relationship between agriculture and the Anthropocene unfolds across a temporal and conceptual spectrum punctuated by the various proposals for a “Golden Spike.”1 At one end… Read more »

Child of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration and a Reconnaissance of Canadian Environmental History

Andrew Watson This is the first post in a series exploring the potential of the Great Acceleration as a framework and reconnaissance of Canadian environmental history. The posts in this series are cross-posted with NiCHE. In 2016, J.R. McNeill and Peter Engelke made the bold prediction that “the Great Acceleration will not last long. It need not and cannot.”1 A decade later,… Read more »

The Anthropocene, Atmospheric Chemists, Geologists and Historians

  By Jim Clifford  Paul Crutzen, who proposed the Anthropocene epoch in 2002, wasn’t a geologist. He was an atmospheric chemist. This fact might explain the decision to reject his proposed new epoch. He wasn’t thinking like a geologist when he suggested the Anthropocene. I’m not a geologist either and have no opinion on whether they got this decision right… Read more »