Читать книгу Risks and the Anthropocene - Julien Rebotier - Страница 15

Proposing the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch requires compliance with the rules of the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the body within the International Union of Geological Sciences that oversees the standardization of a geological time scale. Designating the boundaries of a geological epoch requires two conditions. It is necessary to be able to locate the traces of a global event left in stratigraphic materials (rocks, ice, sediments) and to associate them with other stratigraphic markers indicating changes in the whole earth system. Duly localized traces constitute a “golden spike”⁴.

For Crutzen and Stroemer (2000), it is the increase in the amount of CO₂ found in the atmosphere (visible in ice cores) that marks the beginning of the Anthropocene at the end of the 18th century. This period corresponds to the beginnings of the industrial revolution. The authors link it to the introduction of the steam engine patented by James Watts in 1784. Thanks to the multiplication of the data collected, a period of “great acceleration” after the Second World War has been identified more precisely (Steffen et al. 2007). The malady was diagnosed, tracing the horizon of a techno-scientific and moral research agenda supposed to respond to the major dysfunctions that this evolution has partly caused:

A daunting task lies ahead for scientists and engineers to guide society towards environmentally sustainable management during the era of the Anthropocene. This will require appropriate human behaviour at all scales, and may well involve internationally accepted, large-scale geo-engineering projects, for instance to “optimize” climate. (Crutzen 2002, p. 23)

Despite the confidence displayed, evidence is lacking to close the stratigraphic debate on the Anthropocene. Above all, underlying ways of seeing the world clash across such categorization, underscoring the interest of axiological controversies in addition to metrological ones:

Care is needed to ensure that the dominant culture of today’s scientists does not subconsciously influence the assessment of stratigraphic evidence. (Lewis and Maslin 2015, p. 173)