Anthropocene epoch proposal rejected - does it really matter?

Abstract

As has reported for some time now, several researchers have embraced the idea that we currently live in a time so different from last centuries that we should separate it into a distinct geological time unit. Specialists who fall under the designation of Earth scientists -such as geologists, paleontologists, and geochemists -divide our planet's geological record expressed in rocks and layers according to events that have had an affect on a global scale. Perhaps the best known is the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs and many other organisms that occurred about 66 million years ago due to the impact of a large meteorite (e.g., Renne et al. 2013). This led to the establishment of the Cretaceous-Paleocene (K-Pg) boundary, revealing two very distinct worlds -one with and one without non-avian dinosaurs, separated by a thin layer with a high concentration of iridium -a chemical element that is very rare on the planet, but abundant in meteorites.The geologic time in which we live is called Holocene, an epoch that began about 11.700 years ago, after the last glaciation (e.g., Walker et al. 2009). At some point, the Dutch environmental chemist Paul Crutzen took up a previous expression used by the American ecologist Eugene Stoermer, the Anthropocene, to make people understand that the current world is quite different from the rest of the Holocene (Crutzen & Stoermer 2000). Just for the sake of fidelity to history, apparently this expression and/or its meaning already existed in the Russian literature before that (e.g., Brookes & Fratto 2020). And the term stuck! Several studies have been published on this subject (e.g., Zalasiewicz et al. 2024), some firmly opposing the idea (e.g., Demos 2017). There have even been periodicals created with what is becoming a popular term, some charging quite hefty fees for open access (e.g., Anthropocene 2024), a problematic issue that will not be addressed here (e.g., Kellner 2023).An interdisciplinary Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) has been established to study this matter in detail and provide a recommendation to the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). The latter is part of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) and has the responsibility to validate questions and suggestions that might affect the geologic time scale. Contrary to many expectations, this body of scientists has just refused the introduction and formalization of the Anthropocene epoch (IUGS 2024), which has already led to some protests (e.g., Witze 2024).But the question on the minds of many scientists (including geologists like me): does it really matter? Would the "extinction" of the Holocene and the introduction of a new epoch change our perception of the world we live in? There is no doubt that our planet is being affected by the wise species Homo sapiens. Just to stay local, recent examples in Brazil are the collapse of the ALEXANDER W.A. KELLNER EDITORIAL NOTE An Acad Bras Cienc (2024) 96(2) e2024962 2 | 3 How to cite KELLNER AWA. 2024. Anthropocene epoch proposal rejected -does it real...