Global Change and the Earth System

Steffen, Will; Sanderson, Angelina; Tyson, Peter; Jager, J. M. de; Matson, Pamela A.; Moore, Berrien; Oldfield, Frank; Richardson, Katherine; Schellnhuber, Hans‐Joachim; Turner, B. L.; Wasson, Robert J.

doi:10.1007/b137870

Cited by 544 publications

(407 citation statements)

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“…Why, for example, did the 1950s mark the beginning of unprecedented economic growth, terrestrial species loss and population expansion? 21 These are all historical questions, with both cultural and biophysical ramifications. Mapping the ways people and environment work together is not going to be picked up by specialists in either, but generalists in both, working on a genuinely global canvas.…”

Section: A New Geological Epochmentioning

confidence: 99%

History for the Anthropocene

Robin

Steffen

2007

History Compass

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Global history has become the business of more than just historians. This paper explores the history of scientific historiography, particularly a recent initiative of the Global Change community to write an Integrated History and future Of People on Earth (IHOPE). A new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, has been declared, reflecting the scientific fact that anthropogenic change is now shaping planetary systems. Describing changes to the Earth system over time demands understanding of the history of the biophysical factors, the human factors and their integration. While global warming has motivated the recent initiative to write global history, the global atomic era also provided an incentive for scientists to write global history, as was revealed in the 1940s UNESCO initiatives for a Scientific and Cultural History of Mankind and an International Union for the History of Science. We review recent developments in world and environmental historiography, and popular ‘millennial’ projects, such as the Clock of the Long Now, to identify potential common interests between historians and non‐historians writing world history at very different scales, and for different audiences.

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Section: A New Geological Epochmentioning

confidence: 99%

History for the Anthropocene

Robin

Steffen

2007

History Compass

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“…Although climate change and the alteration of atmospheric carbon concentrations are the most prominently recognized indicators of the human influence, Steffen et al (2011) explain that other changes include the significant alteration of other biogeochemical cycles, the modification of the hydrological cycle through land use change, and the likelihood of driving a sixth major extinction event in Earth history (see also Steffen et al 2005). The nature of humans' impact on the global biophysical system has become so dominant that scientists have proposed that the last 216 years of the existing Holocene period should become recognized as a new geological epoch, termed the Anthropocene (Crutzen and Stoermer 2000, Crutzen 2002, Steffen et al 2011, Lewis and Maslin 2015.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The concept of the Anthropocene as a game-changer: a new context for social innovation and transformations to sustainability

Olsson¹,

Moore²,

Westley³

et al. 2017

E&S

148

138

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ABSTRACT. After tracing the antecedents of the concept and considering its intersection in social innovation research, we put forward the argument that the Anthropocene concept points to three areas of thought that are strategically imperative and must be accelerated if social innovation theory and practice is to prove transformative and respond to the challenges associated with the Anthropocene. First, we contend that the current debate on social innovation for sustainability lacks a deeper focus on human-environmental interactions and the related feedbacks, which will be necessary to understand and achieve large-scale change and transformations to global sustainability. Many innovations focus on only the social or the ecological, and we believe a more integrated approach will be needed moving forward. Second, social innovation research must confront the path-dependencies embedded within systems, and we propose that the act of "bricolage," which recombines existing elements in novel ways, will be essential, rather than single variable solutions, which currently dominate social innovation discussions. Finally, we put forward the idea that confronting the cross-scalar nature of the Anthropocene requires revisiting both the scope and temporal nature of social innovations that are most typically focused upon by scholars and funders alike. We believe the concept of the Anthropocene creates new opportunities for social innovation scholars to imagine new possibilities.

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“…11 and 14 in this volume). In environmental terms, water security refers to maintaining the ecosystem services and protecting the biological and hydrological cycles and the ecosphere Steffen et al 2004). Water is also a key element of societal security that permits livelihood, recreation, and joy of life.…”

Section: Water Securitymentioning

confidence: 99%

On Health and Water Security

Spring

2020

Pioneers in Arts, Humanities, Science, Engineering, Practice

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Climate change is severely affecting the availability of water and its quality. 1 Therefore it represents a direct challenge to health. Not only the water-born, but also the vector and temperature-related diseases are challenging the existing health system and safe water supply. Thus, water and health security have progressively been challenged primarily by pollution, waste, toxins and climate-change-related hazards and disasters.This chapter links the changing understanding on socio-environmental deterioration with water and health security. Using a case study of Mexico, it reviews the effects on the environment and the human well-being of the dominant economic model based on wasteful fossil energy, social inequality, consumerism, fashion, and growth concentrated in small elites. This model has brought both the planet and society as a whole to its limits of survival, but it has also affected regions, cultures and social classes differently. Poor countries and vulnerable groups have become the main victims suffering from socio-economic and climate-induced changes. In Mexico, the epidemiology has been changing, and traditional illnesses (diarrhoea, pulmonary conditions, under-nourishment) coexist with modern ones linked to the transformation of the diet (diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, cancer) and the pollution of water, air and soil (intoxication, respiratory, kidney and skin problems).At the conceptual level, in the framework of the PEISOR model this chapter explores the complex interaction between anthropogenic drivers, impacts of and policy responses to climate change, their interrelationship with the dominant 1 This text was adapted from two former published chapters by Oswald Spring, Úrsula (2012).

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Global Change and the Earth System

Cited by 544 publications

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History for the Anthropocene

History for the Anthropocene

The concept of the Anthropocene as a game-changer: a new context for social innovation and transformations to sustainability

On Health and Water Security

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