The news is not good on planet Earth. Humanity—and the rest of life with it—is now on the threshold of what earth system scientists call a “state shift.” This moment is dramatized in the growing awareness of climate change—among scholars, and also among a wider concerned public. But our moment involves far more than bad climate. We are living through a transition in planetary life with the “potential to transform Earth rapidly and irreversibly into a state unknown in human experience” (Barnosky et al.). The zeitgeist of the twenty-first century is therefore understandably infused with a sense of urgency, among citizens, activists, and scholars (e.g., Foster et al.; Hansen; Parenti; Klein). The reality is quite real. And, in any reasonable evaluation, the situation is deteriorating. Weekly, even daily, the research mounts. “Human pressures” are pushing the conditions of biospheric stability—climate and biodiversity above all—to the breaking point (Steffen et al. ; Mace et al.; Dirzo et al.). Multiple “planetary boundaries” are now being crossed—or soon will be (Rockström et al.). The conditions of life on planet Earth are changing, rapidly and fundamentally.
PART I THE ANTHROPOCENE AND ITS DISCONTENTS: TOWARD CHTHULUCENE? On the Poverty of Our Nomenclature - Eileen Cris