The Anthropocene: The Human Era and How It Shapes Our Planet Paperback – November 5, 2014

If you want to do more than explore the world but want to understand it, "The Anthropocene: The Human Era and How it Shapes our Planet" is your book. Christian Schwagerl goes beyond amazement and wonder to present readers with the tools for understanding our new relationship with nature so we can both survive and thrive on the planet we are busy shaping and changing.Because it does go beyond describing the forces at work, "The Anthropocene" becomes the best book written on the subject to date by presenting a new rubric for our relationship with nature where we are neither in it or outside of it. He shows us how we are one, and there is no inside or outside, how influences flow both ways between humankind the world we inhabit, how nature is part of us: the way the clothes we wear, the air we breathe and the food we eat become part of who we are, and how we could be shaping the nature we have already shifted to better meet our needs. He gives us a glimpse of our potential role as gardeners, caretakers, designers, inventors and creators. He goes beyond both the vision of apocalypse and the tensions between exploitation and preservation.In a thoroughly documented way, he points to the roles corporations and global industrial forces play in the worsening environmental crisis, while at the same time challenging us as individuals with the possibility that changes we make in the way we live could shift the balance. He also introduces readers to the individuals who invented the technologies that have reshaped the planet. He puts us in their labs. He sits us down in the room where the name of our geologic age "Anthropocene" was first uttered by a frustrated scientist trying to convince his fellow geologists and geophysicists that the documentation already existed in the geologic record to show how humans have grown to such numbers and technological powers that we have changed the earth's fundamentals systems and cycles.This is a book for realists who love their planet, and want to help shape sustainable attainable biospheric futures that are beautiful and inspirational.Johanna Eurich - resident of the Arctic, a cross cultural communicator, journalist and gardener

Though i feel aligned with the author on our common environmental concerns, and he does present many of them well, we go two very different ways on the solution(s). His, a very techno heavy, manipulative path (robots, genetic engineering, control and dominion over nature) that many energy addicted "westerners" might appreciate. My own, and many others (he calls "Eco Freaks") view, (including most native/indigenous peoples, also know as the "poor" of the planet) choosing a path in harmony with this planet system that has given us this glorious dancing place now.He tries to coin a few new words or phrases: Organic Gardening will become "High Tech" Organic Gardening with the use of GMO's is one prime example. As if organic gardening needs 'help' like that. Its been proven gardening methods that mimic nature's natural cycles could, and would produce much more food than our current chemical agriculture and its insidious industrial mono cropping which is destroying the forests and soils of our planet at breakneck speed. All this technological 'help' we've been getting is directly responsible for the condition we now find ourselves in today, as we plateau and start sloping downward to the end of our fossil carbon age.The author is really big on how scientist and technology will save us, and how we need to pour much more money into research and development. To me, this was a real oversight, for i feel we already have all the knowledge and tools we need to get going full steam ahead in turning this anthropogenic climate change around. It's will, and political will that is sorely needed. More of humanity, especially the more affluent ones, need to open their eyes to the benefits (the Joy, actually) from our work and cooperation, even though much of it will be mitigation and adaptation.So, to not make this too long, a few short observations. I gave his book 2 stars because i enjoyed it, though it was a bit scary. His ability to describe research findings was very good. He's a good rhetorician (possibly for the wrong causes), but also uses many of his own articles to back up the case he's making, and i feel, bends others views that he footnotes.We, human beings, i believe, aren't really anywhere close to being accomplished enough to "play God" as the author would love to do with creating new species, and genetic engineering, etc.. Look at the state of affairs we've gotten our planet, and ourselves into with our 'good intentions' and inventions so far. True, a lot of them have helped, but many have us headed toward the yawning maw of extinction for an exponentially increasing number of our fellow 'travelers' here, including ourselves. And the bottom line is, we already have everything we need to go forward into finding our true harmony with our planet and ourselves, and positive solutions for our 'climate crisis'. Each one of us has a responsibility to understand what deep doo doo we're in, turn our own lives toward getting to know our planet, ourselves and our "God", whatever or however we relate to that mysterious life force energy that science will never be able to put its finger on.I'd recommend reading Vandana Shiva...Soil, not Oil, or maybe her newly released book i don't know the name of.

This book represents a shift in the way that we relate to the world as humans. Schwägerl presents a hopeful yet plausible view of an empowered human society, living in harmony with natural rhythms and each other. He advocates for the use of technology with an awareness of the powerful influence that we now have on the planet's systems. He also discusses the importance of changing the way that current economic systems incentivize short-term gain over long-term investment in natural resources. In one example, he details the near destruction of the ozone layer by the use of CFCs, followed by the campaign to stop their use that eventually succeeded with the Montreal Protocol. And following this change in policy, scientists have recently reported that the hole in the ozone layer is becoming noticeably smaller.These optimistic ideas are presented with the research to back them up, as Schwägerl cites hundreds of other interesting and illuminating examples that build a solid case for why we have entered a new geological era, and he paints a visionary picture of how we can work together to make it a beautiful moment in human history. Having attended many of the major environmental conferences himself, Schwägerl realistically examines the possibilities for changing current international policies. He also discusses the importance of local, grassroots movements led by communities working together, but that ultimately our responsibility starts with the choices that each one of us makes as one of seven billion people on the planet.