Skip to main content
Log in

The Anthropocene: From Global Change to Planetary Stewardship

AMBIO Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Over the past century, the total material wealth of humanity has been enhanced. However, in the twenty-first century, we face scarcity in critical resources, the degradation of ecosystem services, and the erosion of the planet’s capability to absorb our wastes. Equity issues remain stubbornly difficult to solve. This situation is novel in its speed, its global scale and its threat to the resilience of the Earth System. The advent of the Anthropence, the time interval in which human activities now rival global geophysical processes, suggests that we need to fundamentally alter our relationship with the planet we inhabit. Many approaches could be adopted, ranging from geo-engineering solutions that purposefully manipulate parts of the Earth System to becoming active stewards of our own life support system. The Anthropocene is a reminder that the Holocene, during which complex human societies have developed, has been a stable, accommodating environment and is the only state of the Earth System that we know for sure can support contemporary society. The need to achieve effective planetary stewardship is urgent. As we go further into the Anthropocene, we risk driving the Earth System onto a trajectory toward more hostile states from which we cannot easily return.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10

References

  • Arrhenius, S. 1896. On the influence of carbonic acid in the air upon the temperature of the ground. The London, Edinburgh and Dublin Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science (fifth series) 41: 237–275.

  • ASPO (Association of the Study of Peak Oil and Gas). 2010. www.peakoil.net.

  • Bäckstrand, K., J. Khan, A. Kronsell, and E. Lövbrand (eds.). 2010. Environmental politics and deliberative democracy: Examining the promise of new modes of governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barnosky, A.D., N. Matzke, S. Tomiya, G.O.U. Wogan, B. Swartz, T.B. Quental, C. Marshall, J.L. McGuire, et al. 2011. Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived? Nature 471: 51–57.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Barrett, S. 2008. The incredible economics of geoengineering. Environmental & Resource Economics 39: 45–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berger, A., and M.F. Loutre. 2002. An exceptionally long interglacial ahead? Science 297: 1287–1288.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Biggs, D., R. Biggs, V. Dakos, R. Scholes, and M. Schoon. 2011. Are we entering an era of concatenated global crises? Ecology & Society 16(2): 27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butchart, S.H.M., M. Walpole, B. Collen, A. van Strien, J.P.W. Scharlemann, R.E.A. Almond, J.E.M. Baillie, B. Bomhard, et al. 2010. Global biodiversity: Indicators of recent declines. Science 328: 1164–1168.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Canning, D. 1998. A database of world stocks of infrastructure: 1950–1995. The World Bank Economic Review 12: 529–548.

    Google Scholar 

  • Canning, D. and M. Farahani. 2007. A database of world stocks of infrastructure: Update 1950–2005. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/david-canning/files/A_Database_of_World_Stocks_of_Infrastructure.doc.

  • Castells, M. 2010. The rise of the network society, 2nd ed. London: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapin III, F.S., S.R. Carpenter, G.P. Kofinas, C. Folke, N. Abel, W.C. Clark, P. Olsson, D.M. Stafford Smith, et al. 2010. Ecosystem stewardship: Sustainability strategies for a rapidly changing planet. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 25: 241–249.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Claussen, M., C. Kubatzki, V. Brovkin, A. Ganopolski, P. Hoelzmann, and H.J. Pachur. 1999. Simulation of an abrupt change in Saharan vegetation at the end of the mid-Holocene. Geophysical Research Letters 24: 2037–2040.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cordell, D., J.-O. Drangert, and S. White. 2009. The story of phosphorus: Global food security and food for thought. Global Environmental Change 19: 292–305.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Costanza, R., L. Graumlich, W. Steffen, C. Crumley, J. Dearing, K. Hibbard, R. Leemans, C. Redman, et al. 2007. Sustainability or collapse: What can we learn from integrating the history of humans and the rest of nature? Ambio 36: 522–527.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Crowley, T.J., and W.T. Hyde. 2008. Transient nature of late Pleistocene climate variability. Nature 456: 226–230.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Crutzen, P. J. 1995. My life with O30NOx and other YZOxs. In Les Prix nobel [The Nobel Prizes]. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 123–157.

  • Crutzen, P.J. 2002. Geology of mankind: The Anthropocene. Nature 415: 23.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Crutzen, P.J. 2006. Albedo enhancement by stratospheric sulfur injections: A contribution to resolve a policy dilemma? Climatic Change 77: 211–219.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • deMenocal, P.B., J. Ortiz, T. Guilderson, J. Adkins, M. Sarnthein, L. Baker, and M. Yarusinki. 2000. Abrupt onset and termination of the African Humid Period: Rapid climate response to gradual insolation forcing. Quaternary Science Review 19: 347–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Diamond, J. 2005. Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed. New York: Viking.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doughty, C.E., A. Wolf, and C.B. Field. 2010. Biophysical feedbacks between the Pleistocene megafauna extinction and climate: The first human-induced global warming? Geophysical Research Letters 37: L15703.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ellis, E.C., K. Klein Goldewijk, S. Siebert, D. Lightman, and N. Ramankutty. 2010. Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000. Global Ecology and Biogeography 19: 589–606.

    Google Scholar 

  • Erwin, D.H. 2008. Macroevolution of ecosystem engineering, niche construction and diversity. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 23: 304–310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Falkner, R., H. Stephan, and J. Vogler. 2010. International climate policy after Copenhagen: Towards a ‘building blocks’ approach. Global Policy 1: 252–262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • FAO. 2011. FAO food price index. http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/foodpricesindex/en/. Accessed 4 May 2011.

  • Folke, C., S.R. Carpenter, B.H. Walker, M. Scheffer, F.S. Chapin III, and J. Rockström. 2010. Resilience thinking: Integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability. Ecology and Society 15: 20. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art20/.

  • Folke, C., Å. Jansson, J. Rockström, P. Olsson, S. Carpenter, A-S. Crepín, G. Daily, J., Ebbesson et al. 2011. Reconnecting to the Biosphere. Ambio. doi:10.1007/s13280-011-0184-y.

  • Fraser, E.D.G., and A. Rimas. 2011. The psychology of food riots. Foreign Affairs Jan 30: 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galloway, J.N., and E.B. Cowling. 2002. Reactive nitrogen and the world: Two hundred years of change. Ambio 31: 64–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, D.G., J.I. Glass, C. Lartigue, V.N. Noskov, R.-Y. Chuang, M.A. Algire, G.A. Benders, M.G. Montague, et al. 2010. Creation of a bacterial cell controlled by a chemically synthesized gene. Science Express. doi:10.1126/science.1190719.

  • Global Footprint Network. 2011. Our human development initiative. http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/fighting_poverty_our_human_development_initiative/. Retrieved 22 February 2011.

  • Hibbard, K.A., P.J. Crutzen, E.F. Lambin, D. Liverman, N.J. Mantua, J.R. McNeill, B. Messerli, and W. Steffen. 2006. Decadal interactions of humans and the environment. In Integrated History and Future of People on Earth. Dahlem workshop report 96, ed. R. Costanza, L. Graumlich, and W. Steffen, 341–375. Boston, MA: MIT Press

  • Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2007. Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ed. S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K. Averyt, M.M.B Tignor, H.L. Miller Jr, and Z. Chen. 996 pp. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

  • IRRI. 2010. Paper on global food crisisSection 1. IRRI, Los Baños.

  • ITU. 2010. ITU world telecommunication/ICT Indicators database http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ICTEYE/Indicators/Indicators.aspx#; http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/index.html.

  • Kates, R.W., W.C. Clark, R. Corell, J.M. Hall, C.C. Jaeger, I. Lowe, J.J. McCarthy, H.J. Schellnhuber, et al. 2001. Sustainability science. Science 292: 641–642.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kolbert, E. 2011. Enter the Anthropocene: Age of man. National Geographic 219: 60–77.

    Google Scholar 

  • Le Quéré, C., M.R. Raupach, J.G. Canadell, G. Marland, L. Bopp, P. Ciais, T.J. Conway, S.C. Doney, et al. 2009. Trends in the sources and sinks of carbon dioxide. Nature Geoscience 2: 831–836.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lenton, T.M., H. Held, E. Kriegler, J.W. Hall, W. Lucht, S. Rahmstorf, and H.J. Schellnhuber. 2008. Tipping elements in the Earth’s climate system. Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences, USA 105: 1786–1793.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Liljenström, H., and U. Svedin (eds.). 2005. Micro meso, macro-addressing complex system couplings. New Jersey: World Scientific.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lovelock, J.E. 1979. Gaia: A new look at life on Earth. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lovelock, J.E. 1988. The ages of Gaia: A biography of our living earth. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). 2005. Ecosystems and human well-being: Synthesis. Washington, DC: Island Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mason, M. 2005. The new accountability: Environmental responsibility across borders. London: Earthscan.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNeill, J.R. 2000. Something new under the sun: An environmental history of the twentieth century world. London: W.W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moberg, F., and C. Folke. 1999. Ecological services of coral reef ecosystems. Ecological Economics 29: 215–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ostrom, E. 2010. Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change. Global Environmental Change 20: 550–557.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Parry, M., O. Canziani, J. Palutikof, P.J. van der Linden, and C.E. Hanson (eds.). 2007. Contribution of working group II to the fourth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petit, J.R., J. Jouzel, D. Raynaud, N.I. Barkov, J.-M. Barnola, I. Basile, M. Bender, J. Chappellaz, et al. 1999. Climate and atmospheric history of the past 420,000 years from the Vostok ice core, Antarctica. Nature 399: 429–436.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ramanathan, V., and Y. Feng. 2008. On avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system: Formidable challenges ahead. Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences, USA 105: 14245–14250.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ramanathan, V., and Y. Xu. 2010. The Copenhagen Accord for limiting global warming: Criteria, constraints, and available avenues. Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences, USA 107: 8055–8062.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Raudsepp-Hearne, C., G.D. Peterson, M. Tengö, E.M. Bennett, T. Holland, K. Benessaiah, G.K. MacDonald, and L. Pfeifer. 2010. Untangling the environmentalist’s paradox: Why is human well-being increasing as ecosystem services degrade? BioScience 60: 576–589.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raupach, M.R., and J.G. Canadell. 2010. Carbon and the Anthropocene. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2: 210–218.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raupach, M.R., G. Marland, P. Ciais, C. Le Quéré, J.G. Canadell, G. Klepper, and C.B. Field. 2007. Global and regional drivers of accelerating CO2 emissions. Proceedings of the National Academic of Sciences, USA 104: 10288–10293.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Richardson, K., W. Steffen, D. Liverman, T. Barker, F. Jotzo, D. Kammen, R. Leemans, T. Lenton, et al. 2011. Climate change: Global risks, challenges and decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Rockström, J., W. Steffen, K. Noone, Å. Persson, F.S. Chapin III, E.F. Lambin, T.M. Lenton, M. Scheffer, et al. 2009a. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461: 472–475.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rockström, J., W. Steffen, K. Noone, Å. Persson, F.S. Chapin III, E.F. Lambin, T.M. Lenton, M. Scheffer, et al. 2009b. Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society 14: 32.

    Google Scholar 

  • Royal Society. 2005. Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, June 2005. London: The Royal Society.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruddiman, W.F. 2003. The anthropogenic greenhouse gas era began thousands of years ago. Climatic Change 61: 261–293.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Scheffer, M. 2009. Critical transitions in nature and society. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scheffer, M., S.R. Carpenter, J.A. Foley, C. Folke, and B.H. Walker. 2001. Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems. Nature 413: 591–596.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Schellnhuber, H.J. 1999. ‘Earth System’ analysis and the second Copernican revolution. Nature 402: C19–C23.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sorrell, S., J. Speirs, R. Bentley, A. Brandt, and R. Miller. 2009. An assessment of the evidence for a near-term peak in global oil production. London: UK Energy Research Centre.

    Google Scholar 

  • Steffen, W., P.J. Crutzen, and J.R. McNeill. 2007. The Anthropocene: Are humans now overwhelming the great forces of Nature? Ambio 36: 614–621.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Steffen, W., A. Sanderson, P.D. Tyson, J. Jäger, P. Matson, B. Moore III, F. Oldfield, K. Richardson, et al. 2004. Global change and the earth system: A planet under pressure. The IGBP global change series. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

  • Steffen, W., Å. Persson, L. Deutsch, M. Williams, J. Zalasiewicz, C. Folke, J. Rockström, C. Crumley, P. Crutzen, L. Gordon, M. Molina, V. Ramanathan, K. Richardson, M. Scheffer, J. Schellnhuber, and U. Svedin. 2011. The Anthropocene: From global change to planetary stewardship, Working Paper No. 2. Prepared for the “3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability: Transforming the World in an Era of Global Change”, in Stockholm, 16–19 May 2011. Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

  • Svedin, U. 1998. Implicit and explicit ethical norms in the environmental policy arena. Ecological Economics 24: 299–309.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sverdrup, H.U., and K.V. Ragnarsdottir. 2011. Challenging the planetary boundaries II: Assessing the sustainable global population and phosphate supply, using a systems dynamics assessment model. Applied Geochemistry 26: S307–S310.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Tainter, J.A. 1998. The collapse of complex societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, M.S. 2009. Innis lecture: Environmental crises: Past, present and future. Canadian Journal of Economics 42: 1240–1275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • UNDP. 2010. Human development report 2010—the real wealth of nations: pathways to human development, 20th Anniversary Edition. New York: UNDP.

  • UNISDR (United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction Secretariat). 2009. Global assessment report on disaster risk reduction. Risk and poverty in a changing climate: Invest today for a safer tomorrow. http://www.unisdr.org/we/inform/publications/9413.

  • U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service. USDA (2010). World Bank world development indicators. Washington: USDA

  • Walker, B., S. Barrett, S. Polasky, V. Galaz, C. Folke, G. Engström, F. Ackerman, K. Arrow, et al. 2009. Looming global-scale failures and missing institutions. Science 325: 1345–1346.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • WF, W. 2010. Living planet report 2010: Biodiversity, biocapacity and development. Gland: WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilkinson, R., and K. Pickett. 2009. The spirit level—why more equal societies almost always do better. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, M., J. Zalasiewicz, A. Haywood, and M. Ellis. 2011. The Anthropocene: A new epoch of geological time? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369: 835–1111 (special issue).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • World Bank. 2010. World Bank world development indicators. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?page=5.

  • Young, O., and W. Steffen. 2009. The Earth System: Sustaining planetary life support systems. In Principles of ecosystem stewardship: Resilience-based resource natural resource management in a changing world, ed. F.S. Chapin III, G.P. Kofinas, and C. Folke, 295–315. New York: Springer-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zalasiewicz, J., P. Crutzen, and W. Steffen. 2012. Anthropocene. In A geological time scale 2010, ed. F.M. Gradstein (in press).

  • Zalasiewicz, J., and M. Williams. 2009. A geological history of climate change. In Climate change: Observed impacts on planet Earth, ed. T.M. Letcher, 127–142. The Netherlands: Elsevier B.V.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zalasiewicz, J., M. Williams, R. Fortey, A. Smith, T.L. Barry, A.L. Coe, P.R. Brown, P.F. Rawson, et al. 2011. Stratigraphy of the Anthropocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369: 1036–1055.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

The article is based on Steffen et al. (2011). The Anthropocene: from global change to planetary stewardship. Working Paper No. 2 prepared for the “3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability: Transforming the World in an Era of Global Change”, in Stockholm, 16–19 May 2011, Stockholm Resilience Centre, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Stockholm Environment Institute, the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact. We acknowledge support from Ebba och Sven Schwartz Stiftelse, Kjell and Märta Beijer Foundation, Formas, and Mistra through a core grant to the Stockholm Resilience Centre, a cross-faculty research centre at Stockholm University.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Will Steffen.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Steffen, W., Persson, Å., Deutsch, L. et al. The Anthropocene: From Global Change to Planetary Stewardship. AMBIO 40, 739–761 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-011-0185-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-011-0185-x

Keywords

Navigation