to qualify for its own entry on the geologic time scale, the Anthropocene would have to be defined in a very particular way, one that would meet the needs of geologists and not necessarily those of the anthropologists, artists and others who are already using the term.
That's right and proper; I've felt for a while that there was a translation problem between geological and humanist categories. We've never had to bring them in converation with each other before - part of the challenge of the Anthropocene, some might say! - which doesn't mean it's not worth doing. Stratigraphers' debates if there was an anthropogenic Holocene-ending "era" or "epoch" or "age" or "event" definable in their term, what to call it and and where to locate its "golden spike," have made for interesting watching. They've also clarified that the work of humanists, policy makers and others (even religionists!) is distinct from this, and appropriately so. When the Anthropocene Working Group made its final recommendation for a "golden spike" last year I found myself ready for this phase to finish so we could move onward to a multi-pronged multidisciplinary engagement with the challenges of living in these times.
if approved, this does mark the end of a chapter in the story of the Anthropocene. Maybe we leave behind the pretense that the meaning of the Anthropocene for us and our kin is determined by the specificity of the golden spike, a methodological contrivance, if a valuable one.
Today's article makes clear that many of the geologists share that sense that the stratigraphical question doesn't and should be taken to settle the broader historical and moral questions, whose urgency none of them denies.
