In the first of a two-part series, we go head-to-head on the Anthropocene, after the status of ‘Anthropocene’ was rejected for the world by an international panel last month. Part two of the series can be read here.

Have we entered a new planetary epoch, the “Anthropocene”? As scientists and environmentalists bitterly debate this question, Sophie Chao argues that we need to move beyond reductive “official” labels. We must instead develop a plurality of concepts for our epoch, recognizing that it is experienced differently by different beings, human and non-human.

It’s official: we don’t live in the Anthropocene. Or so the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) ruled last month (March 2024) in a controversial vote. Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist and chair of the Anthropocene Working Group, is calling for the result to be annulled, and Timothy Morton, a leading proponent of the idea of the Anthropocene, criticizes the IUGS decision in an article that will appear tomorrow in IAI News.