El “antropoceno” al desnudo
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/collectbot.2017.v36.008Palabras clave:
Antropoceno, Antropozoico, Escala del Tiempo Geológico, estratigrafía, forzamiento antrópico, huella humanaResumen
El “Antropoceno”, definido como una nueva época geológica caracterizada por la huella humana global sobre el Sistema Tierra, se ha convertido en un término muy usado en una gran variedad de disciplinas. Sin embargo, todavía hay una serie de ideas equivocadas sobre el origen y la validez científica de este término. Un error muy común es pensar que el término y el concepto de “Antropoceno” se originaron a principios de este siglo, pero la verdad es que este concepto ya estaba plenamente desarrollado hace más de 140 años. Otra equivocación frecuente es considerar que el “Antropoceno” ya es un término geológico formal, cuando la realidad es que el proceso de su formalización como una nueva época de la Escala del Tiempo Geológico ni siquiera ha empezado. Otro aspecto muy poco tratado es la importancia del futuro cultural y evolutivo de nuestra especie en la eventual definición de una nueva época geológica como el “Antropoceno”. En este ensayo se discuten estos aspectos para una audiencia no especializada. Las posibles consecuencias de la presión humana incontrolada sobre el Sistema Tierra y la necesidad de reconsiderar nuestra relación con el planeta no se discuten aquí. El ensayo está centrado, únicamente, en la utilización de este argumento para proponer que hemos entrado en una nueva época de la Escala del Tiempo Geológico.
Descargas
Citas
Autin, W. J. 2016. Multiple dichotomies of the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Review 3: 218–230. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019616646133
Barnosky, A. D. 2014. Palaeontological evidence for defining the Anthropocene. In: Waters, C. N., Zalasiewicz, J. A., Williams, M., Ellis, M. & Snelling, A. M. (Eds.), A stratigraphical basis for the Anthropocene (Geological Society Special Publication, 395). The Geological Society of London, London: 149–165. https://doi.org/10.1144/SP395.6
Barnosky, A. D., Koch, P. L., Feranec, R. S., Wing, S. L. & Shabel, A. B. 2004. Assessing the causes of Late Pleistocene extinctions on the continents. Science 306: 70–75. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1101476 PMid:15459379
Berry, T. 1992. A new era: healing the injuries we have inflicted on our planet. Health Progress 73: 60–63. PMid:10116507
Cathcart, R. B. 1983. A megastructural end to geologic time. Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 36: 291–297.
Cathcart, R. B. 2011. Anthropic rock: a brief history. History of Geo-and Space Sciences 2: 57–74. https://doi.org/10.5194/hgss-2-57-2011
Crosby, A. W. 2003. The Columbian exchange: Biological and cultural consequences of 1492. Praeger, Westport.
Crutzen, P. J. 2002. The geology of mankind. Nature 415: 23. https://doi.org/10.1038/415023a PMid:11780095
Crutzen, P. J. & Stoermer, E. F. 2000. The Anthropocene. Global Change Newsletter 41: 17–18.
Dirzo, R., Young, H. S., Galetti, M., Ceballos, G., Isaac, N. J. B. & Collen, B. 2014. Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science 345: 401–406. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1251817 PMid:25061202
Edgeworth, M., Richter, D. B., Waaters, C., Haff, P., Neal, C. & Price, S. J. 2015. Diachronous beginnings of the Anthropocene: the lower bounding surface of anthropogenic deposits. The Anthropocene Review 2: 33–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019614565394
Edwards, L. E. 2015. What is the Anthropocene? EOSEarth & Space Science News 96(2): 6–7. https://doi.org/10.1029/2015EO040297
Ehlers, J., Gibbard, P. L. & Hughes, P. D. (Eds.) 2011. Quaternary Glaciations – Extent and Chronology. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Elenga, H., Peyron, O., Bonnefille, R. et al. 2000. Pollen-based biome reconstruction for souther Europe and Africa 18,000 yr BP. Journal of Biogeography 27: 621–634. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2000.00430.x
Ellis, E. C. 2015. Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere. Ecological Monographs 85: 287–331. https://doi.org/10.1890/14-2274.1
Ellis, E. C., Goldewijk, K. K., Siebert, S., Lightman, D. & Ramankutty, N. 2010. Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000. Global Ecology and Biogeography 19: 589–606. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00540.x
Ellis, E., Maslin, M., Boivin, N. & Bauer, A. 2016. Involve social scientists in defining the Anthropocene. Nature 540: 192–193. https://doi.org/10.1038/540192a
Finney, S. C. 2014. The 'Anthropocene' as a ratified unit of the ICS International Stratigraphic Chart: fundamental issues that must be addressed by the Task Group. In: Waters, C. N., Zalasiewicz, J. A., Williams, M., Ellis, M. A. & Snelling, A. M. (Eds.), A stratigraphical basis for the Anthropocene (Geological Society Special Publication, 395). The Geological Society of London, London: 23–28.
Finney, S. C. & Edwards, L. E. 2015. The "Anthropocene" epoch: scientific decision or political statement? GSA Today 26: 4–10. https://doi.org/10.1130/GSATG270A.1
Gerasimov, I. 1979. Anthropogene and its major problem. Boreas 8: 23–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1502-3885.1979.tb00428.x
Gibbard, P. L. & Walker, M. J. C. 2014. The term 'Anthropocene' in the context of formal geological classification. In: Waters C. N., Zalasiewicz, J. A., Williams, M., Ellis, M. A. & Snelling, A. M. (Eds.), A stratigraphical basis for the Anthropocene (Geological Society Special Publication, 395). The Geological Society of London, London: 29–37. https://doi.org/10.1144/SP395.1
Hamilton, C. & Grinevald, J. 2015. Was the Anthropocene anticipated? The Anthropocene Review 2: 59–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019614567155
Haqq-Misra, J. 2014. Damping of glacial-interglacial cycles from anthropogenic forcing. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 6: 950–955. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014MS000326
Herrero, C., García-Olivares, A. & Pelegrí, J. L. 2014. Impact of the anthropogenic CO2 on the next climatic cycle. Climatic Change 122: 283–298. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-1012-0
Klein, G. D. 2015. The ANTHROPOCENE: what is its geological utility? (Answer: It has none!) Episodes 38: 218. Le Conte, J. 1883. Elements of geology. D. Appleton, New York.
Lewis, S. L. & Maslin, M. A. 2015. Defining the Anthropocene. Nature 519: 171–180. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14258 PMid:25762280
Lorenzen, E. D., Nogués-Bravo, D., Orlando, L. et al. 2011. Species-specific responses of Late Quaternary megafauna to climate and humans. Nature 479: 359–364. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10574 PMid:22048313 PMCid:PMC4070744
Mann, C. C. 2011. 1493: How Europe's discovery of the Americas revolutionized trade, ecology and life on Earth. Granta Books, London.
Matthews, H. D. & Caldeira, K. 2008. Stabilizing climate requires near-zero emissions. Geophysical Research Letters 35: L04705. https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GL032388
Monastersky, R. 2015. Anthropocene: the human age. Nature 519: 144–147. https://doi.org/10.1038/519144a PMid:25762264
Murphy, M. A. & Salvador, A. 1999. International Stratigraphic Guide – an abridged version. Episodes 22: 255–271.
Revkin, A. 1992. Global warming: Understanding the forecast. Abbeville Press, New York. PMid:1514684 PMCid:PMC4121264
Rosen, A. M. 2015. The wrong solution at the right time. Politics & Policy 43: 30–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12105
Ruddiman, W. F. 2003. The anthropogenic greenhouse gas era began thousands of years ago. Climatic Change 61: 261–293. https://doi.org/10.1023/B:CLIM.0000004577.17928.fa
Ruddiman, W. F. 2013. The Anthropocene. Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences 41: 45–68. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-050212-123944 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-050212-123944
Ruddiman, W. F., Ellis, E. C., Kaplan, J. O. & Fuller, D. Q. 2015. Defining the epoch in which we live. Is a formally designated Anthropocene a good idea? Science 348: 39–39.
Rull, V. El 'Antropoceno'. Editorial CSIC-La Catarata, Madrid (in press).
Rull, V. 2009. Beyond us. Is a world without humans possible? EMBO Reports 10: 1191–1195. https://doi.org/10.1038/embor.2009.225 PMid:19834509 PMCid:PMC2775185
Rull, V. 2013a. A futurist perspective on the Anthropocene. Holocene 23: 1198–1201. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683613483628
Rull, V 2013b. Are we willing to build a better future? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 28: 443–444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2013.05.006 PMid:23706557
Rull, V. R. 2016a. The Anthropocene: a requiem for the Geologic Time Scale? Quaternary Geochronology 36: 76–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2016.08.006
Rull, V. 2016b. The Humanized Earth System (HES). The Holocene 26: 1513–1515. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683616640053
Salvador, A. 1994. International Stratigraphic Guide. A Guide to Stratigraphic Classification, Terminolog& and Procedure (2nd ed.). International Union of Geological Sciences,
Stoppani, A. 1873. Corso di Geologia (3 vols.). G. Bernardoni e G. Brigola Ed., Milano.
Tarasov, P. A., Volkova, V. S., Webb, T. et al. 2000. Last glacial maximum biomes reconstructed from pollen and plant macrofossil data from northern Eurasia. Journal of Biogeography 27: 609–620. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2699.2000.00429.x
Teilhard de Chardin, P. 1955. Le phénomène humain. Éd. du Seuil, Paris.
Ter-Stepanian, G. 1988. Beginning of the Technogene. Bulletin of the International Association of Engineering Geology 38: 133–142. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02590457
Turpin, E. & Federighi, V. 2012. A new element, a new force, a new input: Antonio Stoppani's Anthropozoic. In: Ellsworth, E. & Kruse, J. (Eds.), Making the geologic now. Punctum Books, Brooklin: 34–41.
Tzedakis, P. C., Channell, J. E. T., Hodell, D. A., Kleiven, H. F. & Skinner, L. C. 2012. Determining the natural length of the current interglacial. Nature Geoscience 5: 138–141. https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1358
Vernadsky, V. I. 1997. Scientific thought as a planetary phenomenon (translated by B. A. Starostin). Nongovernmental Ecological V.I. Vernadsky Foundation, Moscow.
Voosen, P. 2016. Atomic bombs and oil addicition herald earth's new epoch: The Anthropocene. Science News. August 24, 2016. Retrieved May, 2017.
Walker, M., Gibbard, P. & Lowe, J. 2015. Comment on When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal by Jan Zalasiewicz et al. (2015), Quaternary International, 383, 196–1. Quaternary International 383: 204–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.04.007
Waters, C. N., Zalasiewicz, J., Summerhayes, C. et al. 2016. The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene. Science 351: aad2622. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aad2622 PMid:26744408
Waters, C. N., Zalasiewicz, J. A., Williams, M., Ellis, M. A. & Snelling, A. M. (Eds.) 2014. A stratigraphical basis for the Anthropocene. The Geological Society of London, London.
Williams, M., Zalasiewicz, J., Haff, P. K., Schwägerl, C., Barnosky, A. D. & Ellis, E. C. 2015. The Anthropocene biosphere. The Anthropocene Review 2: 196–219. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019615591020
Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C. N., Williams, M. et al. 2015. When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal. Quaternary International 383: 196–203. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.045
Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C. N., Wolfe, A. P. et al. 2016a. Finney & Edwards article. GSA Today 27: e36–e37.
Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C. N., Wolfe, A. P. et al. 2017. Making the case for a formal Anthropocene Epoch: an analysis of ongoing critiques. Newsletters on Stratigraphy 50: 205–226. https://doi.org/10.1127/nos/2017/0385
Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Fortey, R. et al. 2011a. Stratigraphy of the Anthropocene. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369: 1036–1055. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2010.0315 PMid:21282159
Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Haywood, A. & Ellis, M. 2011b. The Anthropocene: a new epoch of geological time? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369: 835–841. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2010.0339 PMid:21282149
Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Waters, C. N. et al. 2016b. Scale and diversity of the physical technosphere. The Anthropocene Review 4: 9–22. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019616677743
Publicado
Cómo citar
Número
Sección
Licencia
Derechos de autor 2017 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución 4.0.
© CSIC. Los originales publicados en las ediciones impresa y electrónica de esta Revista son propiedad del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, siendo necesario citar la procedencia en cualquier reproducción parcial o total.Salvo indicación contraria, todos los contenidos de la edición electrónica se distribuyen bajo una licencia de uso y distribución “Creative Commons Reconocimiento 4.0 Internacional ” (CC BY 4.0). Puede consultar desde aquí la versión informativa y el texto legal de la licencia. Esta circunstancia ha de hacerse constar expresamente de esta forma cuando sea necesario.
No se autoriza el depósito en repositorios, páginas web personales o similares de cualquier otra versión distinta a la publicada por el editor.
