Anthropocene: A New Planet Shaped by Humans
Product Description
...intellectually exciting book...shows us how we humans turn our relationship with Nature upside down. - Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Program (UNEP)"
Schwagerl may not be summoning the apocalypse so much as ringing in the Sunrise World as a Green Utopian. - Jeanne Rubner, Suddeutsche Zeitung
...skillfully investigated, and an invitation to join a dawning Age of Humans, with full responsibility to life itself. - Prof. Dr. Reinhold Leinfelder, former CEO, Berlin Museum of Natural History, and Germany's advisor on global environmental change"
This is a splendid introduction to the Anthropocene by one of its most eloquent celebrants. - Diane Ackerman, author of The Human Age
...authorative and engaging. Read, enjoy and recommend... - Frank Oldfield, The Anthropocene Review
More than a decade ago, Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen first suggested that we were now living in the Anthropocene, a new geological epoch in which human dominance of biological, chemical and geological processes on Earth wasalready an undeniable reality. Crutzen's ideas inspired Christian Schwägerl to do further documentation and to write this stimulating book.
For more than two decades, award-winning science and environmental journalist, Christian Schwägerl has researched how humans, nature, and technology interact.
Schwägerl is inspired by the idea of Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen who argued that we are living in a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, a time in which human dominance of Earth’s biological, chemical and geological processes is an undeniable reality, presenting us with a new role as planetary stewards.
But what does it mean to live in the Anthropocene?
In his passionate, first-person global travelogue, Schwägerl investigates this question by visiting some of the last pristine places on Earth, exploring rising megacities and witnessing the devastation of forests and coral reefs. Melding rigorous scientific training with his experience as a journalist, he has covered high-profile political and environmental conferences, and interviewed key figures influencing the course of our future. The result is this thoroughly researched, comprehensive overview of our planetary situation and outlook. Schwägerl presents tangible solutions to our global crises, and shares his vision of a world that balances ecological sustainability, economic prosperity, political justice and cultural vibrancy.
Christian Schwagerl is a Berlin-based journalist, author and biologist. After many years as a science and environment staff correspondent for Frankfurter Allgemeine Newspaper and DER SPIEGEL magazine, he now works as a freelance writer for GEO, Cicero and DIE ZEIT science magazine as well as other leading media. He is a past winner of the "Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Science Journalism," and the "Econsense Journalism Award." Schwagerl is a co-creator and project leader of The Anthropocene Project, a three-year collaboration at Haus der Kulturen der Welt cultural center in Berlin.