Dispute over the Anthropocene | Plastic instead of plutonium

Plastic waste in the oceans: Can the appearance of microplastics in the sediments mark the beginning of the Anthropocene? Photo: dpa/epa/Mike Nelson The effects of humans on the environment and climate are obvious. But where average people who are not particularly scientifically qualified can recognize unmistakable and often permanent traces of human activity on planet Earth, geologists still demand clear evidence of human mischief. Namely, those that will still be clearly readable millions of years from now by future species following Homo sapiens.

And so in 2024, the recognition of the Anthropocene as a geological era was rejected by a group of experts, the International Commission of Stratigraphy (ICS). The Anthropocene should describe the era in which humans significantly changed geology and climate.

Evidence for the existence of the Anthropocene was presented in 2023, safely stored at the bottom of a particularly undisturbed lake in Canada, in the sediments that naturally form there. This lake would become the scientific reference point for the beginning of the Anthropocene. For example, traces of plutonium 239 were found, created during above-ground nuclear tests in the middle of the 20th century. This moment of “great acceleration” should mark the beginning of the new era, according to the Anthropocene Working Group’s proposal. The sediments also indicate the consumption of fossil fuels or nitrogen fertilizers.

But the ICS was not convinced. Not that the experts have denied human influence on the climate and the earth system. Concerns were expressed, for example, that no clear time and place could be defined for the beginning of the Anthropocene. Was it the beginning of settled agriculture? The Industrial Revolution? (In the same way, one could probably ask when capitalism came into the world. Let's start with original accumulation and when exactly did it begin?) Since people don't have enough distance from such questions, they should perhaps not be answered by people, but by researchers from future species - which, however, was not stated.

Even if there is no time for a resubmission, not all researchers are satisfied with the rejection of the Anthropocene. And so a team from the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) and the University of Leicester is now looking for the unmistakable truth in microplastics. Ultra-small plastic particles, safely shielded from environmental influences in the sediment, would hardly change any more and are therefore suitable as markers, the researchers argue. In this case, too, the Anthropocene would begin around the middle of the 20th century, when plastics went into industrial mass production. Does the Anthropocene still have a chance? Jutta Blume

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