International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.2, 2022

 

The Anthropocene and the Great Acceleration, 1780-2021

(Abstract)

 

John R. McNeill

 

The Anthropocene is one of the new conceptions in environmental history, and a new era included in the geological timescale, which is also an issue for further research. In the mid- 20th century, water, energy and bio-diversity on the planet experienced drastic changes, and the moment is seen as the beginning of the Anthropocene. There are disputes over origins, establishment, concrete definition,  politics and potential implications of the era, on which I make comments in the lecture to demonstrate the applicability of the concept across disciplines and its different dimensions, and outline the time-space scales for global environmental history.