Systems Ecology 11: Anthropocene

In this video we will be talking about the anthropocene, we firstly gave an outline to its current definition as a geological epoch following the Holocene and talked about its acceptance within the natural sciences and the debate surrounding its dating. We talk about a number of key stages marking this major shift in the relation between human civilization and the natural environment, identifying the neolithic revolution as the origins of humans as major ecosystems engineers through the development of agriculture and urbanization. We will look at the Industrial Revolution as the next major step in this process that created major socio-economic upheaval displacing traditional feedback loops between society and environment, and then mentioned the great acceleration as a major shift as many socio-economic indicators began to rise at an unprecedented exponential rate that continues today. Finally we talk about the new paradigm associated with the anthropocene, a recognition that our traditional conception of nature in an untouched wild state does not really exist anymore. That humans have permanently changed the biosphere and in so doing the global economy has become its primary regulatory system. With the remaining question being how can we change a historically zero sum game into a positive sum synergistic interaction between economy and ecology? For full courses, transcriptions and downloads please see: http://www.systemsthinking.io Twitter: https://twitter.com/SystemthinkAcad Facebook: https://fb.com/thinkacademyio