coinage claim for "Anthropocene"

[Anne Gilbert]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Erin McKean" <editor at VERBATIMMAG.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, September 09, 2003 6:36 AM
Subject: coinage claim for "Anthropocene"


> There's an interview with climatologist and Nobel Prize winner Paul
> Crutzen in the 5 July 2003 New Scientist, where he claims to have
> coined the term "Anthropocene."
>
> Q. Your latest find is more of an invention: the new geological age
> of the "Anthropocene."
> A. This happened at a meeting three years ago. Someone said something
> about the Holocene, the geological era covering the period since the
> end of the last ice age. I suddenly thought this was wrong. In the
> past 200 years, humans have become a major geological force on the
> planet. So I said no, we are not in the Holocene any more: we are in
> the Anthropocene. I just made up the word on the spur of the moment.
> But it seems to have stuck.
>
> (p.47, col 1)
>
> Erin McKean
> editor at verbatimmag.com
>