ANTHROPOCENE Mug

The Anthropocene, a term coined by biologist Eugene Stoermer in the 1980s and popularized by chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000, emphasizes how human actions shape the environment in all its physical, chemical, and biological characteristics. The word comes from the Greek terms for Human (‘anthropo’) and New (‘cene’). The Anthropocene is sometimes used to simply describe the time during which humans have had a substantial impact on our planet. Whether or not we are in a new geological age, we are part of a complex, global system and the evidence of our impact on it has become clear. “The pressures we exert on the planet have become so great that scientists are considering whether the Earth has entered an entirely new geological epoch: the Anthropocene, or the age of humans. It means that we are the first people to live in an age defined by human choice, in which the dominant risk to our survival is ourselves.” —Achim Steiner, UNDP* Administrator *The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes developing local capacity towards long-term self-sufficiency and prosperity. Symbol of the Anthropocene: Commercial broiler chickens and their biology shaped by humans, created in just a few decades, symbolize the transformation of the Earth's biosphere. And new research suggests that the commercial broiler chicken's distinctive bones could become fossilized markers of the Anthropocene. We are living on the planet of the chickens. The broiler (meat) chicken now outweighs all wild birds put together by three to one. It is the most numerous vertebrate (not just bird) species on land, with 23 billion alive at any one time. Across the world, chicken is the most commonly eaten meat. This has made it a vivid symbol of the Anthropocene – the proposed new geological epoch that marks the overwhelming impact of humans on the Earth’s surface geological processes. The modern bird is now so changed from its ancestors, that its distinctive bones will undoubtedly become fossilized markers of the time when humans reigned the planet. A dagger. The symbol is used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species). The hour glass, symbolic of time and its relevancy to human and planetary existence (climate change and extinction factors). The “X’” formed in the hour glass symbolizes something unknown; an unknown quantity like climate change? Danger/death (to humanity?).