Dark Scenes from Damaged Earth: The Gothic Anthropocene, edited by Justin D. Edwards, Rune Graulund, and Johan Höglund

Abstract

In February 2024, the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the geological body responsible for overseeing the International Chronostratigraphic Chart, a timeline of Earth’s deep geological history, voted against introducing a new epoch, the Anthropocene, to that timeline. The decision was controversial both within the geological community and outside of it, and seemed to hinge in part on preserving the methodological integrity of the discipline; if human activity really was of geological significance as proponents of the Anthropocene claimed, there existed strict procedures within the governing organisation to determine if this was the case. More fundamentally, the rejection came down to the understanding that when placed against the immense timescales of other geologic epochs and eras, typically measured in millions and billions of years, even the entirety of human history was momentary, and that, when compared with previous planetary upheavals, the current climate crisis may not be so extraordinary. The implication seemed to be that while human-caused climate change was clearly at crisis levels, the geological unit of measurement was inappropriate, and a different yardstick might be more apt.

Keywords

• anthropocene
• gothic
• climate change
• science