Tag Archives: anthropocene

Golden spike or no golden spike – we are living in the Anthropocene

Posted on March 7, 2024 by Chris Rowan

This is not going to go well. After 15 years of discussion and exploration…Twelve members of the International Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) voted against the proposal to create an Anthropocene epoch, while only four voted for it. To be … Continue reading →

Categories: climate crisis, deep time, geology, public science, society

Obsessing over the Anthropocene’s “golden spike” misses the point of the Anthropocene

Posted on December 13, 2022 by Chris Rowan

This is a good write-up of the latest step in the long and somewhat contentious process of making the Anthropocene “official”: In the same week as the world’s population ticked over to 8 billion people, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) began … Continue reading →

Categories: geology, public science, ranting

Air conditioning as a positive climate feedback?

Posted on June 28, 2012 by Chris Rowan

Could our need to cool ourselves increase our need to cool ourselves? Continue reading →

Categories: climate science, environment, society

When snow doesn’t melt away like snow

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Chris Rowan

When you move to a new country, it’s always interesting to observe the differences in how places work. Sometimes, a shared problem is solved in a completely different way (for example, the South African approach to separating out recyclable material … Continue reading →

Categories: photos, society

Ten million feet upon the stair

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Chris Rowan

During my time in Edinburgh, I lived in an apartment in a nice old tenement building: several floors of individual flats, all connected by an internal communal staircase. The building is at least a century old, and because this was … Continue reading →

Categories: deep time, environment, geomorphology