Editorial

Physical geography Progress in Physical Geography

2017, Vol. 41(5) 525–
532
in the Anthropocene ª The Author(s)
2017 Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0309133317736424
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Erle C Ellis
University of Maryland, Baltimore, USA

Abstract
Even as it remains an informal term defining the emergence of humans as a force transforming Earth
as a system, the Anthropocene is stimulating novel research and discussion across the academy and well
beyond. While geography has always been deeply connected with the coupled human–environment
paradigm, physical geographer’s embrace of the Anthropocene still appears lukewarm at best. While
there are good reasons to hesitate, including the fact that the Anthropocene is not yet, and might
never be, formalized in the Geologic Time Scale, physical geographers have much to gain by embracing
what is rapidly becoming the most influential scholarly discussion on human–environmental relations in
a generation. This editorial was com- missioned for the author’s debut as Contributing Editor of
Progress in Physical Geography.

Keywords
Anthropogenic global environmental change, climatology, biogeography, geomorphology, hydrology,
pedagogy

I Introduction toward an integrated understanding of the

The call to recognize the Anthropocene as a form, functioning, and dynamics of the
new epoch of geologic time is spreading anthropo- sphere and its interlinkages and
rapidly across the scholarly world and beyond. interactions across the spheres (Figure 1)
Whether or not the Anthropocene is ultimately (Ellis and Haff, 2009; Lucht, 2010;
forma- lized within the Geologic Time Scale, Schellnhuber, 1999). In the words of Hans
its wide- spread popularity embodies a Joachim Schellnhuber, the Anthropocene
paradigm shift now well underway. The paradigm forms the roots of a “Second
Anthropocene marks our time as one in which Copernican Revolution” (Schellnhu- ber,
Earth’s form and func- tioning have become 1999).
inextricably entangled with the workings of The Anthropocene has already stimulated an
human societies (Steffen et al., 2004, 2016; explosion of publications on human–environ-
Waters et al., 2016). It is no longer possible to mental change across the scientific disciplines
understand, forecast, or man- age Earth’s and the humanities (Figure 2). At the end of
dynamic environments using only the July
conventional tools of the natural sciences. In
the Anthropocene, geophysics, geochemistry,
and biogeography are simply not enough. Corresponding author:
Erle C Ellis, Department of Geography and
The Anthropocene demands that we go Environmental Systems, University of Maryland,
beyond the classic spheres of the Earth system, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA.
Email: [email protected]
526 Progress in Physical Geography
41(5)

Ecology” included 435 sources, and Geology

237, respectively. Progress in Physical
Geogra- phy published only five of these
articles, while Progress in Human Geography
published nine; Science, Nature, and PNAS
together published
57. Physical geographers, or at least the
physical geography journals, have clearly not
been major contributors to the Anthropocene
literature.
The relatively low contribution of physical
geography is puzzling. Despite the novelty of
“Anthropocene” as a term, the paradigm it rep-
resents might even be said to have originated
Figure 1. The spheres of the Earth system, among geographers (Cook et al., 2015). In
including the anthroposphere. 1865, George Perkins Marsh published “Man
and Nature: or, Physical Geography as
Modified by Human Action”. Like “Man and
Nature”, even the titles of numerous
subsequent geo- graphic classics say it all,
including Thomas (1956) and Turner et al.
(1990). Yet, it is equally clear that the current
proposal to formally recognize an “age of
humans” emerged almost entirely outside
geography as a discipline, coined by
ecologist Eugene Stoermer, published by
atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, and
established through the work of Earth system
scientist Will Steffen, geologist Jan
Zalasiewicz and many others with only
marginal linkages with geography (Steffen et
al., 2011; Zalasie- wicz et al., 2017b). The
Figure 2. Publications in Web of Science with work of Castree (2014) and Lewis and Maslin
the topic “Anthropocene” from 2000 to 2016 (2015) are among the rare exceptions that
(dashed line); publications in the Physical prove the rule.
Geography research area are represented by Should physical geographers be doing more
a solid line. to embrace the Anthropocene? As the term has
come to embody the global-scale coupling of
2017, Google Scholar included more than human and environmental change, it seems
42,800 sources containing the word Anthropo- awkward that a discipline with such deep
cene, with more than 3000 including it in their paradigmatic connec- tions with this is not
title. Web of Knowledge recorded 1573 clearly associated with it. Why is geography
sources with 16,307 citations on this topic. Yet not waving its flag at the head of the
only 119 of these sources (<8%) and 1806 Anthropocene movement?
citations (*11%) were in the Physical
Geography research area, while
“Environmental Sciences
II Not ready to rock?
Despite the Anthropocene’s popularity, and
 E 5
per- haps because of it, there are good reasons
for geographers to hold back. Much scholarly
work
528 Progress in Physical Geography
41(5)

on the Anthropocene, including publications or at least

by prominent geologists, argues against its
estab- lishment as a formal period of geologic
time (Finney and Edwards, 2016; Ruddiman et
al., 2015; Zalasiewicz et al., 2017b). For
many geographers, the Anthropocene
represents a problematic misnomer; a
“species narrative” embodying a profound
misunderstanding of the socially differentiated,
historically contingent, and deeply
heterogeneous and unequal nature of human–
environmental change – one that might
produce more problems than solutions
(Castree, 2014; LeCain, 2015; Malm and
Horn- borg, 2014; Moore, 2016). It is not
“humans” who are causing Earth to change –
but rather, differentiated groups of humans,
engaging in different social–environmental
processes at dif- ferent times with different
consequences. These and other such criticisms
are only likely to increase if and when the
Anthropocene is for- malized within the
Geologic Time scale.
As an informal term, the “anthropocene”
merely represents Earth’s transition to a time
of profound human influence on its functioning
as a system (Ruddiman et al., 2015). As such,
there is little controversy in the scholarly
world. A formal Anthropocene epoch will
likely be quite different. A formal
Anthropocene epoch will require the insertion
of a discrete break, or lower boundary, into the
scientific calendar of Earth’s history, marking
the precise start of its one and only “human”
epoch, most likely at some point in the middle
of the 20th century (Waters et al., 2016). Even
with the appropriate caveats from geologists
about the limited mean- ings of the
Anthropocene’s lower boundary (Zalasiewicz
et al., 2017a), and even were its boundary set
to a much earlier time, at the start of the
Industrial Revolution (circa 1800 CE), the
Columbian exchange (circa 1610 CE), or the
rise of anthropogenic methane from rice and
livestock production (circa 5000 BP (Lewis
and Maslin, 2015), the act of defining a
discrete and precisely dated start for an age of
humans will be seen by many as obfuscating,
 E 5
clashing with, the continuous, gradual, hetero-
geneous, and diachronous model of human–
environmental change that has long been and likely
will remain the dominant paradigm of geographers
and other environmental and social scientists (Bauer
and Ellis, 2018; Brown et al., 2017; Edgeworth et al.,
2015; Ellis et al., 2016). There are other issues for
geographers con-
sidering the Anthropocene. The Anthropo-
cene’s paradigm of a global coupling of human
and environmental change has more or less been the
mainstream view of geographers since the inception
of the discipline. Aside from its problematic
demand for a discrete boundary in time, it is not
clear how the Anthropocene adds substantially to
the existing human–envi- ronment frameworks of
geography. Moreover, the Anthropocene is already
showing signs of becoming an academic fad – a
bubbling up of scholarly interest that might
ultimately fade into noise as its interpretations
become too varied and intermingled for it to mean
anything spe- cific (Cook et al., 2015). Perhaps
geographers would be wise to simply wait for the
whole Anthropocene thing to blow over.

III Engage the Anthropocene

In my view, this would be a major mistake. To
continue waiting on the sidelines while the
Anthropocene reshapes scholarly discussion on
human–environment relations across the acad- emy
will merely leave geography out in the cold.
Geographers, with such a deep historic and pro-
cessual understanding of the complex realities of
human–environmental change, are ideally placed to
lead in shaping the future of Anthropocene
scholarship. Given that the Anthropocene is
attracting interest to some of the most important
core areas of geographic expertise, areas where
geography can make major impacts across the
academy and beyond, the Anthropocene is just too
important to leave to others.
Geography has long prided itself as one of the
most interdisciplinary departments at the
530 Progress in Physical Geography
41(5)

university, the home of both natural and social investigating and modeling long-term
scientists, scholars of the humanities, experts anthropo- genic changes in global climate and
in geospatial computing, and many the bio- sphere (e.g. Ellis, 2011; He et al.,
working closely at their interface. Largely for 2014; Kaplan et al., 2011; Ostberg et al., 2015;
this rea- son, geographers have long led the Ruddi- man et al., 2016; Verburg et al., 2016).
call to inte- grate scholarship and pedagogy Geogra- phers, especially Billie Turner, helped
across disciplines. Yet, the first question that to lead the integrative efforts of natural and
geogra- phers tend to ask each other is social scientists, including those across the
“physical or human?” Although sometimes Interna- tional Geosphere-Biosphere
the answer is “both” (for the many working on Programme (IGBP) and the International
human–envi- ronment interactions), Human Dimen- sions Programme (IHDP) that
disciplinary divides within geography have synthesized key evidence characterizing
generally remained strong and deep Earth’s transition to the Anthropocene
(Malanson et al., 2014; Tadaki et al., 2012). (Steffen et al., 2004; Turner et al., 1990).
The Anthropocene calls on geographers to These are just a few among the many critical
bridge the two-cultures divide and to fulfill contributions already made by geography and
their long-stated purpose of being the most geographers to the science of the
integra- tive scholars of the academy (Harden Anthropocene; a thorough review would easily
et al., 2014). It urges physical geographers to find hundreds more. To continue their essential
return to their roots – to think more deeply in and pervasive contribution to “Anthropocene
time and more broadly in scale – to bridge the studies”, geographers need only continue their
disciplin- ary (and sometimes pragmatic) work on human–environmental change, while
separation of Earth system science and the identifying it as relevant to the Anthropocene
sciences of Earth surface processes at local, with a keyword or other use of the term.
regional, and global scales (Clifford and
Richards, 2005; Davis, 1899; Richards and
Clifford, 2008; Summer- field, 2005). The V Physical geography in
Anthropocene is a call to action for the Anthropocene
geographers to do what they do best. Not to do The Anthropocene paradigm irreversibly inter-
so would be a missed opportunity of epochal locks the natural and social sciences and the
proportions. humanities. Conditions remain under which the
human and natural worlds still operate indepen-
IV Physical geography of dently, as they have for most of Earth’s
history. Nevertheless, in the Anthropocene –
the Anthropocene
and espe- cially in the anthropocene – this
Physical geographers have already contributed independence must be treated as an hypothesis
substantially to scientific efforts to understand to be tested, not as an operational assumption.
the emergence of globally significant human– The hydrologic flow dynamics of a river might
environmental change: an essential part of be fully explained without any need to consider
defining the Anthropocene. For example, the the direct human manipulations of this flow or
top cited Anthropocene paper in the physical the structural forms of its watershed hydraulics.
geography research area of Web of Science Yet, the opposite might also be true: the degree
pre- sents a “spatially explicit database of of human influence must always be tested. As
human induced global land use change over with hydrology, so also with geomorphology,
the past 12,000 years (Klein Goldewijk et al., climatology, biogeo- graphy, and the other
2011). This and related work has been subdisciplines of physical geography in the
fundamental to Anthropocene.
E 5

Humans and human societies are an evolved causal

product of the natural world. There is nothing
unnatural about us. Yet, there are profound
ways in which human societies and their inter-
acting world systems, or “human systems”,
have brought unquestionably novel processes
and new forms of social–environmental
interac- tions to the Earth system. On one
level, human systems simply interfere with
pre-existing Earth system processes, as when
the frequency of for- est fires are increased or
suppressed, together with their greenhouse gas
and aerosol emissions to the atmosphere and
their interactions with global climate. Yet,
some anthropogenic pro- cesses are entirely
novel, like the mass combus- tion of fossilized
biomass, the mass production of non-
biodegradable plastic materials, the direct
harvest of energy from nuclear fission, and the
widespread tillage of soils. Human sys- tems
represent far more than a mere disturbance or
impact on the functioning of the Earth sys-
tem. In the Anthropocene, human systems have
emerged as Earth subsystems, as integral and
defining to the functioning of Earth as a planet
as are its classic geophysical, geochemical, and
biogeographic processes. As with the rise of
life and photosynthesis, the emergence of
human systems with the capacity to transform
the func- tioning of Earth as a system has
moved our pla- net onto a new and uncharted
path.

VI Human systems are part

of physical geography
It has long been common for physical geogra-
phers and other natural scientists to consider
only the consequences or impacts of human
sys- tems, but not their causes. In the
Anthropocene, such limited scientific
understanding of Earth and environmental
processes is no longer ade- quate.
Environmental change is now coupled in both
directions with human social change. To
engage in Earth and environmental science in
the Anthropocene, physical geographers and
other natural scientists must expand their
 532 Progress in Physical Geography
understanding of human systems and their 41(5)
dynamics to levels similar to those at which they
already understand the natural systems outside their
closest specialty. Biogeographers have always
studied geophysics and biogeochemis- try.
Climatologists and biogeochemists study
biogeography. Now, we must all study human
systems and the anthroposphere.
Such study is no small investment. It requires
sustained dedication to learning across disci- plines.
Yet, the returns are absolutely worth it. I can
personally attest to this, and my efforts have likely
been harder than most; I am a plant physiologist by
training. As is commonly stated, the real
breakthroughs in research do indeed come at the
interface among disciplines. Along with these
breakthroughs come both broader recognition and
important advances in our thinking – both inside
and outside the scholarly world.
Such efforts are already paying off. The clas- sic
subdisciplines of physical geography – cli-
matology, biogeography, geomorphology, and
hydrology – are now linking human systems more
deeply into their research and pedagogy. Striking
examples of what might become sub- disciplines in
themselves include anthroclima- tology (Peterson
and Broad, 2016; Ruddiman et al., 2016),
anthrobiogeography (Ellis, 2015; Young, 2015), and
anthrogeomorphology (or anthropogeomorphology;
Brown et al., 2017; Goudie, 2017; Goudie and
Viles, 2016; Tarolli, 2016).

VII Human systems are not

physical, chemical, or biological
Perhaps the most important step down the path of
engaging with human systems is developing a deep
appreciation of their distinctiveness from physical,
chemical, and biological systems. Humans are
only one of many primate species living in the
physical, chemical, and biological world. However,
human systems are much more than this. Human
systems are social systems
 E 5

that emerge from the interactions of large num- own geologic time period, or that human social
bers of individual decision-making agents capacities to transform Earth now threaten the
struc- tured by social roles, social institutions, future of both nonhuman species and contem-
social networks, and ultimately by social porary societies.
learning across generational time (cultural
inheritances), all of which respond to both
current and histor- ical contexts and conditions VIII Physical geography for
on many different levels simultaneously the Anthropocene
(Chase-Dunn and Lerro, 2013; Ellis, 2015; In response to a rapidly changing climate, acid-
Giddens, 1984). As a result, human systems ifying oceans, mass extinction, and the wide
bring entirely new dimensions of complexity array of other harmful anthropogenic environ-
and surprise to the functioning of Earth mental changes, physical geographers have an
systems. important role to play (DeFries et al., 2012). In
It is wise to be humble when confronted efforts to address the challenges of the Anthro-
with the many ways that human systems have pocene, it is critical to keep in mind that under-
over- come what might appear to be hard standing the causes of environmental problems
physical, chemical, and biological limits is not the same as understanding or seeking
(Defries, 2014; Ellis, 2015). For example, such solutions (Oreskes, 2015). Solving
limits cannot explain in a useful way how environmen- tal problems is ultimately a social
many people can live on Earth (Cohen, 1995; enterprise and usually far removed from the
Franck et al., 2011; Marchetti, 1979; Sayre, scholarly world. There is no cockpit on planet
2008). The same square kilometer of land that Earth. If we want our science to change things
once could sustain no more than a dozen for the better, it is not enough to make our
individuals engaged in hunt- ing and foraging measurements more accurate or to broadcast
might now sustain thousands of city dwellers these to the media or to policymakers (Glynn et
around the world through inten- sive al., 2017). To shift human systems toward
agricultural production distributed through better outcomes, we must find ways to work
global supply chains. In less than 10,000 years in partnership with the people, social
– the blink of an eye in Earth history – human institutions, and processes that create and
societies have increased in scale from a few sustain our societies, even when our
dozen individuals to hundreds of millions to professional or personal belief systems might
billions. not agree with them.
From the first use of biomass to cook food
(substituting for human biological energy in
digestion) to the use of fossil fuels and non- IX Concluding thoughts
biological energy from the sun, wind, and As Earth moves deeper into the Anthropocene,
nuclear, humans have harnessed huge amounts the inseparability of the human and natural
of nonhuman energy to do their work. No other worlds is increasingly evident to all. This
species has these capacities, nor the ability to awareness is galvanizing a broad movement to
move materials, energy, biota, and information rethink the role of humans on Earth – not only
across an entire planet and beyond. Most impor- as environment exploiters and destroyers, but
tantly, humans have no unique biological capac- also as engineers, gardeners, permanent
ity to do these things. All of these capacities are stewards, and just bystanders on a planet
socially learned and can evolve far faster than rapidly and per- manently reshaped by our
any capacity produced by biological evolution. societies. To make Progress in Physical
It should surprise no one that just one single Geography, it is time to engage with the
species in all of Earth’s history has inspired its Anthropocene as an intellectual
534 Progress in Physical Geography
41(5)

tool that might ultimately help guide societies lower bounding surface of anthropogenic deposits.
toward better outcomes in the ongoing human The Anthropocene Review 2: 33–58.
transformation of Earth. Ellis E, Maslin M, Boivin N, et al. (2016) Involve social
scientists in defining the Anthropocene. Nature 540:
Declaration of Conflicting Interests 192–193.
Ellis EC (2011) Anthropogenic transformation of the ter-
The author declared no potential conflicts of
restrial biosphere. Proceedings of the Royal Society A:
interest with respect to the research, authorship,
Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Science 369:
and/or pub- lication of this article.
1010–1035.
Ellis EC (2015) Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere.
Funding Ecological Monographs 85: 287–331.
The author received no financial support for the Ellis EC and Haff PK (2009) Earth science in the
research, authorship, and/or publication of this Anthropocene: New epoch, new paradigm, new
article. responsibilities. EOS Transactions 90: 473.
Finney SC and Edwards LE (2016) The “Anthropocene”
epoch: Scientific decision or political statement? GSA
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