![]() ![]() First popularized in 2000 by atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, it refers to the age of human influence over nature on a planetary scale. This disorienting era has become known as the “Anthropocene,” a term you may have noticed popping up with increasing frequency of late. That’s what we didn’t, perhaps, understand: that there would be no before and after to catastrophic climate change, that the dystopian could be so cozy with the quotidian. As Al Gore is fond of saying, “Every night on the television news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation.” And yet, for those of us watching from the comfort of our climate-controlled living rooms, these extremes and calamities coexist surreally with ordinary life. In Oklahoma and Texas, this year brought record deluges of rain, while severe drought in the Middle East has fueled the refugee crisis. In California, the future has arrived in the form of desiccated land, 100-degree autumn days, and freakish fires that burned more than 300,000 acres in 2015. ![]()
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