In Nature, Erle Ellis and colleagues call social science and land use essential to defining the Anthropocene: Involving social sciences in defining the Anthropocene
Teaming with colleagues in geography, archaeology and anthropology, GLP SSC member Erle Ellis writes: "The causes of Earth’s transition are human and social... so scholars from those disciplines must be included in its formalization." The global history of land use changes by agriculture and urbanization and their environmental and social consequences is key to understanding how and why Earth has entered a new epoch of geological time.
In the Anthropocene, human societies have emerged as an Earth-changing force, with all of its complexities, demanding answers to some hard questions.What are human societies doing with Earth? What can be done better? By engaging the most robust science across disciplines to codesign land systems and land governance strategies, the GLP is working on answering these questions.