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Clinging to the Anthropocene
Are the latest fashionable ideas about environmentalism going to help us correctly identify profit as the engine of ecological destruction – or are we simply going to revisit discredited Malthusian tropes, asks ZOLTAN ZIGEDY

“ANTHROPOCENE” is a 21st-century word — not that it never appeared before the current century. But its wide acceptance, its broad usage is a feature of the last two decades or so.

Like its late 20th-century counterpart, “globalisation,” its currency, its popularity in social policy circles, has far outstripped any common, agreed upon understanding of its meaning.

In a very broad sense, the word “Anthropocene” could refer to the era when the appearance of Homo sapiens made an impact upon the Earth.

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