Anthropocene Word List

ANTHROPOCENE

Geological epoch defined by human impact

WATCH

1. Before the Flood — Fisher Stevens, 2016 · Documentary · Leonardo DiCaprio’s global tour of climate devastation; urgent and accessible.

2. 2040 — Damon Gameau, 2019 · Documentary · What the Anthropocene could look like if we made the right choices now.

3. Anthropocene: The Human Epoch — Edward Burtynsky et al., 2018 · Documentary · The visual evidence of human transformation of the planet.

4. A Life on Our Planet — David Attenborough, 2020 · Documentary · A witness statement from a man who has watched the Anthropocene unfold.

5. Kiss the Ground — Josh Tickell & Rebecca Harrell Tickell, 2020 · Documentary · Regenerative response to the Anthropocene through soil.

6. Seaspiracy — Ali Tabrizi, 2021 · Documentary · The Anthropocene’s devastation of ocean ecosystems.

7. I Am Greta — Nathan Grossman, 2020 · Documentary · A teenager confronting world leaders with the reality of the Anthropocene.

8. 2°C: Beyond the Limit — Various, 2019 · Documentary · What specific temperature thresholds mean for human civilization.

9. The Human Element — Matthew Heineman, 2018 · Documentary · James Balog documenting the human fingerprint on natural systems.

10. Interstellar — Christopher Nolan, 2014 · Film · Earth made uninhabitable by human activity; the Anthropocene’s dystopian endpoint.

LISTEN

1. Outrage and Optimism — Tom Rivett-Carnac et al. · Climate change in the Anthropocene with solution-focused framing.

2. How to Save a Planet — Gimlet Media · Practical responses to living in the Anthropocene.

3. Warm Regards — Various · Climate science communicated with honesty and care.

4. The Anthropocene Reviewed — John Green · Essays rating human-made and natural phenomena on a five-star scale; beautiful.

5. Threshold — PRX · In-depth reporting on the human transformation of specific ecosystems.

6. Drilled — Amy Westervelt · The fossil fuel industry’s role in creating the Anthropocene crisis.

7. On Being: Climate and spirit — Krista Tippett · The inner response to living in the Anthropocene.

8. Sustainababble — Various · Honest, self-critical environmentalism in the Anthropocene.

9. Radiolab: Earth episodes — WNYC · Science of the systems humans are disrupting.

10. TED Climate — Various · Short, focused talks on Anthropocene challenges and responses.

READ

1. The Anthropocene Reviewed — John Green · Lyrical essays on living as a human in the age humans made.

2. The Sixth Extinction — Elizabeth Kolbert · The mass extinction event humans are causing; Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting.

3. Losing Earth — Nathaniel Rich · The decade when humanity could have stopped climate change and didn’t.

4. A Field Guide to the Anthropocene — Various · Navigating the new geological epoch humans have created.

5. The Uninhabitable Earth — David Wallace-Wells · The full scale of what the Anthropocene means for human survival.

6. Braiding Sweetgrass — Robin Wall Kimmerer · Indigenous knowledge as an alternative to the Anthropocene’s destructive logic.

7. Half-Earth — E.O. Wilson · A proposal to surrender half the planet to nature to save both it and us.

8. The World Without Us — Alan Weisman · What Earth looks like if humans disappeared; an Anthropocene thought experiment.

9. Underland — Robert Macfarlane · Deep time and the geological record of human impact.

10. The New Wild — Fred Pearce · How invasive species are reshaping ecosystems in the Anthropocene.