Is the human footprint on the Earth significant in terms of the functioning of the entire Earth system, and on very long time scales of Earth system evolution? How will the Earth system keep in pace with the human action in the future? Several distinguished and world leading scholars, among them Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen, proposed to designate the past two or three centuries as new geological epoch – “the Anthropocene”.
This lecture will review our current understanding of the role of human interactions with the Earth system, and it will reveal some examples of unexpected feedbacks which may occur and significantly affect the human development in the 21st century.
Veranstalter: ÖAW und Industriellenvereinigung Wien
Wissenschaftliche Leitung: Gerhard Glatzel
