In March 2024, the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) officially declared that the Anthropocene will not be formalised as a new geological epoch. It did so in a joint statement by the IUGS and ICS (International Commission on Stratigraphy). The negative results of a preceding SQS vote on the Anthropocene Golden Spike (GSSP) proposal had been challenged by the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) on the grounds of missing scientific counter-arguments and procedural irregularities. Despite these concerns voiced by members of the AWG, the voting was approved and the matter thus settled – the IUGS and ICS decided “to reject the proposal for an Anthropocene Epoch as a formal unit of the Geologic Time Scale” (IUGS and ICS Joint Statement).

At the Vienna Anthropocene Network, we closely followed the events and debates that unfolded over the last couple of weeks. Significant arguments for and against the formalisation of an Anthropocene Epoch have been made and published, and likewise have both sides positioned themselves clearly with regards to the voting process and its result elsewhere, so we will not reiterate this discussion here.

We are concerned about seeing the leading bodies of geosciences negate evidence for the momentous anthropogenic impacts on the Earth System – already visible in the rock record. Since the IUGS decision to reject the Anthropocene epoch proposal seems final, we intend to focus on the implications of this decision – and future directions of the Anthropocene discourse in the light of these new developments. Inside and outside the AWG, geologists will still investigate and publish on the (geological) Anthropocene and its stratal archives, which remains a timely research area for the geosciences and a pressing topic of concern for societies at large.

From a point of view outside traditional geology, the IUGS decision is not only a “missed opportunity” to take into account the AWG’s findings which, as Jan Zalasiewicz (former chair of the AWG) poignantly stated, speak to the “clear and simple reality that our planet left its natural functioning state, sharply and irrevocably” (Zalasiewicz, as cited in The Guardian, 22 March 2024). The decision shows the extent to which the geological sciences remain, in part, disconnected from reality, and the inability of their official institutions to deal with the present state of the planet.

The Anthropocene concept was never mere “activism”, but represents sound research in various academic disciplines, ranging from the Earth System sciences to economics, from the social sciences to environmental history and other humanities disciplines. The IUGS decision will certainly not discourage further scientific inquiry on the Anthropocene. But it might sadly encourage the lobbies of science sceptics and climate change denialists that are still around and in power.

Let us not forget that the term “Anthropocene” was not – initially – coined and popularized in geology, it was first used in the context of the Earth System sciences to describe a present state of the planet that significantly diverts from Holocene conditions. The Anthropocene is a diagnosis of the present – and a forecast for the future. As such, it remains undisputed as an immensely useful concept, and its far-reaching consequences and implications will remain on the agenda of the sciences and the humanities. Formalised as a geochronological epoch or not, the Anthropocene is not going to disappear anytime soon.

— VAN Founders Eva Horn and Michael Wagreich

For more on the IUGS decision, official statements, and media coverage, see the links below.