The Anthropocene Engine

Manfred D Laubichler is Global Futures Professor and President's Professor of Theoretical Biology and History of Biology, Director of the School of Complex Adaptive Systems within the College of Global Futures and Director of the Decision Theater at Arizona State University. His work focuses on evolutionary novelties from genomes to knowledge systems, the structure of evolutionary theory, the evolution of knowledge and computational history. He is an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany, and external faculty member at the Complexity Science Hub Vienna. He is also Vice Chair of the Global Climate Forum and an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

We live in the Anthropocene. Currently, humans are by far the largest force shaping planetary processes. The consequences of our actions are everywhere—from climate change and biodiversity loss to inequality and geopolitical instabilities. But how did we get there? How did one naked primate manage to reshape planetary processes and create a whole new earth sphere—the Technosphere? The answer lies in a complex co-evolutionary dynamic which really took shape around 10.000 years ago—the Anthropocene Engine. This talk will explore the history, mechanisms, and consequences of the Anthropocene Engine.