The Anthropocene Event as a holistic framework for Earth Governance

The switch in definition of the Anthropocene concept first proposed in 2000 in just one year, 2024, from a 1952 varved lake sediment to humanity’s cumulative impacts on the Earth System starting in the Late Pleistocene was an extraordinary development in the geoscience profession. Launched as a traditional Time Scale inquiry, the 2009-2024 journey of the designated Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) became unconventional because of its focus on mid-20^th century atomic bomb tests broadly coeval with two dozen accelerating Earth System and socioeconomic trends as well as its premature communications with news media. On 4 March 2024, the AWG proposal for an Anthropocene epoch/series was rejected by the umbrella authorities of the International Commission on Stratigraphy and International Union of Geological Sciences. Their decision was wrongly interpreted by some, including leaders of the former AWG, as a denial of scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change. This unleashed conflicting news coverage and thus a need for clarifying discourse within geoscience, across related disciplines, as well as across society with its growing anxiety about the Earth’s deteriorating health. The helpful outcome is that the Anthropocene Event uniquely equips Earth Governance, a surging focus of global influencers and authorities, with a holistic Earth-Human Ecosystem framework.