ENV 495-01 - Senior Seminar: The Anthropocene

4 credits (Spring)

The Anthropocene. In the three and-a-half billion-year history of life on Earth, there has been no species quite like Homo sapiens. Through our intelligence, ingenuity and sense of dominion, humans have forged a new geological Epoch in Earth’s history: the Anthropocene, an inflection point in the trajectory of life on Earth. We have warmed the atmosphere to the extent that humans have prevented (or at least delayed) the next Ice Age. We are causing Earth’s sixth great extinction event, creating a future that may be attenuated of biodiversity and bereft of wilderness. The domestication and exchange of species between continents has created strange new ecosystems. By manipulation of their genetic code, we have created new species. We have created the first known extraterrestrials, from Apollo moonwalkers to microbes hitchhiking on Mars landers. Every student at Grinnell College will be coming of age during the Anthropocene. The seminar will explore what’s in store for them.

Prerequisite: Open to Junior and Senior Environmental Studies Concentrators.
Instructor: Campbell