Humans Make Earth History—New Earth and New Anthropology

This chapter deals with the existential significance of the Anthropocene for the future of humanity. We have only been living in the Anthropocene for the length of a human life. If geologists, with their extremely long-term perspective, are already proclaiming a new phase of the Earth’s history, then we should be alarmed. A meaningful scientific approach that also leads to realistic solutions combines natural sciences and a whole range of human sciences. Of central importance are a significantly time-extended cultural anthropology and an anthropologically informed geology. In short: We need geoanthropology!