Cultural Resonance—Loss of Orientation, Fears, and Hope

This chapter presents the fascinating discovery of the Anthropocene in the year 2000 and follows the diverse paths of its rapid popularization. I must explain that the Anthropocene is not simply old wine in new bottles, and that the Anthropocene is much more than human-made climate change: it concerns large parts of the geosphere. The chapter discusses a variety of proposals for the beginning of the Anthropocene in human history, which date back to many thousands of years from today. These historical and archaeological debates about periodization contain a hitherto untapped social and cultural-theoretical potential for research on cultural change and the question of the main factors of long-term cultural revolution.