Book Talk with Alex Damianos "Science, Politics, and the Anthropocene Working Group: What was the Anthropocene?"

 New book Science, Politics, and the Anthropocene Working Group - What was the Anthropocene? .

In March 2024, the Anthropocene Working Group’s proposal for a formal Anthropocene Series/Epoch of the Geologic Time Scale was formally rejected by the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy. What does the failed formalization effort reveal about the relationship between science and normativity under conditions of ‘climate crisis’? Drawing on four years of ethnographic observation of the Anthropocene Working Group, this article explains how the Group developed its proposal, why it failed, and what it reveals about the social construction of geological truth. The effort to formalize an Anthropocene unit was based on a coupling of science and politics, wherein geo-scientists could make normative assertions in the register of scientific fact. Ultimately, the Group failed because it was seen as appropriating incumbent geological techniques to advance claims about the future, transitioning geology from a descriptive science about the past to a site of warning.

Alex is a guest fellow at the Center for Anthropocene History  Feb-April 2026.

Alexander Damianos  is lecturer in property law and environmental law at the University of Kent Law School. He has a PhD in law from the London School of Economics, where he also completed an MSc in Law, Anthropology & Society. Research interests concern the relation between science and law. His PhD research examined the ongoing effort to formalise the Anthropocene as a geological unit.