Research

Modeling the Anthropocene

We are living through a time of profound transitions, a moment in which the accelerating dynamics of global ecological disruption are becoming ever more perceptible, providing evidence that the powers of industrialized humanity have persistent and, at times, irreversible effects of planetary significance. The magnitude and radical nature of these human-caused perturbations is well captured by the proposition that we are undergoing a state shift of geohistorical proportions.

The Anthropocene entails a newly emerging necessity to orient intellectual comprehension, scientific research, and political action towards inter-operational systems behavior and the temporal processes that underlie them. Geoanthropology responds to this challenge by merging an updated version of Earth system research with cultural theories and histories of socio-material, energetic, and informational flows by forming a new transdisciplinary field. Through analytical and interpretative approaches, geoanthropology studies the various drivers, dynamics, and dilemmas that have led us onto an Anthropocene trajectory and applies these insights to cope with its further unfolding and rapid intensification.

Focus Points

• Computer-modeling – a methodological challenge
• Human-environment interactions as co-evolutionary processes
• Modeling the social challenges in the Anthropocene