#climateemergency
"Earth's Future: We Are in the Anthropocene—Now What?
Most people have a general, intuitive understanding of the term “Anthropocene.” And while it has not formally been declared as a new geological epoch, it is scientifically clear that these new times have only begun to fully unfold. The Anthropocene stresses both the enormity of the human imprint on Earth, as well as its long-term nature. That latter aspect, however, is highly underappreciated among the public. We describe several qualitatively different Anthropocene pathways for the next millennium, some of them depending on our cumulative actions as humanity, some on how the Earth system responds to these human pressures. We highlight how much we are already stuck in a figurative “Anthropocene quicksand”, where only an active pull can free us from consequences like global heating—while even a very modest continuation of greenhouse gas emissions will keep us at high warming levels. Should Earth system resilience, the natural buffering capacity, significantly decline, the impacts of our actions would become even stronger. In a worst-case scenario, shifts in Earth system feedbacks could even surpass human forcing in relevance. But we are not there yet and can still pull ourselves out of the quicksand."
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025EF007730