The word Anthropocene comes from ‘Anthropos’, meaning man and ‘cene’, meaning new. It is defined as the time during which humans had a significant impact on our planet.
It was first coined in 1980 by atmospheric chemist Paul J Crutzen diatom researcher Eugene F Stoermer, and it gained popularity in 2000.
Humans have unfolded at a phenomenal rate and scale, and this period is also called great acceleration.
Habitat destruction, global warming, CO2 emissions are all signs that we can remarkably modify our planet. Anthropocene connects natural science and social science.
It is a human crisis; each catastrophe leads the way out to a new state of stability. Anthropocene calamity comes under the ecological crisis, and it cannot be something that happened instantly and cannot be fixed.
Since Rachel Carson’s 1962 essay Silent Spring, the environmental problem has become humanity’s most apparent crisis. He said that Homo Sapiens were continuously approaching many limits of the biosphere and ecosystem to permit.
Covid and the Anthropocene
Zoonotic diseases were introduced in the Anthropocene period. Zoonotic diseases were diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, parasites and germs. These diseases can affect humans and animals, ranging from illness to severe illness and even death.
In the last few years, diseases like AIDS, Anthrax, Malaria and many more hit different regions and adversely affected people’s lives. From 1960 to 2004, 335 conditions were of animals.
SARS appeared in 2002 in Guandong Province caused the death of 800 people in China, which was approximately ten per cent of the number of sufferers. There was another disease called MERS appeared in Saudi Arabia.
At the end of 2019, a new virus came called Covid-19, which has not been finished yet as several countries were still facing this virus.
All three viruses are of the same type and often causes cough and cold.Researchers said that Covid-19 is a disease that is Anthropocene disease.
Scientists found that the Covid-19 was produced from the changes in DNA/RNA transmission structure due to human activity or environmental factors.
Covid 19 is also responsible for the country’s global economy as well s the death rate in a specific country. Its presence is believed to be one of the typical diseases of the Anthropocene era.
IR Studies and International Relations
International Relations and Anthropocene challenges did not compliment each other. International relations had to consider the core understandings of its Anthropocene epoch, particularly the relationship between descriptive categories of humankind.
The Anthropocene represents the potential failure of modern human societies to preserve and sustain themselves and other forms of life.
All of this also reflects the collapse of the International Relations assumption to think of a different world.
Not in the ideological sense of building a perfect political community, but thinking through the realization that we exist in a world far more complex, interactive and diverse than ever imagined in International Relations.
Evidence of the Anthropocene
Humans put so much plastic in water bodies, and plastics are not biodegradable, and they can be considered a fossil fuel for future generations.
It also increases the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and increases the extinction rate in plants and animals.
Conclusion
Humans are currently in the Anthropocene age, not in the Holocene age and Covid-19 acts as an alarm for humans.
International relations distinguish the humans, society and nature in the Holocene period.
As mentioned above, it is a connection between social science and natural science so, the Anthropocene epoch is considered a time of connectedness.
