The rapid industrialization of societies has resulted in radical changes to the Earth’s biosphere and its local ecosystems. Climate scientists have recorded and forecasted worrying global temperature rises going back to the early twentieth century, while biologists and palaeontologists have suggested that the next mass extinction is on its way if the current rate of species loss continues. To avert further ecological damage, excessive natural resource use and environmental deterioration are challenges that humanity must deal with now. The human species has had such a significant impact on the natural environment that the present geological epoch can be referred to as the ‘Anthropocene’, the age of humans. The blame and responsibility for the prevailing unsustainability, however, cannot be assigned equally to all humans. To analyse the root problems and consequences of unsustainable development, as well as to outline rigorous solutions for the contemporary age, this transdisciplinary book brings together natural and social sciences under the rubric of the Anthropocene. The book identifies the central preconditions for social organization and governance to enable the peaceful coexistence of humans and the non-human world. The contributors investigate the burning questions of sustainability from a number of different perspectives including geosciences, economics, law, organizational studies, political theory and philosophy. The book is a state-of-the-art review of the Anthropocene debate and provides crucial signposts for how human activities can, and should, be changed.

This book discusses the geological time that will follow the human-dominated epoch and ways to move there. In addition to an editorial, a total of five articles are published in this volume. The articles engage with a variety of social science disciplines-ranging from economics and sociology to philosophy and political science-and connect to natural science's insights into the Anthropocene. The volume calls for going beyond anthropocentrism in sustainability theory and practice in order to exit the Anthropocene with applications and insights in the contexts of politics, energy, tourism, food and management. We hope that you will find this book interesting and helpful in contributing to sustainable change.

This book outlines the development and perspectives of the Anthropocene concept by Paul J. Crutzen and his colleagues from its inception to its implications for the sciences, humanities, society and politics. The main text consists primarily of articles from peer-reviewed scientific journals and other scholarly sources. It comprises selected articles on the Anthropocene published by Paul J. Crutzen and a selection of related articles, mostly but not exclusively by colleagues with whom he collaborated closely. • In the year 2000 Nobel Laureate Paul J. Crutzen proposed the Anthropocene concept as a new epoch in Earth’s history • Comprehensive collection of articles on the Anthropocene by Paul J. Crutzen and his colleagues• Unique primary research literature and Crutzen’s comprehensive bibliography• Paul Crutzen’s scientific investigations into human influences on atmospheric chemistry and physics, the climate and the Earth system, leading to the conception of the Anthropocene• Reflections on the Anthropocene and its implications• Bibliometric review of the spread of the use of the Anthropocene concept in the Natural and Social Sciences, Humanities and Law

As can beseen from this volume, the Australian Lonergan Workshop aims to encourage a diversity of contributions from across many disciplines and fields, from emerging young voices and those who continually value Lonergan's work to inform, to bring to birth insights stirred by what Frederick Crowe, sj, called 'a profundity we have dimly glimpsed in Lonergan's work; we have a sense of an enormous potential to develop.' The result is a collection ranging from the eclectic, stirring and practical, to the richly theological, and scholarly. Nonetheless, each contribution adds to the valuable ongoing exploration of ideas necessary for conversation and progress. To this end, the Australian Lonergan Workshop while a modest publication, remains an invaluable vehicle for developing Lonergan scholarship in Oceania.

There is a growing interest in the character and the challenge of the Anthropocene. Although efforts to pin down beginning dates of this epoch have been debated, there is a broad consensus that humanity is facing an unprecedented challenge to surviving on Earth, a challenge which humans have created ourselves. Undeniably, we have had and continue to have impacts on the planet as a whole. These include ravaging bushfires and unprecedented flooding caused by climate change, spiking levels of carbon dioxide levels, and widespread loss of biodiversity. The challenge has been expressed in various ways: the larger challenges of climate change or ocean garbage toxicity, the subtler challenges that would support such large efforts by cultivating a new aesthetic. The present book asks of us to reach for the deeper grounding of all such efforts. Perhaps that asking is best hinted at by pluralizing the word character in a paradoxical non-question: “What is to be the 'character' of the characters transforming the Anthropocene from its present negativity to a positive period of human flourishing.” What is missing, what we are in the dark about, is the apparently simple turn that would have us asking, “What’s what?” The focus must be concrete: so we are to think of miners and farmers and reformers and economists and educators, but primarily of ourselves as whats. Might we begin the positive Anthropocene’s success by beginning to sow what comprehendingly?

In this book 25 authors from the Global South (19) and the Global North (6) address conflicts, security, peace, gender, environment and development. Four parts cover I) peace research epistemology; II) conflicts, families and vulnerable people; III) peacekeeping, peacebuilding and transitional justice; and IV) peace and education. Part I deals with peace ecology, transformative peace, peaceful societies, Gandhi’s non-violent policy and disobedient peace. Part II discusses urban climate change, climate rituals, conflicts in Kenya, the sexual abuse of girls, farmer-herder conflicts in Nigeria, wartime sexual violence facing refugees, the traditional conflict and peacemakingprocess of Kurdish tribes, Hindustani family shame, and communication with Roma. Part III analyses norms of peacekeeping, violent non-state actors in Brazil, the art of peace in Mexico, grass-roots post-conflict peacebuilding in Sulawesi, hydrodiplomacyin the Indus River Basin, the Rohingya refugee crisis, and transitional justice. Part IV assesses SDGs and peace in India, peace education in Nepal, and infrastructure-based development and peace in West Papua. • Peer-reviewed texts prepared for the 27th Conference of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) in 2018 in Ahmedabad in India.• Contributions from two pioneers of global peace research:a foreword by Johan Galtung from Norway and a preface by Betty Reardon from the United States.• Innovative case studies by peace researchers on decolonising conflicts, security, peace, gender, environment and development in the Anthropocene, the new epoch of earth and human history.• New theoretical perspectives by senior and junior scholars from Europe and Latin America on peace ecology, transformative peace, peaceful societies, and Gandhi’s non-violence policy.• Case studies on climate change, SDGs and peace in India; conflicts in Kenya, Nigeria, South Sudan, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico; Roma in Hungary;the refugee crisis in Bangladesh; peace action in Indonesia and India/Pakistan; and peace education in Nepal.

A proposal to reframe the Anthropocene as an age of actual and emerging coexistence with earth system variability, encompassing both human dignity and environmental sustainability. Is this the Anthropocene, the age in which humans have become a geological force, leaving indelible signs of their activities on the earth? The narrative of the Anthropocene so far is characterized by extremes, emergencies, and exceptions—a tale of apocalypse by our own hands. The sense of ongoing crisis emboldens policy and governance responses that challenge established systems of sovereignty and law. The once unacceptable—geoengineering technology, for example, or authoritarian decision making—are now anticipated and even demanded by some. To counter this, Amanda Lynch and Siri Veland propose a reframing of the Anthropocene—seeing it not as a race against catastrophe but as an age of emerging coexistence with earth system variability. Lynch and Veland examine the interplay between our new state of ostensible urgency and the means by which this urgency is identified and addressed. They examine how societies, including Indigenous societies, have understood such interplays; explore how extreme weather and climate weave into the Anthropocene narrative; consider the tension between the short time scale of disasters and the longer time scale of sustainability; and discuss both international and national approaches to Anthropocene governance. Finally, they argue for an Anthropocene of coexistence that embraces both human dignity and sustainability.