About that “not yet an Anthropocene” vote

Overview:

• A group of conservatives and ecomodernists opposed recognizing the Anthropocene as an official epoch in the Geological Time Scale by organizing an invalid vote.
• The alleged vote in the SQS on the Anthropocene proposal was found to be in violation of ICS Statutes and has been declared null and void.
• Concerns were raised regarding fair process and the treatment of the Anthropocene Working Group during the voting procedures.

Anti-Anthropocene vote is ‘null and void’ | Climate & Capitalism

Commission chairs say organizers of ballot violated statutes and ignored scientific evidence…

We are still waiting for full details, but it appears that the “vote” was a maneuver organized by a group of conservatives and ecomodernists who have long opposed any recognition of a recent qualitative change in the Earth System.

Quest to declare Anthropocene an epoch descends into epic row

Vote against formal geological recognition of ‘age of the humans’ is claimed to have violated committee rules

The proposal set the start date of the Anthropocene in 1952, marked by the worldwide fallout of plutonium from nuclear weapons’ tests. A new epoch also requires a specific location to represent the change and the sediments collected in a sinkhole lake in Canada were selected in July.

However, a geological committee – the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) – voting in February sank the proposal by 12 votes to four, according to a report by the New York Times. Subsequently, the chair of the SQS said the “alleged” vote was in “violation of the statutory rules” and requested an inquiry into the affair.

Read more:

• anthropocene
• geological time scale