Global Change in the Anthropocene: An Iberoamerican Perspective

The human enterprise has increasingly configured a set of planetary environmental conditions that challenge the medium- and long-term permanence of Earth's life-supporting systems as we know them. We now understand that the magnitude of such an anthropogenic impact is creating a distinct set of bio-geo-physical parameters that the Nobel Award-winning Paul Crutzen has suggested that the planet has entered into a new geological epoch that should be named the Anthropocene. This notion has penetrated not only into the thinking of the scientific community, but beyond - including the humanities. An appreciation of the global environmental changes associated with the Anthropocene represents a contemporary topic that deserves attention and discussion by society at large.