A special exhibition by the Deutsches Museum and the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society.

Includes bibliographical references.

Foreword by the Director General. FOreword from the Rachel Carson Center. Essays: An idea is born: The human dimension in geological time / Jan Zalasiewicz -- A future beyond numbers / Libby Robin -- The anthropocene from the perspective of the history of technology / Helmuth Trischler -- "We aren't doomed" / an interview with Paul J. Crutzen. Altered nature: Posthumanism, reimagining the human / Ursula Heise -- The global garden / Emma Marris -- The anthropocene explosion / Koert van Mensvoort and Allison Guy. The new face of the earth: The used earth embracing our history as transformers / Erle C. Ellis -- Oceans in the anthropocene and rules of the holocene / Davor Vidas -- No longer just plowing ahead turning side-effects into climate benefits / Julia Pongratz -- Building cities that think like planets ... / Marina Alberti. Living in the anthropocene: Animated strata, indigenous peoples and the reach of resources / Luke Keogh -- A new economy for the anthropocene / Pavan Sukhdev and Kavita Sharma -- Energy transformations between coffee and coevolution / J�rgen Renn, Manfred D. Laubichler, and Helge Wendt -- Cultivating the agriculture of the future / Danielle Nierenberg -- Shared planet, an epoch of global injustice? / Christian Schw�gerl. A new perspective: "Even the future was better back then," new challenges for science and communication / Reinhold Leinfelder -- Enlightenment's blind spot, a new meaning of nature and culture / Bernd M. Scherer -- Museums and the anthropocene, reconfiguring time, space, and human experience / Nina M�llers. Interlude: Craft in the anthropocene, fossils from the future -- Poetry, a critical, multifaceted vision. Making of: Conceptualising the exhibition -- Design of the exhibition. Catalogue: A concept with a past -- The wall of anthropocenic objects -- Urbanisation, the world's growing cities -- Mobility, setting the world in motion -- Humans and machines, the bio-geo-technosphere, humans and machines in the anthropocene -- Nature, man-made nature -- Food, food for thought -- Evolution, humans as catalysts -- The clock of the long now -- Futures past and present, visions of society and technology in the anthropocene -- Reflections on the future. Notes and credits: Further reading -- Acknolwedgements -- About the authors -- Imprint.

The catalog accompanying the exhibition explores the concept of the Anthropocene. It looks at the complexity of human influence on the Earth and how this is reflected in urban development, mobility, energy, climate, food, nature, and global justice. In the essay section, contribution by distinguished scholars discuss the history of the concept of the Anthropocene, its characteristics and consequences, and life in the Anthropocene both today and in the future, as well as the importance of the idea for education, research, and museums. Artistic and literary contributions offer new ways of looking at the changing relationship between humans and nature. Finally, a "making of" section explains the design choices and guiding principles behind the exhibition.