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that requires us to look as much at the horizontal
record of human-environmental relations across
(and above) the surface of the planet (including
habitat change, urban sprawl, coral bleaching and
desertification), as at the vertical record of the
geological past. But if we take Crutzen's notion
seriously, studying the Anthropocene also
requires much more of us. It means that we must
have a reliable toolkit for studying the geological
force that is humankind. Humans are very
different objects of enquiry than the forces that
have shaped and defined previous geological
epochs. To understand them appears to require
a peculiar mix of analytical skills spanning
psychology, anthropology, economics, politics,
history, sociology, biology and geography. Conse-
quently, while understanding the nature of the
environmental past has required an understand-
ing of geological and paleontological processes
(including extinction level events, the changing
composition of the atmosphere and the movement
of tectonic plates), studying the Anthropocene
requires us to ask questions about the drivers of
human behaviour, the structures of global capital-
ism, the processes of urbanization, the political
constitution of nation states and the nature of
multinational corporations.
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