A good idea can carry itself. This was the best presentation on Climate Change that I have watched. The Scientific Community has a firm footing on this one.

The best break down yet! Thanks for making it abundantly clear that we are walking towards a cliff looking at our phones...good luck everybody!

Why does this horrifying yet rational analysis have only 601 views??? We should all stop doing whatever we're doing and start shouting these facts from rooftops - for starters!!

Two points: (you can look them up in science papers) 1- The Amazon forest has been a net carbon emitter for the last decade 2- West Antarctic ice sheet passed it's tipping point 7 years ago I will stop here. I watch/listen/read this kind of stuff daily since 2012. Astrophysics was a much more serene realm... I used to do that prior to 2012. I still follow it... some. P.S. Tank you!

I am a Canadian who has lived in Vietnam since 2015. I have been driving a motorbike beside the south China Sea daily. There used to be a large beach next to the sea. Now the sea has flooded the hiway. Rising sea levels are for real.

Fascinating. Depressing, but fascinating.

Important Graphs 7:02 - Global temperature 14:03 - Holocene-Anthropocene boundary 18:07 - Climate model projections 20:25 - Tipping cascades 21:41 - Global tipping cascade 23:38 - Earth system trajectories 29:06 - CO2 emissions 30:09 - The earth system

A big thank you Will Steffen for this at at once straightforward and compelling talk. Yet another (talk) that should be compulsory in schools, tertiary institutions, in the main stream media, and in workplaces. Nga mihi, Haere pai

Bravo Mike Flattley , Will Steffen . One of the best and clearest info sessions on the topic. Thanks

So much for “we are stardust,” (apologies to Joni Mitchell); ...... we are more like the asteroid.

One problem is that we have never successfully engineered a society or an economy. We have tweaked systems that were already in place from natural growth, but building a different system from scratch may be beyond us.

Not Athropocene. Capitalocene.

Thank you, I have posted on Twitter. This needs to be reposted on all social media sites

Many thanks for a clear and 'evidence-rich' presentation. The fact that possible tipping points are likely before 'net-zero' is achieved, is a crucial one. 'Net zero' itself is so vague and full of cunningly engineered loopholes, that it's a highly unreliable basis for systematic and continuing change in our habits of production and consumption. In purely technical terms could we avert the worst - and maybe even do better? Yes. Will we? Not given the present political and economic arrangements. Period.

Rest in peace, Will. We are forever grateful for your contributions to science and humanity.

Spectacular research and presentation , thank you very much

excellent lecture. We will know the exact temperature of all tipping Point's, because we will tipp them.

Excellent presentation. The presenter, Will Stephen (name ?), did a great job sharing complex information in a simple, easy to understand format. I certainly feel like I understand climate change and the coming of the anthropocene era better. And, I am even more convinced that we must take collective action to change out societies, especially English-speaking ones, to acknowledge environmental limits, make changes to our consumption patterns, and make our societies more equitable.

Thank you for this video and for all your good work!

The best summary I have seen for a long time-recommend share widely.

I think it is fascinating that you are understating the current impacts (1.1 degrees LOL). You also pay NO mind to what is happening to climate/food connection. So much you gloss over but so so happy about supporting your term Anthropocene. Hey, so glad you all got together and decided that a house is now on fire. Let's talk more about this house on fire. Don't do anything about it. Just talk about it. Thanks.

A thoughtful and well done talk. I wish more people would check it out. Thank you so much.

How about the 10 to 20 year time lag between emission and effect? The enormous amounts of CO² produced in that period will lead us way past 2C no matter what we do. And if that wasn’t enough, we already crossed the line of dozens of tipping points.

very clear and informative, i like your honesty about the aboriginal

This is a brilliant and enjoyable lecture! I wish I were back in college studying with Will Steffen. I think that permaculture ideals and ethics come close to the goals that humans should strive toward. Australia has the amazing Geoff Lawton as a teacher!

“We live on a finite planet,” that’s one concept that very few people seem able to comprehend

Wonderful informed talk. One of the very best I've listened to. Thank you Will.

Absolutely Fantastic!! Watching gave my Mental Appetit a satisfaction as if a visit to the finest restaurant, with the finest Chefs and the finest ambience had just occurred... Always your Friend... ... L' air.

This video was staggeringly informative and discouragingly eye opening to the fact that the human species is so destructive. I am afraid to say that the top percent directing the world will never be will to give up their ways if it affects their bottom dollar. Exactly why the growth of inequality and over consumption has increased tremendously in such a short period of time. I have been hearing warnings of global warming since the 90’s, and nothing has changed.

very good presentation . very concise and informative , should be on mainstream media .

Fantastic information thank you.

These growth charts look just like the stock market. Glad everyone has that “growth mindset.” Perhaps one day humans will comprehend that you can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet. Until then the Beast will feed.

Excellent! I'd like to have this video and others like it, compulsory viewing by CEO, Senators and MPs, around the world. Osmosis! Symbiosis! better that predation, parasitism, sycophancy, boom & bust, aka crenation & lysis.

Thank you. Excellent explanation of the topic. The 50's also dusted the Earth with man-made nuclear materials. I wonder what the Anthropocene will look like in 60 million years? A bit like the K-T boundary, I imagine.

Clarion call. Thank you, Dr. Steffen

This is probably the best talk on climate change I’ve ever seen.

I'm going share and share this talk.

So much gratitude for this! I would love to pursue research on modeling and quantifying these proceses.

I'd say we're going extinct in regards to the question proffered. The lag effects of emissions guarantees 3°C and that's it for all.

one of the most respectable videos I’ve ever seen. Thanks. 🙏

Share, share, share!! A very clear presentation, and nobody can call this alarmist.

Thank you for your speech ❤️

Every day should be a learning day, even when the lesson is horrifying. Thanks for the education.

There was the clearest and most comprehensive assessment of our current world and what we have to look forward to. The future is of course quite uncertain. There is an increasing momentum in renewable energy as well a greater overall consciousness about the problem we face. This decade is the turning point for humanity as many learned researchers have stated in no uncertain terms.

I coined a new word for where we find ourselves... The ANTHROPLASTICENE

I agree with Bravo Mike..

Great lecture Will. I think that the term anthropocene was first coined by Tim Flannery in his book ‘future eaters’. Or something very like it. The concept is certainly outlined in this text. Considering it was written in the early nineties, the ideas in the book have proven surprisingly robust and accurate, particularly in regards to predictions of future weather events.

Fantastic explanation, thank you very much!!!

Absolutely superb

one can argue that the holocene 10 000 years ago is a first stage "anthropocene", we started farming, burning land, cutting Forrests for metallurgy, all on a mass scale. interesting that the climate plateaued during that time endowing us with 10 000 years of stable balmy climate stretching the interglacial period. Anthropocene act II, we hit the jackpot when we discovered how to tap the energy from fossil fuel so now we're doing the same thing but on steroids and the climate and biosphere respond accordingly.

Is the great acceleration like traveling down a high way & the road being pulled the opposite direction?

What I was trying to say was this video is one of the best..

Great message condense and simplify!

i wonder what the next life form will be after we are loooong gone?

What a few months do over a dozen people died today in Canada where a heat dome has caused record breaking temps for several days the stores in northwestern United States and even across the border ran out of air conditioners as they never used to need them

I didn't see any ambiguity, or wiggle room for deniers. That's a good thing. Thank you for the frank and well laid out info.

Brillant presentation.

so clearly presented, very interesting and we have to work together globally.

Thank you. May this become common knowledge and drive us to balancing change.

very nice exposition!

Here are some other variables that you should put on a graph to describe the Anthropocene: food production, infant mortality, mother's mortality at childbirth, starvation deaths, deaths from natural catastrophes, lifespan and percentage of population with good water.

Stewardship, care taker, protector of our home world EARTH; it's the role we humans were designed to perform, we could all experience deep gratitude for the beauty of the earth and all living beings and revel in balanced cycles. Thank-you for speaking up for our future.

Wonderful really. Well explained, easy to understand, from a scientist angle. A must watch.

"They already knew about cycles." Cyclic thinking is the original and natural mindset of humans and nearly all indigenous or pre/non-industrial societies think this way. Linear thinking is an "innovation" that is fairly recent.

What a beautiful human being 💓 Rest in peace 😔

TECHNOLOGY! Solving today's problems by creating tomorrow's

Thank god we have science to provide an accurate study of the impact of human stupidity on the only known life sustaining planet in the Universe.

Thankyou 🙌

A fantastic video Professor Steffen, both informative wise and communicative wise. If I get my governmental manifesto finished I will be approaching you to be a key advisor or minister for a new political party here in Australia. I believe we as a species have the ability to save this planet, and possibly the will to get it done. Speed of roll-out and consensus are the limiting factors presently I feel. Thank you for this presentation. Michael Barrett

Is there an open access link to the article - The trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration, 16 January 2015, Anthropocene Review. Seems to be a paywall at the moment with Sage Publications.

I completely agree with the thinking of the Australian aborigines, but I’ve understood all this for decades, and I’ve been advocating exactly what this documentary has so excellently put…thank you!

Im here 2 years later and it raining in buffalo ny in late december. It’s been raining for weeks.

If there actually is a creator, then humans was a major, idiotic mistake.

Absolutely shocking - and convincing (to me anyway; most won't even take heed). Thanks for presenting, and warning, so well...

Excellent clear and concise presentation. It clearly demonstrates the where we are and where we're going. However, business as usual will be slow to change. What if we add in all the methane from terrestrial permafrost and ocean clathrates presently being released, how many more degrees does that add to warming scenario and how does it advance the warming timescale? Let's not forget the B.O.E.... Why do soooo many people fail to include these seemingly consistently overlooked elements. People need to hear it!!! Only then, will they wake up...to the biggest TITANIC story ever. Good luck and thank you for your work.

The hole in the ozone, is like leaving the fridge & freezer door open?

Cute cat YT videos get 5 million views, while Hot house earth get 1k. 😔

Thanks!

It all began in the fifties with the phrase "we're going to Disneyland"

So in the scenario where the temperature goes up 6-7 degrees and we don't survive, what does that look like?

We just went through the hottest heat wave that Canada 🇨🇦 has ever experienced. I was visiting Kelowna, BC and experienced 45C. Kelowna is more or less prepared for the heat but Vancouver, Canada is not....hundreds of people died Sudden deaths attributed to the extreme heat. There was a small town, Lytton, BC that experienced the hottest temperature 49.6C that was ever experienced in Canada then abruptly experienced wildfire and burned to the ground. The towns people barely escaped with their lives and an elderly couple died in the fire. The biggest part of the BC cherry crop cooked on the trees so most of it is lost. A lot of apples are now little bags of apple sauce on the trees and out on the coast at least a billion shallow water sea creatures also cooked and now smell to high heaven. How much more of this does the world have to see before serious action is taken?

At 27:58 West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS) "perhaps 10 years ... tipping". Eric Rignot 30-years glaciologist says in response to question "Well, I don't know what a "tipping point" means but we think that likely the West Antarctic ice sheet is now in a state of irreversible retreat". No time line line provided per se for that but Eric says if all floating ice shelves disintegrated for Greenland, West Antarctica & East Antarctica then the glaciers speed to 6x - 7x present and sea level rise from that is estimated 4.6 metes over maybe 200 years.

The greatest thing in the accelerations & attractions of space. Is the time life has to advance.

After the sheer amount of information I've studied on this subject , It just blows my mind that so many folks refuse to belive or understand just how bad this problem is ! We are screwed and so many just keep cheering for more and more destruction of thier own life support system !

Great and interesting presentation, and solid data! Just one comment: it might be informative to say that Smill 2011 did not take into account the arthropods’ biomass, which is huge.

In a word, or two, Utterly, Sobering. 😬😳🤯

There's a group of 35 people working for over 12 years deciding if we're in the Anthropocene era?

The official introduction of the term Anthropocene was rejected last week. But not because of a lack of evidence but because nobody agreed with the starting date. 1950 was proposed and not accepted. Because human influence started way earlier. So let's wait for the next proposal.

Still think we should be growing as much Hemp as we can and using it for building

I have been calling this era Late Classic Indusstrial long before I heard of 'anthropocene' ,( a play on the archeological term Late Classic Maya collapse but that was driven by agricultural collapse before we began mining the elements of life particularly phosphates and potassium and the industrial natural gas driven Haber-Bosch process for atmospheric nitrogen fixation that our population before would never have reached its' present billions of humans and cows and dogs and cats without soil collapse).And of course the English invention of the pump around 1750 that was a precursor to the steam engine for ships and railroads. The soil collapse that occured around the world historically not only by the Maya but the Tigris Euphates and Indus Valley etc., is what the Reverend Malthus could not predict in our time because the atoms of life were discovered only decades after his writing and the reason his prediction of soil collapse was postponed.and instead of pumping water from coal mines the English pump is now being used to deplete ground water around the world to irrigate agriculture and flush our excement to the rivers and oceans. The U.S. TRANSFER OF ITS INDUSTRIALINFASTRUCTURE BY HENRY KISSINGER AND HIS GLOBALIST PALS TO CHINA HAS ONLY MADE OUR SITUATION WORSE INCLUDING FOR cHINA IN THE END.And of course we now use fossil fuels to make synthetic organics such as pesticides,herbicides and plastics that no genetic code had ever made before and are a product instead of the university educated brain.The human brain and what I call its' psycho-molecular code is out of synchrony with the needs of the gene code which made it and the bill is now coming due everyday.

What a brilliant summary. Upvote 888 lucky or what?

Any questions ❓ That's what I thought, so let's go to work ❗

I wonder if Morrison or Joyce bothers to listen to this vital information, probably not. My experience is LNP don’t have an environmental bone in their bodies, and even less intelligence. It is so embarrassing to hear Morrison or Joyce whinge about how anything Australia contributes is so small and wouldn’t make a difference compared to the “big polluters”. WE ARE one of the big polluters.

Seems to me that the Anthropocene began with the adoption of agriculture... it's just taken 12,000 some years for the effects of this move to come into effect.

I always wish that the Scientist, which is giving these presentations, be it this one or any others , would just be honest and say, “There is no Hope”, we are never going to stop burning 🔥 Fossil Fuels because quite simply, “We Can’t” We are in a technology/energy trap that has No Way Out. Get Honest Science World 🌎

I just don’t see that geoengineering could possibly solve the problem. Firstly, I have grave doubts about our ability to effect changes necessary on such a vast scale. But, an even more intractable problem might be Jevon’s paradox. Even if it were effective people would go right back to business as usual using as much resources as they can get their hands so it’s a self defeating proposition. The only solution-the only one-would be for humans to recognize limits to growth and consumption and live within means that the planet can make available but, that’s a pipe dream and at this point it’s too late anyway

He graduated University of Missouri in 1970, is he originally from Missouri? He said he's only been in Australia for around 40 years, yet he has a hint of the accent (or something like it).

We are going straight to hell.

Circa 2005, when we were figuring out what to call this new age we are creating, some suggested "Anthropocene". That name has won out. That is what we call it now. However, I had suggested "Ohshitocene", from the vulgate for "How the F*** did this happen?" Anthropocene is more erudite. Ohshitocene is more accurate.

1st figure: beginning of holocene was preceeded by a tipping point. Figure out what it means to do that 10x faster.