The term “Anthropocene” was first coined by an American biologist Eugene F. Stoermer in the 1980s to give a name to the impact human had on the planet. However, the term was not widespread until 2000 where the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen used the term to formally distinguish the period where humans created such a regime shift that it constitutes of a new epoch. The word consist of two parts, “anthropo-“ meaning men and the suffix “-cene” relates this period to the Cenozoic era, the most recent era.
The idea that humans have caused such a large-scale shift on earth’s system is not something new, this is a fact recognised by many scientists in the past century that an epoch for mankind’s impacts is needed. It is only with the increasing awareness of the changing climate that pushed for the official recognition of the Anthropocene in the official geological timescale.
Click here to understand more about where humans stand in the geological timescale