Paper short abstract:

This paper suggests that "anthropocene" is the right word to mean what Crutzen suggested. We cannot certainly call it "Yanomamicene": it is the legacy of "anthropos" that is at stake here.

Paper long abstract:

Since the term "anthropocene" was suggested by Paul Crutzen to mean the geological epoch in which human activities are causing climate change, some have argued that perhaps the term is a wrong one, that we cannot charge the entire human species for something that only Western industrialism and capitalism is responsible for. In agreement with these observations, I suggest however that the term "anthropocene" is probably the best candidate to describe the current situation. The reason lies in its Greek roots, "anthropos", suggesting that it is the Western cognitive legacy, stemming from Ancient Greece, that is at stake here. We cannot certainly call it "Yanomamicene", for instance, as Yanomami call humans "Yanomami". But since Plato and the first philosophers used the word "mortals" to mean humans, and saw nature as that immutable horizon that "was created by neither gods nor men": we should ask when and why is it that "anthropos" started to mean the Western relation with the environment responsible for the anthropocene? The paper develops a comparison between Western reason and Amazonian ways of knowing. In particular, between hip-hop music-videos and shaman songs.