From the Editor

When Hurricane Sandy walloped New York and New Jersey, most news reports included the disclaimer that routinely accompanies extreme weather. “We can’t attribute this one event to climate change,” the caveat goes. “The storm could have happened without global warming.” Sure, I suppose that mathematically the storm might have occurred absent climate change. But it didn’t. We now live on a planet where almost everything, including the atmosphere, is a human artifact; even our “natural” disasters are man-made.

Welcome to the “Anthropocene.” The word is meant to capture the idea that humans have …more

Manmade

A special issue exploring the consequences of a new
geologic epoch: the Age of Man.

Radiant Wildlands

The forests near Fukushima and Chernobyl likely have been changed forever.

by Winifred Bird and Jane Braxton Little

Return of the Wild

Will humans make way for the greatest conservation experiment in centuries?

by Adam Federman