How Do We Think About Population in the Anthropocene?

Duncan Kelly, Alison Bashford, David Nally

• Publisher: Prickly Paradigm Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781958846209
• eBook ISBN:
  9781958846216
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Demography
• Index: Social Sciences

How do we think about population in the Anthropocene?

The "Great Acceleration" describes a set of interrelated human-driven transformations of Earth's systems, including the eightfold population growth since 1800. Yet ideas about population in the epoch many call the Anthropocene sit uncomfortably in contemporary discussions.

How Do We Think About Population in the Anthropocene? brings together the world's key thinkers in Anthropocene studies from a wide range of disciplines, including geology, geography, demography, history, political theory, and more. How do we think about population in the Anthropocene, or should we even think in terms of population at all? The twelve short essays in this pamphlet offer responses that reimagine how we think about economy, environment, consumption, reproduction, and extinction.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Why Is It So Hard to Talk About Population? A Personal Story
• The Technosphere and Human Population in the Anthropocene
• How Do Environmental Historians Think About Population in the Anthropocene?
• How Not to Think About Population in the Anthropocene
• Is Reproductive Justice Compatible with Efforts to Slow Population Growth?
• It’s Growth, Not Population: Rethinking Sustainability in the Anthropocene
• Carnivorous Capitalism: Livestock Animals as “Population”
• Three Anthropocene Generations: From Population Growth to Fertility Decline
• Reproductive Justice and Eugenics in the Anthropocene
• Ageing in the Anthropocene: The Limits of Adjustment and Adaptation in Asia
• A Broken Mirror for Princes? (What if) Population Is the Anthropocene?
• Bibliography
• Contributors
• Acknowledgments