Agriculture in the Anthropocene: Growing a Sustainable Human Ecology

There is growing scientific consensus that humans have now forced the planet into a new geological epoch: The Anthropocene. Ecologist Erle Ellis agrees and studies how our use and transformation of the earth, including agriculture, is a primary driver of global changes in climate, biodiversity and biogeochemistry. Ellis has developed a scientific approach to mapping the human footprint, including tools that link human and ecological change processes on a small scale with their global causes and consequences. He is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. 2012 Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable Agriculture.