CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/2/2019

In 'Anthropocene,' Edward Burtynsky meets the enemy and he is us

It's hard to tear your eyes from Anthropocene, Edward Burtynsky's new book with Jennifer Baichwal and Nick de Pencier. Collecting photographic and scientific evidence of recent profound changes wrought by human beings upon planet Earth, this book is both graphically riveting and politically galvanizing. "Our planet has borne witness to five great extinction events," Burtynsky writes, "and these have been prompted by a variety of causes: a colossal meteor impact, massive volcanic eruptions and oceanic cyanobacteria activity that generated a deadly toxicity in the atmosphere. These were the naturally occurring phenomena governing life's ebb and flow. Now it is becoming clear that humankind, with its population explosion, industry and technology, has in a very short period of time also become an agent of immense global change. Arguably, we are on the cusp of becoming (if we are not already) the perpetrators of a sixth major extinction event. Our planetary system is affected by a magnitude of force as powerful as any naturally occurring global catastrophe, but one caused solely by the activity of a single species: us." Featured image is "Lithium Mines #1, Salt Flats, Atacama Desert, Chile" (2017).