An excerpt from the book "Adventures in the Anthropocene" displays the twisted pride I warned that the term might inspire.

It is not too late to change to a name that won't inspire pride, such as "Thermocene", "Pyrocene" or "Obscene". All that is required is for a few prominent scientists to stop believing the self-fulfilling prophesy that "it is too late".

Chile shows how planning, and enforcing strict building codes, can prevent an earthquake from becoming a disaster.

Keith McLeod was shot dead by a Baltimore thug who claims he had to protect his life from McLeod's pointed finger.

My first response is to wonder what really happened. Thugs sometimes tell the truth, but in situations like this we must not presume they did.

Supposing things happened as reported, McLeod was asking for some kind of confrontation, but that is no reason for his summary execution. A finger doesn't shoot bullets, and saying "I'm going to kill you" does not put someone's life in immediate danger. If the thug reacted as if they did, he must have been predisposed to kill.

Protection measures have helped cod start to recover in the North Sea.

China will start a cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions.

This could be a big help in curbing global heating, or it might do nothing at all. A cap-and-trade system tends to be ineffective when the economy shrinks, and corruption can make it a no-op as happened in Europe.

By contrast, a tax on substances and activities that emit greenhouse gases is easier to enforce, and has its effect even if the economy shrinks.

Here's a proposal for a different way to do cap-and-trade, using a fixed total carbon emissions budget. Would that avoid the flaws? I don't know. But I think it is important to design the system so that the budget can be reduced.