The Anthropocene is the age of human impact at a global scale. From our ancestor’s first painting of a hand on a wall, our impact has been increasing. Now humans are destroying or fundamentally disrupting the living systems we are part of, and upon which we and all other living things rely.
We cannot completely undo what we have done, nor halt many of the changes we have begun, but we can respond positively, with great urgency and collaboratively. All over the world people from all walks of life are aware of the urgent need for deep change across our societies. They are cooperating, reaching across the silos that divide us, to create ways of responding to the complex problems we face.
To impact systemically the apparently very diverse actions and ideas for change must become visible and emergent as a powerful social movement, building to the point that it becomes unstoppable. Humans are already defining the era in which we live. Through our shared actions and interactions, we have the opportunity to define it differently.
Our focus is on radically reframing our relationship with each other and within nature so we can rapidly achieve fair, loving and ecologically regenerative societies.
This earth-centric approach is what we mean by Anthropocene Actions.
Initiators
Peter Lipman
I’m the former (founding) chair of Transition Network and Common Cause Foundation and also chaired the UK government’s Department for Energy and Climate Change’s Community Energy Contact Group. I’ve been a teacher, a co-operative worker, an intellectual property lawyer and worked at a UK charity, Sustrans, latterly as external affairs director, before setting up Anthropocene Actions as a community interest company which promotes fair, loving and ecologically regenerative societies.
Ciaran Mundy
I’m director and co-founder of Anthropocene Actions. I’ve worked as an ecologist and business/social entrepreneur, and am greatly influenced by my research work in soil ecology, and in species and habitat conservation. I was a founding director and MD at the Bristol Pound local currency until 2018, a founding director at One World Wildlife and volunteer director at Transition Bristol and is a non-executive director at Common Cause Foundation . I recently co-founded a sociocratic farming and housing community in Wales, Harbwr Cohousing, which is committed to practising and experimenting with organic and regenerative farming in conjunction with local communities.
Melissa Henry
I bring a range of experience, including working to implement an intrinsic values-based approach to developing place-based identity in a city setting whilst working at Common Cause Foundation. I’ve long experience of working across a range of stakeholders, from communities to government, to influence policy, practice and public sentiment, particularly around low-carbon travel as Director of Communications and Marketing at UK charity Sustrans. More recently I’ve been exploring and researching the role of governance and systems leadership in working with complexity and change, the subject of my MBA dissertation.