Our Future: Embracing the Anthropocene
Dates: February 7-9, 2019
For 25 years, the Public Interest Environmental Conference (PIEC) has sought to promote an understanding of the legal aspects of environmental protection, serve and inform individuals as to the necessity for improvements in environmental legal protection, foster the development of sound environmental legislation, measure the effects of environmental litigation, and assist other groups involved in environmental education. The conference brings together legal practitioners, academics, policy makers, and private citizens to discuss preeminent issues surrounding a different environmental theme each year.
PIEC 25’s theme, Our Future: Embracing the Anthropocene, was centered around the hotly debated idea that the world has left the Holocene and entered a new epoch dominated by human impact. The move into the Anthropocene is supported by evidence that we humans have impacted the geological structure of our planet so severely that, if we were to disappear, our mark would be permanently ingrained in our planet’s fossil record. While the starting date of the Anthropocene is still uncertain, geologist largely agree we have entered a new geological epoch. PIEC collaborated with the Harn Museum, which exhibited The World to Come: Art in the Age of the Anthropocene, to give our attendees a full cultural and technical perspective. Accordingly, the PIEC 25 Welcoming Reception took place at the Harn Museum.




