the Biosphere Since 1492

Over five centuries, the territorial, extractive, and economic reconfiguration of the planet initiated in 1492 has generated a progressive alteration of fundamental biogeochemical cycles that precedes and amplifies the contemporary climate crisis. Dominant historiography fixes the origin of the Anthropocene between 1750 and 1945, emphasizing the burning of fossil fuels; however, this perspective underestimates the transformation of terrestrial ecosystems through deforestation, hydrological fragmentation, and urbanization. In this work, the Planetary Exergetic Dissipation Equation is formulated to quantify the accumulated loss of exergy at the global scale across five historical milestones (1492–2050). We demonstrate that land-use alteration has dissipated 2.65 × 10²¹ J (2.65 ZJ) of useful biospheric energy, accumulating a systemic thermal debt that requires radical restructuring of global land management and the implementation of biophysically-grounded economic reparation mechanisms. Key Points: - The territorial reconfiguration initiated in 1492 accumulated a biospheric exergetic loss of 2.65 × 10²¹ J (2.65 ZJ), preceding the fossil fuel era. - The Planetary Exergetic Dissipation Equation provides a rigorous spatial-temporal quantification of entropic dissipation accounting for regional biome factors. - Climate reparation and ecological restoration are biophysical imperatives and geopolitical requirements for Earth system stabilization.