Introduced in 2000, the Anthropocene concept developed into a high-profile saga. Its definitional switch from a mid-twentieth-century anthropogenic lake sediment to humanity’s cumulative impacts on the Earth System starting in the Late Pleistocene triggered confusion and disagreement. Although the Anthropocene Working Group began as a normal Geological Time Scale investigation in 2009—almost a decade after the term was introduced in an Earth System context—the Group became unconventional in 2015 with a fait accompli approach using a micro-stratigraphic record of actual and experimental nuclear weapon usage amid two dozen accelerating Earth System and socioeconomic trends. On 4 March 2024, the Group’s proposal for an Anthropocene epoch/series on those grounds, prematurely announced to the news media, was rejected by the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy, a decision ratified by the International Commission on Stratigraphy and International Union of Geological Sciences. This outcome was falsely interpreted by some, including leaders of the former Working Group, as a denial of scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change. Instead, the Earth’s imperiled health elevates the Anthropocene controversy into a far-reaching matter in urgent need of clarification across geoscience, related disciplines, and the public at large. These challenges can be mitigated with a geoethical approach to the Anthropocene Event concept, which enlightens humanity about its estrangement from nature and provides a holistic foundation for Earth Governance.