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johan rockstrom
Six Out of Nine Planetary Boundaries Already Crossed, Study Warns
"This update on planetary boundaries clearly depicts a patient that is unwell," said one scientist.
Sep 14, 2023
Scientists behind a new study on the crossing of the Earth's "planetary boundaries" on Wednesday likened the planet to a sick patient, warning that six out of nine barriers that ensure the Earth is a "safe operating space for humanity" have now been breached.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), and other international institutions analyzed 2,000 studies to update a planetary boundary framework developed in 2009 by the Stockholm Resilience Center, completing the first "complete check-up of all nine processes and systems that determine the stability and resilience of the planet."
The boundaries for climate change and land use have been broken for decades as extractive industries have razed forests and planet-heating fossil fuel emissions have significantly increased since preindustrial times.
The "novel entities" boundary—pertaining to the accumulation of synthetic pollution from substances such as microplastics, pesticides, and nuclear waste—was quantified for the first time in the study, which was published in Science Advances.
Freshwater change—both "green" freshwater in soil and vegetation and "blue" freshwater in bodies of water—has also been breached, along with biogeochemical flows, or the flow of nitrogen and phosphorus into the environment, which can create ocean dead zones and algal blooms.
"We don't know how long we can keep breaching these key boundaries before combined pressures lead to irreversible change and harm."
The study marked the first time researchers quantified a control variable for the "biosphere integrity" boundary, which they found was breached long before the framework was introduced—in the late 19th century as the Industrial Revolution and other factors accelerated the destruction of the natural world.
Co-author Wolfgang Lucht called biosphere integrity "the second pillar of stability for our planet" next to climate change, and warned the pillar is being destabilized by humans "taking out too much biomass, destroying too much habitat, deforesting too much land. Our research shows that mitigating global warming and saving a functional biosphere for the future should go hand in hand."
"This update on planetary boundaries clearly depicts a patient that is unwell, as pressure on the planet increases and vital boundaries are being transgressed," said Johan Rockström, director of PIK. "We don't know how long we can keep breaching these key boundaries before combined pressures lead to irreversible change and harm."
The boundaries for atmospheric aerosol loading, or air pollution, and ocean acidification, are both close to being crossed, while the atmospheric ozone boundary is currently well below the "zone of increasing risk," due to global initiatives within the Montreal Protocol, adopted in 1987.
The fact that the boundary for ozone depletion was once "headed for increasing regional transgressions" and slowly recovered, said co-author Katherine Richardson of the University of Copenhagen, shows that it is possible to bring the planet back from the boundaries that it's close to crossing or that have been breached to a lesser degree, such as freshwater change.
"We can think of Earth as a human body, and the planetary boundaries as blood pressure," said Richardson. "Over 120/80 does not indicate a certain heart attack but it does raise the risk and, therefore, we work to reduce blood pressure."
The boundaries that have reached the highest risk level are biosphere integrity, climate change, novel entities, and biogeochemical flows.
The update to the framework "may serve as a renewed wake-up call to humankind that Earth is in danger of leaving its Holocene-like state," reads the study, referring to relatively stable state the planet was in between the end of the last ice age—10,000 years ago—until the start of the Industrial Revolution.
The study, said global grassroots climate action campaign Extinction Rebellion, offered the latest evidence that policymakers must do everything in their power to "just stop oil"—ending approval for fossil fuel projects, subsidies for oil and gas companies, and policies that slow down a transition to renewable energy.
"We are not separate from the Earth," said the group. "We ignore these warnings at our peril."
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That Was Easy: In Just 60 Years, Neoliberal Capitalism Has Nearly Broken Planet Earth
Pair of new studies show how various forms of human activity, driven by a flawed economic system and vast consumption, is laying waste to Earth's natural systems
Jan 16, 2015
Humanity's rapacious growth and accelerated energy needs over the last generation--particularly fed by an economic system that demands increasing levels of consumption and inputs of natural resources--are fast driving planetary systems towards their breaking point, according to a new pair of related studies.
"It is difficult to overestimate the scale and speed of change. In a single lifetime humanity has become a geological force at the planetary-scale." --Prof. Will Steffen
Prepared by researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the first study looks specifically at how "four of nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed as a result of human activity." Published in the journal Science* on Thursday, the 18 researchers involved with compiling evidence for the report--titled 'Planetary Boundaries 2.0'--found that when it comes to climate change, species extinction and biodiversity loss, deforestation and other land-system changes, and altered biogeochemical cycles (such as changes to how key organic compounds like phosphorus and nitrogen are operating in the environment), the degradation that has already take place is driving the Earth System, as a whole, into a new state of imbalance.
"Transgressing a boundary increases the risk that human activities could inadvertently drive the Earth System into a much less hospitable state, damaging efforts to reduce poverty and leading to a deterioration of human well-being in many parts of the world, including wealthy countries," said Professor Will Steffen, a researcher at the Centre and the Australian National University, Canberra, who was lead author for both studies.
In addition to the four boundaries that have already been crossed, the study looked at five other ways in which the planetary systems are under assault by human activity. They include: stratospheric ozone depletion; ocean acidification; freshwater use; atmospheric aerosol loading (microscopic particles in the atmosphere that affect climate and living organisms); and the introduction of novel entities into ecosystems (e.g. organic pollutants, radioactive materials, nanomaterials, and micro-plastics).
"I don't think we've broken the planet but we are creating a much more difficult world," Sarah Cornell, another report author, told Reuters.
In this interview with Wired last year, Johan Rockstrom, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, described the idea about planetary boundaries in details:
Global Sustainability & Planetary Boundaries-World Economic Forum Discussion-Ideas @Davos-WIRED LiveIn this World Economic Forum discussion, Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, proposes a ...
Related to the findings of the first study, the second report examines what it calls the "Great Acceleration" and is an assessment of the speed and influence that specific factors have had in damaging the planetary systems described in Planetary Boundaries 2.0. Using a series of indicators, the study compares the relationship, over time, between 12 'socio-economic factors'--including economic growth (GDP); population; foreign direct investment; energy consumption; and water use--on one side with 12 'Earth system trends'--like the carbon cycle; the nitrogen cycle and biodiversity--on the other.
Using what it calls a "planetary dashboard," the research charts the spread and speed of human activity from the start of the industrial revolution in 1750 to 2010, and the subsequent changes in the Earth System - e.g. greenhouse gas levels, ocean acidification, deforestation and biodiversity deterioration. The analysis found that increased human activity--and "predominantly the global economic system"--has unseated all other factors as the primary driver of change in the Earth System, which the report describes as "the sum of our planet's interacting physical, chemical, biological and human processes." The most striking, i.e. "accelerated," changes to that system have occurred in the last sixty years.
"It's clear the economic system is driving us towards an unsustainable future and people of my daughter's generation will find it increasingly hard to survive. History has shown that civilizations have risen, stuck to their core values and then collapsed because they didn't change. That's where we are today." --Prof. Will Steffen
"It is difficult to overestimate the scale and speed of change. In a single lifetime humanity has become a geological force at the planetary-scale," said Steffen, who also led the Acceleration study.
The conclusion that the world's dominant economic model--a globalized form of neoliberal capitalism, largely based on international trade and fueled by extracting and consuming natural resources--is the driving force behind planetary destruction will not come as a shock, but the model's detailed description of how this has worked since the middle of the 20th century makes a more substantial case than many previous attempts.
"When we first aggregated these datasets, we expected to see major changes but what surprised us was the timing. Almost all graphs show the same pattern. The most dramatic shifts have occurred since 1950. We can say that around 1950 was the start of the Great Acceleration," says Steffen. "After 1950 we can see that major Earth System changes became directly linked to changes largely related to the global economic system. This is a new phenomenon and indicates that humanity has a new responsibility at a global level for the planet."
The paper makes a point to acknowledge that consumption patterns and the rise of what has become known as the Anthropocene Era does not fall equally on the human population and its examination of the economic system which is underpinning planetary destruction is one rife with inequality, in which certain populations consume at vastly higher levels than others.
According to the report, "The new study also concludes that the bulk of economic activity, and so too, for now, the lion's share of consumption, remain largely within the OECD countries, which in 2010 accounted for about 74% of global GDP but only 18% of the global population. This points to the profound scale of global inequality, which distorts the distribution of the benefits of the Great Acceleration and confounds international efforts, for example climate agreements, to deal with its impacts on the Earth System."
A worrying trend, notes the paper, is how a growing global middle class--exemplified by those in the BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa--is an increasing threat to the planet as the consumer mindset established in the OECD nations, particularly the U.S., spreads.
In an interview with the Guardian, Steffen spoke clearly about the overall impacts of the two new studies as he sounded the alarm over humanity's trajectory. "People say the world is robust and that's true, there will be life on Earth, but the Earth won't be robust for us," he said. "Some people say we can adapt due to technology, but that's a belief system, it's not based on fact. There is no convincing evidence that a large mammal, with a core body temperature of 37C, will be able to evolve that quickly. Insects can, but humans can't and that's a problem."
"It's clear the economic system is driving us towards an unsustainable future and people of my daughter's generation will find it increasingly hard to survive. History has shown that civilisations have risen, stuck to their core values and then collapsed because they didn't change. That's where we are today."
What increasing amounts of strong evidence shows, he said, is that there are "tipping points" the human race should simply not "want to cross."
Correction: An earlier version of the article stated the study on Planetary Boundaries appeared in the journal Nature. That was incorrect. The study appeared in the journal Science and that has now been corrected.
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