I have just found out about the articles that scientist have recently published, talking about some planetary boundaries that we have crossed.
I wasn’t really able to get the full hang of it, but I’d really like to understand the concept of these boundaries and what they are, since there are only 3 left and 2 years ago we were crossing the fourth one and now we’re passed the 6th one, and according to news it could potentially cause societal collapse.
So, what are these boundaries and what happens if we cross all 9? How do they affect our society?
Edit:
The article I am on about is found [here](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458)
In: 1826
Consider that a human body has a number of necessary systems, and we can treat them sensibly or we can abuse them and wonder why we get sick.
Our lungs need to take in oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. For fashion’s sake, we smoke tobacco which clogs the delicate lining with road tar and can cause cancer. Moral? Don’t smoke.
Earth scientists have identified nine similar symptoms on Earth:
1. CO2 levels
2. Ocean acidity
3. Ozone depletion
4. Fertiliser run-off into the oceans
5. Fresh water availability
6. Deforestation for agriculture
7. Extinction rates
8. Chemical pollution
9. Aerosol loading
These are the Earth’s equivalents of coughing up blood or obesity, and we have achieved six of these symptoms.
We need to work harder on:
2. Acidifying the ocean, killing marine life
3. Depleting the ozone so that we can fry in the Sun’s UV
9. Airborne particles, disrupting the effect of sunlight and making the climate even less predictable
So from 3 in 2009, it took us 6 years to get the fourth on 2015 but we got another two within eight years. At this rate, given the dismissive antipathy to hippy environmental issues we should have the full set within a decade.
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We don’t know what the outcome will be, any more than we can prove *exactly* what will happen to a bedridden obese stroke victim with a triple heart bypass. But it’s not likely to be good, and it’s silly to experiment on your only sample.
They are metrics used for the continuation of life as we know it. If too many get too bad, human beings will suffer and start to die. 1 Climate change (we will eventually get to a point where the climate is irreparably damaged and nothing we do can fix it) 2 Biosphere integrity (mass extinctions and changes to natural climates due to climate change) 3 land-system change (deforestation and urbanization) 4 Freshwater use (the availability of fresh water as drinking water) 5 Biogeochemical flows (the way that essential chemicals nitrogen and phosphorus becomes bioavailable through plants like legumes) 6 ocean acidification (the ocean becoming more acidic due to absorption of carbon, changing natural environments and killing off fish) 7 atmospheric aerosol pollution (smog and industrial fumes) 8 Stratospheric ozone depletion (the ozone hole getting bigger due to now-banned CFCs, causing more UV penetration leading to cancer) 9 Release of novel chemicals (the concentration of dangerous heavy metals that can cause disorders or other health issues)
The planetary boundaries idea is a framework from a group of around 30 scientists in 2009:
>The authors of this framework was a group of Earth System and environmental scientists in 2009 led by Johan Rockström from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Will Steffen from the Australian National University. They collaborated with 26 leading academics, including Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen, Goddard Institute for Space Studies climate scientist James Hansen, oceanographer Katherine Richardson, geographer Diana Liverman and the German Chancellor’s chief climate adviser Hans Joachim Schellnhuber.
According to this framework going outside of the boundaries may cause environmental problems:
>The planetary boundaries framework proposes a range of values for its control variables. This range is supposed to span the threshold between a ‘safe operating space’ where Holocene-like dynamics can be maintained and a highly uncertain, poorly predictable world where Earth system changes likely increase risks to societies. The boundary is defined as the lower end of that range. If the boundaries are persistently crossed, the world goes further into a danger zone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries
Whether these problems manifest and how bad they are is still up in the air. Some people are skeptical since there is no shortage of doomer [environmental predictions that never came true.](https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/18-spectacularly-wrong-predictions-were-made-around-the-time-of-the-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year/)
Scientists identified 9 lines. If we cross many of these lines, we’re screwed – it’s too late and everyone is going to die.
We already crossed 6 of them.
We’re not only all going to die if we cross all 9. 6 is enough.
This “planetary boundaries” are thresholds created by scientists to check on “Earth suitability”.
But here’s the problem – nobody tested them. So they might be true, or may be just one more “doomsday prediction”. And because of it – they will have zero effect on our society. Right now they have a little more credibility than predictions of some random prophet, because we never had a chance to verify that Earth-like planet may stop been hospitable to human-like creatures of this boundaries where broken.
> what are these boundaries and what happens if we cross all all 9
Probably nothing. It’s not science, it’s doomer speculation.
All the Earth needs is significantly low human population. And reducing the human population is a very slow process if it is done humanly.
Imagine that the earth is a bank account with $10,000 dollars in it. This money represents earths resources. If you’re taking out $1,000 a month, and only putting $500 back in (using no renewable resources), it will go to zero after a while. If you take on a lot of debt (pollution/CO2), you may be able to double or triple the amount in your account in the short term, but it catches up when you have to pay it back, and you can go bankrupt.
What article OP? Could you please link it?
They aren’t really hard science. Just fairly arbitrary lines drawn to try to catastrophize… Not saying we don’t have plenty of very real problems. I’m as pro addressing climate change as they come. But anybody acting like we are about to go extinct or society is about to collapse entirely is being ridiculous.
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