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Kevin
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Joined: 13 Apr 2004
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Location: Eugene, Oregon
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 Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2009 11:19 am Post subject: Planetary Boundaries in Nature... |
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Planetary Boundaries
http://www.nature.com/news/specials/planetaryboundaries/index.html
A major suite of environmental analyses has been released via Nature, the leading scientific journal. Described in this Nature climate blog posting:
http://bit.ly/4R86C
"Despite the apparent stress that humanity is causing to the Earth system, defining sustainable limits for our own existence has proved to be something of an intractable problem. But what if we could define global sustainability numerically?
"In this issue of Nature, a group of renowned earth system and environmental scientists led by Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre make a first attempt at estimating boundaries for the biophysical processes that determine the Earth’s capacity for self-regulation.
"Using existing data, Rockström and colleagues put ‘acceptable’ upper limits on seven environmental parameters: climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, freshwater use, biodiversity loss, the global cycles of nitrogen and phosphorus, and land-use change. Crossing even one of these boundaries, they say, would risk triggering abrupt or irreversible environmental changes. And if one boundary is transgressed, then others are at serious risk of being breached.
"For some parameters, such as nitrogen loading and atmospheric CO2 concentrations, we may have already stepped out of our safety zone and need to back-pedal quickly. For others, such as ocean acidification, we may still have enough time to avoid catastrophic change if we act wisely..."
A safe operating space for humanity
Nature 461, 472-475 (24 September 2009) | doi:10.1038/461472a; Published online 23 September 2009
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html |
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