Monthly Archives: January 2015

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At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a "safe operating space" for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world.

The paper contends that we have already crossed four "planetary boundaries." They include the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.

"What the science has shown is that human activities - economic growth, technology, consumption - are destabilizing the global environment," said Will Steffen, who holds joint appointments at the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Center, and is the lead author of the paper.

These are not future problems, but rather urgent matters, according to Steffen, who said that the economic boom since 1950 and the globalized economy have accelerated the transgression of the boundaries. No one knows exactly when push will come to shove, but he said the possible destabilization of the "Earth System" as a whole could occur in a time frame of "decades out to a century."

The researchers focused on nine separate planetary boundaries first identified by scientists in a 2009 paper. These boundaries set theoretical limits on changes to the environment, and include ozone depletion, freshwater use, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol pollution and the introduction of exotic chemicals and modified organisms.

Beyond each planetary boundary is a "zone of uncertainty." This zone is meant to acknowledge the inherent uncertainties in the calculations, and to offer decision-makers a bit of a buffer, so that they can potentially take action before it's too late to make a difference. Beyond that zone of uncertainty is the unknown planetary conditions unfamiliar to us.

"The boundary is not like the edge of the cliff," said Ray Pierrehumbert, an expert on Earth systems at the University of Chicago. "They're a little bit more like danger warnings, like high temperature gauges on your car."

Pierrehumbert, who was not involved in the paper published in Science, added that a planetary boundary "is like an avalanche warning tape on a ski slope."

The scientists say there is no certainty that catastrophe will follow the transgression of these boundaries. Rather, the scientists cite the precautionary principle: We know that human civilization has risen and flourished in the past 10,000 years an epoch known as the Holocene under relatively stable environmental conditions.

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Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine 'planetary boundaries'

Barry Donahue photo

Elenita Muniz and supporters at Barnstable Superior Courthouse on Wednesday morning.

By Rachael Devaney

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Elenita Muniz still has her job for now.

On Wednesday morning, the Barnstable County Commissioners discussed whether Muniz, the countys human rights coordinator, should keep her post after she issued some inflammatory comments on race at a Dec. 9 panel for International Human Rights Day at Cape Cod Community College. At that panel, she said that "all white people are racist."

During the commissioners regular meeting, held at the Barnstable Superior Courthouse, County Commissioners Sheila Lyons, Mary Pat Flynn and Bill Doherty decided to hold off on taking any action against Muniz. Doherty said he wants the matter discussed further.

Muniz was given 10 minutes at Wednesdays meeting to address the Board of County Commissioners regarding her position and her remarks. She said that the racially charged comments were "a poor choice of words."

"I am a Puerto Rican, a liberal and an activist. I have taken and lead anti-racism workshops, and I have spent time studying concepts surrounding white privilege, and because of that I work hard to be careful about my language and behavior around race," Muniz said. "What I should have said is that all white people have biases about race. However careful we are in our speech, however much we try to keep our thoughts neutral around race, we carry prejudices that manifest themselves when we least expect it."

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Muniz retains county post after race tumult

Research supports proposal that Earth is now in a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, with a start date for this epoch of around 1950.

IMAGE:This image shows the trajectory of the Anthropocene. view more

Credit: SRC/IGBP/F Pharand Deschenes

Human activity, predominantly the global economic system, is now the prime driver of change in the Earth System (the sum of our planet's interacting physical, chemical, biological and human processes), according to a set of 24 global indicators, or "planetary dashboard", published in the journal Anthropocene Review (19 January 2015).

The research charts the "Great Acceleration" in human activity from the start of the industrial revolution in 1750 to 2010, and the subsequent changes in the Earth System - greenhouse gas levels, ocean acidification, deforestation and biodiversity deterioration.

"It is difficult to overestimate the scale and speed of change. In a single lifetime humanity has become a planetary-scale geological force," says lead author Professor Will Steffen, who led the joint project between the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

Twelve indicators depict human activity, for example, economic growth (GDP), population, foreign direct investment, energy consumption, telecommunications, transportation and water use. Twelve indicators show changes in major environmental components of the Earth System, for example, the carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle and biodiversity. This new "planetary dashboard" highlights how the trajectories of Earth and human development are now tightly bound. The findings will be presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, 21-24 January.

"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," said Professor Steffen, a researcher at the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

"After 1950 you 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," he added.

Co-author IGBP Deputy Director, Dr Wendy Broadgate said, "The Great Acceleration indicators allow us to distinguish the signal from the noise. Earth is in a quantifiably different state than before. Several significant Earth System processes are now driven by human consumption and production."

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New planetary dashboard shows 'Great Acceleration' in human activity since 1950