Humanity has exceeded 4 of 9 ‘planetary boundaries,’ according to researchers

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.news.wisc.edu/23409

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Humanity has exceeded 4 of 9 ‘planetary boundaries,’ according to researchers[/font]

Jan. 15, 2015 | by Adam Hinterthuer

[font size=3]An international team of researchers says climate change, the loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, and altered biogeochemical cycles like phosphorus and nitrogen runoff have all passed beyond levels that put humanity in a “safe operating space.”

Civilization has crossed four of nine so-called planetary boundaries as the result of human activity, according to a report published today in Science by the 18-member research team. Among them is Steve Carpenter, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Limnology and the only U.S.-based researcher on the study.

The report, an update to previous studies, is titled “Planetary Boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet,” and will be discussed next week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

It should be a wake-up call to policymakers that “we’re running up to and beyond the biophysical boundaries that enable human civilization as we know it to exist,” says Carpenter.

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[yourout]

1. Population control is something no one will talk about but....

the lack of it will ultimately kill the planet.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Population control resembles the weather in this regard

Many people talk about it.

What do you propose to do about it?

[yourout]

3. Wish I had some ideas that actually had a chance to be implemented.

The things that need to be done have zero chance of actually happening.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. If we start with the assumption that there are already too many people

Then, we need to decrease the population quite rapidly.

So, unless you're willing to murder a large percentage of the population (say a few billion people) which, I am not, "population control" really isn't a viable "solution" is it?

I guess we will need to find other approaches...

[GliderGuider]

7. Fortunately we don't need to murder anyone.

Mother Nature has a time-tested solution for the population control of species in overshoot - one that we will not be able to prevent, and will not have to assist. There will be no blood on our hands.

All we have to do is wait.

[Nihil]

10. Not mandatory but a guaranteed by-product.

> one that we will not be able to prevent, and will not have to assist.
> There will be no blood on our hands.

Once the first phase kicks in, there will be plenty of "assistance" from the
powerful and it is a certainty that they will be figuratively swimming in the
blood of the innocent before they, in turn, are culled.

The sad part about having to wait is that so many other species will be
rendered extinct by humanity's actions (direct & indirect) in the meantime.

[Fumesucker]

6. Educating and empowering women is one thing proven to reduce birth rates

Of course given the number of people who think bronze age religions should be respected I'm not sanguine about the prospects for that happening to any great extent.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Yes, I agree, education leads to a lower total fertility rate

How long before that leads to a much smaller population? (Say... five billion?) A generation? Two? Ten?

How long do we have?

[Fumesucker]

9. Well, there's always the White Plague..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Plague

[VanillaRhapsody]

4. We live in a freaking biosphere....

I don't know why numbskulls cannot understand....have they never had goldfish or a terrarium before?

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Humans at risk from planetary-scale activities

http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/humans-at-risk-from-planetary-scale-activities

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Humans at risk from planetary-scale activities[/font]

16 January 2015

[font size=3]The accelerated impacts of human activity on the Earth over the past 60 years have reached “planetary-scale” proportions, in turn driving the earth into a new geological age, new research says.

An international team of researchers found that of nine global-scale processes which underpin life on earth, four have exceeded safe conditions, with two impacted so significantly as to pose serious risks to future human wellbeing.

“Human activities could drive the earth into a much less hospitable state – in this research we have more accurately assessed the risk of this happening,” said lead researcher Professor Will Steffen from The Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

“We are starting to destabilize our own planetary life support system.”

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[OKIsItJustMe]

12. Planetary dashboard shows “Great Acceleration” in human activity since 1950

http://www.igbp.net/news/pressreleases/pressreleases/planetarydashboardshowsgreataccelerationinhumanactivitysince1950.5.950c2fa1495db7081eb42.html

[font face=Serif]Published: January 15, 2015
[font size=5]Planetary dashboard shows “Great Acceleration” in human activity since 1950[/font]

[font size=4]Press release | A decade on, IGBP in collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre has reassessed and updated the Great Acceleration indicators, first published in the IGBP synthesis, Global Change and the Earth System in 2004. [/font]

[font size=3]Press release | A decade on, IGBP in collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre has reassessed and updated the Great Acceleration indicators, first published in the IGBP synthesis, Global Change and the Earth System in 2004.

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.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2053019614564785

[The2ndWheel]

13. Makes sense

The world opened up after the last big war, the world needed to be rebuilt, or built. More people need and got jobs, so more people had money, so the more they spent, etc. Free people demand many things.

We get an economy or an environment. To have any sort of modern economy, we have to extract from the environment. It's tough to balance the two, because it's difficult to account for everything, since we only look at the world from our perspective, which makes sense.