9 ms·
We have surpassed 6 of the 9 planetary boundaries that sustain human life (2023)
- teaearlgraycold 3y agoMaybe it's good news that across the developed world birth rates are plummeting.
- nerdponx 3y agoIt always has been good news. It's temporarily painful but necessary to even have a chance of humans surviving long term.
- Tryanasorus 3y ago[flagged]
- nslice 3y agoI agree. If we can’t collectively fix our planet we’ve destroyed, our natural birth rate declines seem to be a natural response to overgrowth. Seems like a healthy mechanism at least.
- itslennysfault 3y agoGood news for life. Bad news for capitalism (which is also probably good news for life)
- vt85 3y ago[dead]
- rgbrenner 3y agoPrevious related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37500752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37500752
- dang 3y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37500752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37500752 - Sept 2023 (175 comments) Humans Have Exceeded Six of the Nine Boundaries Keeping Earth Habitable - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37577609 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37577609 - Sept 2023 (35 comments)
- greyw 3y agoThe axes going outwards don't have any labels/dimensions.
- jtbayly 3y agoYeah. Makes me assume it is meaningless fear mongering.
- ado__dev 3y agoThis is pretty scary. The worst part is nobody in charge really cares. As an individual you can reduce, reuse, recycle, and do your part perfectly and it makes zero difference.
- mistrial9 3y agothis is false "nobody cares" - think for yourself
- NickC25 3y agoAnd this is the crux of the matter, and why I feel young people are becoming increasingly nihilistic. They are realizing that they are increasingly powerless and unable to drive change. There are major problems out there in the world, and they can't be solved unless entities and individuals who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo actually change their ways. "Be the change you want to see in the world" is increasingly more and more meaningless each day.
- pharmakom 3y agoThis is why I’m sympathetic to direct action. What on earth else can young people do? But boomers can only think about being made late for work
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> boomers can only think about being made late for work They also show up to vote, show up at town halls and call their electeds. It's only recently, largely due to Gen Z and newly-engaged Millenials, that the tide is turning [1]. [1] https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/gen-z-voted-higher-rate-2022-previous-generations-their-first-midterm-election https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/gen-z-voted-higher-...
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> "Be the change you want to see in the world" is increasingly more and more meaningless each day It's a good start. But individual action has always been meaningless. What matters is collective action. Ironically, repeating the meme of widespread nihilism (which isn't true, it's a vocal minority) degrades that capability.
- raptor111 3y agoCautionary remarks on the planetary boundary visualization: https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2023/egusphere-2023-2760/egusphere-2023-2760.pdf https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2023/egusphere-20...
- zaphar 3y agoWhy should I believe that 1. these boundaries are reasonable groupings. 2. That the thresholds identified are valid. It's hard to tell what some of them even mean from the page.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- causal 3y agoFor that the paper would have to be read, but I agree that as an infographic it could be much better.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- apsec112 3y agoDefining a discrete "boundary" seems misleading, since most of these things have linearly worse effects as you do more of them, there's no bright red sharp line. Eg. climate change is obviously bad, but you can't really point to a specific temperature as a "boundary" - 2C of warming is worse than 1.5C, 3C is worse than 2C, 4C is worse than 3C, and so on. I didn't recognize the term "novel entities" - it seems to refer to new industrial chemicals, plastics, etc. developed by humans that don't exist in nature. The graphic is drawing on a paper which says people are developing and releasing these chemicals without enough safety testing. That's bad, sure. But how could you say when this has crossed a "boundary" - at a million tons of release? Ten million tons? Of which chemicals? Any chemicals? The paper is very fuzzy, and basically just waves its hands and says: "We define and apply three criteria for assessment of the suitability of control variables for the boundary: feasibility, relevance, and comprehensiveness. We propose several complementary control variables to capture the complexity of this boundary, while acknowledging major data limitations. We conclude that humanity is currently operating outside the planetary boundary based on the weight-of-evidence for several of these control variables." Again, sure, obviously pollution is bad, but this doesn't meaningfully define what a "boundary" would be, or what the consequences of crossing it are. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04158# https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04158#
- Bud 3y agoPlease cite support for your claim that effects of surpassing these boundaries are linear. The people who actually know the science in these areas do not agree with you. Specifically with regard to global warming, the science has been clear on this for decades now: past around 1.5C, we risk cascading effects that could be uncontrollable. This is really fairly common in natural systems: if you mess it up, past a certain boundary effects accelerate and are uncontrollable.
- bobjonesy 3y agoThe science has been clear? Phrasing like "we risk" and "that could be" don't inspire clarity.
- hehhehaha 3y agoHow is Ozone depletion going up after we banned cfcs?
- colechristensen 3y agoIt’s not. The ozone issue is very much improved. But there are also plenty of things that affect ozone coverage so it doesn’t “get better” by a steady state percentage each year in a straight line.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> it doesn’t “get better” by a steady state percentage each year in a straight line It sort of does [1]. The Antarctic ozone layer should recover to 1980 levels within 50 years. As of 2022, "the overall concentration of ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) in the mid-latitude stratosphere had fallen just over 50 percent back to levels observed in 1980, before ozone depletion was significant" [2]. It should recover to 1980 levels by 2050 [3]. [1] https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/atmosphere/ozone-layer https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/atmosphere/ozone-layer [2] https://cires.colorado.edu/news/path-ozone-layer-recovery-passes-significant-milestone https://cires.colorado.edu/news/path-ozone-layer-recovery-pa... [3] https://gml.noaa.gov/odgi/ https://gml.noaa.gov/odgi/
- graycat 3y agoAntarctic ozone depletion? A big problem? (1) The ozone molecule is O3 and is unstable so we can have the reaction 2O3 --> 3O2 where ozone returns to just ordinary oxygen. (2) Ozone can be generated by sunlight in the reaction 3O2 --> 2O3 (3) For ~6 months of each year, Antarctica gets nearly no sunlight. (4) For ~6 months of the rest of the year, Antarctica has sunlight for 24 hours a day. Soooo, for about half of each year Antarctica generates ozone and for the rest of the year "depletes" ozone. We expect this. (5) Ozone absorbs UV (ultraviolet) radiation from the sun. UV radiation can cause skin cancer. Apparently some laboratory experiments have confirmed that CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons) speed up the depletion reaction. It might take careful, difficult science to say in kilograms how much ozone is depleted by how many kilograms of CFCs and how much in Watts and percentage UV results. I am unsure about such careful, difficult science. But I am fully sure about some people forming quasi religious, fanatical, extreme, unscientific movements based on claims that greedy, irresponsible, evil humans are destroying the delicate, pure, pristine, fragile planet we need for human life and, in the process, getting publicity from the media and money and power from political systems. Since the media likes to get eyeballs, ad revenue, and influence by writing stories about evil and disaster, we get stories about ozone depletion -- to me such stories have low credibility. No surprise since to me the media fails even common high school standards for term papers and has very low credibility -- worse than just "low credibility" since I have to conclude that commonly the media is trying to trick, fool, deceive, and lie to me, do me harm, etc. As we have seen in the US, the media stories can result in money and power from the political systems. The stories are old, go back at least to the claims of Chicken Little that the sky is falling and ... to the Mayans who killed people to pour their blood on a rock to keep the sun moving across the sky [1]. In short: There is ozone depletion over Antarctica? No surprise since for ~6 months of the year, Antarctica gets nearly no sunlight. What about ozone depletion over the US, e.g., likely the largest source of CFCs? Somehow the CFCs from the US generate legs and run ASAP down to Antarctica? And, no, I won't send all my money now or vote for some politician who wants to give money and power to protect ozone in Antarctica. [1] Susan Milbrath, 'Star Gods of the Maya: Astronomy in Art, Folklore, and Calendars (The Linda Schele Series in Maya and Pre-Columbian Studies)', ISBN-13 978-0292752269, University of Texas Press, 2000.
- colechristensen 3y agoBoundaries? In what sense? This is an unhelpful exercise in vague fearmongering. What actually helps is building and validating models and testing interventions against them along with planning for expected outcomes. This seems engineered to frighten people to share and then post “why won’t anybody do anything” while that person changes nothing about their lifestyle. I’m not opposed to science, I am opposed to whatever kind of thing this is. A scientist looks to uncover truth, an engineer looks to design for change, … this just seems like Bible-thumping on a soap box “beware sinners”. All the people who left Christianity still needed hell and replaced it with environmental doom.
- lxe 3y agoI'm all for bringing attention to anthropogenic changes we bring to our planet, and we should definitely be concerned with reversibility or runaway effects, but defining things in this fashion seems arbitrary and feels like junk science that can become easy fodder to the climate deniers.
- 303uru 3y agoIt's a difficult nut to crack. How do you get across the severity and imminence without enabling the "the world didn't light on fire when you said it would!" crowd. No simple answer there.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> How do you get across the severity and imminence without enabling the "the world didn't light on fire when you said it would!" crowd Error bars would help. Also, defining what red versus orange means. Are the damage assessments consistent across domains, e.g. should we drop climate change as a priority to focus on novel entities? If the purpose is to prompt policy action, I'd start by constraining the time horizon: probable damage within 10 to 20 years. Then, dollarise it. Give it error bars. Now you have a price tag an activist can talk about when convincing voters to bear a given cost. You also have a device that builds credibility--you can look back and quantify the cost of not mitigating.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoIn fact, you can build a cascading series: If we don't do anything in 10 years, here's the damage, in dollars, with error bars. If we don't in 20 years, here's the damage then. In 30 years, and 50. But the numbers have to be defensible, or they're going to get shredded by people who don't want to do something.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoPeople who don’t want to do anything won’t be convinced by data
- IAmNotACellist 3y agoSounds about as accurate as the doomsday clock. Also we're outside of the safe operating region of "land-system change?" Every one of the 9 somewhat arbitrary metrics they chose are bound in complicated, non-linear arrangements with numerous other metrics, most of which they don't track. Pulling one lever will move 50 other cogs over the course of decades, at various rates, with various other linkages. It's silly to condense down environmental landscape changes to one thing like "land-system change" and assign it a single axis of goodness vs. badness.
- digging 3y ago> It's silly to condense down environmental landscape changes to one thing like "land-system change" and assign it a single axis of goodness vs. badness. Are you saying it's better not to measure and predict these things, or do you have a less "silly" model than these climate scientists? As you say, it's an incredibly complex system. It has to be reduced to broad strokes or else you can't make meaningful predictions.
- IAmNotACellist 3y agoWhy would I have a less silly model than these specific climate scientists? Because I'm saying that its shortcomings make it more hurtful than helpful? A moviegoer criticizing a documentary doesn't need to have made a better documentary himself.
- bluescrn 3y agoTime to expand beyond the planet then? If we don't manage it before we start down a degrowth/de-industrialisation path, we might well have missed the one chance our species had to go multiplanetary.
- bayindirh 3y agoWhy not get the greed under control first?
- denkmoon 3y agoIt is preferable to deal with tractable problems
- bayindirh 3y agoGreed can be found in many tractable problems. Shall we start with energy companies love for fossil fuels to keep status quo, or Bitcoin's energy use, some Chinese cities' production of CFCs or private jets' emissions, to name a few?
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoWhat is your objective evidence that those problems are tractable? To me, they look like greed making problems intractable.
- dsabanin 3y agoHow do you propose we do that? I'm not asking individually, but on a planetary scale.
- kelnos 3y agoI guess that would give us more time, but why would you expect that we wouldn't do the same thing to any other planet we settle on? Also consider that any other known planet within reach (and I'm really being generous with "within reach") is much, much less habitable than Earth; it would be far easier for such a colony to fail catastrophically.
- porkbeer 3y agoYet when I look around, humans everwhere. This alarmist bs hurts us all.
- debacle 3y agoThe "the sky is falling" worldview is insidious and self-reinforcing. You can't convince a doomsayer that things might actually wind up okay. There are certainly challenges ahead. My grandchildren will live in a starker world than I did, but only in some ways. We are struggling with the shrinking world, with growing demand for global economic equality but shrinking equality, and a whole slew of mostly human invented issues. The economy as we know it will cease to exist in the next few decades, and we will see pockets of 1984 here, pockets of Atlas Shrugged there, and all the while good people will be trying to do good things. I have 100% faith in the ability of the minority to save the majority from themselves.
- jmcgough 3y ago> I have 100% faith in the ability of the minority to save the majority from themselves. Then why has the minority spent so much money preventing the US from addressing climate change when it would have been much easier to do so?
- pjkundert 3y agoSending trillions to people with a 100% track record of predictive failure isn’t popular? Weird.
- superdug 3y agoI concur, however it generally isn’t good for the majority when the minority takes over as generally the minority has a discrimination grudge. Eventually we’ll end up at some type of precipice in which our heroes will save us much like The Day The Rarth Stood Still
- eastbound 3y ago> The "the sky is falling" worldview is insidious and self-reinforcing. You can't convince a doomsayer that things might actually wind up okay. Despite not hoping much about ending up ok, witnessing the kind of ideologies and literature that young adults are submitted to is creepy. It’s total doomsday, but with leftist ideologies, it gives them hope for nothing and works hard to leave them suicidal at best. “How to survive beyond the n-th extinction” and the likes of titles, books, short films, ideas, are classics of this ideology and makes me not regret slamming the door at it. Yes, scientists might be right. No, they’re not unbiased, yes they can exaggerate a bit, and the megaphone amplifying the negative thoughts just before elections doesn’t help at all. So much of supposed “scientific conclusions” are just exaggerated due to systemic issues in communication, that, no, it can’t be totally trusted, and yes, there is hope that we’ll be here and fine in one century, yes we should certainly pollute less, but no, we shouldn’t suppress all factories and eat bugs instead. Some extremists enjoy hearing doomporn. It works the same on the rightwing, with other topics. But we should really quit taking it as a fact, and start factchecking and criticizing those articles.
- hodgesrm 3y agoI skimmed the background article "Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries." [0] The boundaries don't seem especially helpful. * They don't seem to account for adaption, in particular by humans. Before December 1903 no powered airplane had ever achieved liftoff in the history of humankind. Within about 70 years jet travel became close to ubiquitous as a means of transportation in the developed world. * There does not seem to be much acknowledgment of uncertainty in the science behind the boundaries. I'm unqualified to make judgements about things like ocean acidification but seeing estimates presented as bald facts does not give the reader much confidence. * They don't have much value as a rhetorical device to persuade people to care about the environment. The basic argument seems to be that we're moving out of the conditions that prevailed across the Holocene, so that must be bad. Most people find flooded basements or crop failures more persuasive. We're torching the environment IMO but there are better ways to get people focused on that and to fix it. Restoring marshlands or changing the albedo of cities seem like a better path. Edit: typo [0] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> don't have much value as a rhetorical device to persuade people to care about the environment Our success with ozone depletion should ring out as inspiration.
- kristianc 3y agoThe strategy that worked for the ozone layer crisis might not be as effective for other issues. Obviously for one problems like climate change are way more complex than the ozone issue, which had a pretty straightforward solution. Also, climate change more broadly is going to affect also big sectors like energy and transportation, so there’s a lot more resistance and economic implications. The ozone issue was more direct – people got it because it had immediate effects like increased skin cancer risk. So, yeah, while the ozone strategy was a big win, we can't expect the same playbook to work for everything else.
- dylan604 3y agoAcid rain is also another example I reach for. I'm not sure why these things are different that society was willing to accept the necessary changes. I'm guessing acid falling from the sky was an easy thing for people to accept is just bad, and were willing to go along with changes. I'm guessing the ozone depletion was acceptable as replacements for the items causing the problem did not cause interruptions to people's day. The fact that we say significant improvement in such a short time during the pandemic lock down is the most recent example I reach for when providing examples. We as a society can do this if we wanted to. The fact that there are more that do not is beyond pathetic.
- dathinab 3y agoAnd what should not be forgotten. Even with all boundaries largely crossed it's still easier to keep earth self-substainable colonized then doing so for mars.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> with all boundaries largely crossed it's still easier to keep earth self-substainable colonized then doing so for mars Straw man. Nobody argues for colonising Mars so we can abandon the Earth. It's absolutely an "and" problem. (The science and engineering required to create a self-sufficient, likely closed-loop, Martian colony have obvious implications for making our terrestrial presence more sustainable.)
- dathinab 3y agois it? self-substainable colonizing Mars seems to be difficult to a point, where it currently looks that even with larger science improvements it won't be a thing for a long time (as a side note with self-substainable I here meant also growable, expandable, doing science maybe trying to colonies other people etc. i.e. close-loop isn't cutting it at all). and I have seen people argue that when worse come to worse we still could try to colonies mars and similar generally I have seen the ease of colonizing mars and the amount this will increase surivability of the human species mid term hugely estimate quite frequently
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> even with larger science improvements it won't be a thing for a long time Of course. Same as solving our ecological crises is a long-term project. All I’m saying is they have overlap, and there are a lot of people who aren’t turned on by staving off a disaster who are by pursuing a lofty ambition.
- a_wild_dandan 3y agoIs this chart confusing as shit for anyone else? No axis ranges, label names change, categories randomly split into new sub-categories, my eyes must dart around to find anything, and what the hell are (not measured?) "novel entities"? Are the values, which are represented by areas, correspondingly non-linear? Maybe I'm just being an idiot, but this chart choice seems horrendous.
- gwbas1c 3y agoA "control-F" gets to: > ...humanity has exceeded a planetary boundary related to environmental pollutants and other “novel entities” including plastics. And then not much else. I suspect this encapsulates microplastics, pfas, pesticides, ect?
- superdug 3y agohttps://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Beams https://darktower.fandom.com/wiki/Beams This article reminded me of the “beams” that held the universe together in Stephen Kings Dark Tower series of books. That being said, we have a pretty complete fossil record for at least the last planetary extinction in which Earth still remained suitable for life. Obviously I have a somewhat personal opinion about being a part of the next one. So I guess this graph more so defines ideal markers of homeostasis as I have faith that this particular planet will continue to support life after us.
- datadrivenangel 3y agoComplete collapse of the biosphere is outside of any serious discussion. I don't want to see the plausible bad scenario where a double digit fraction of species and the human population die within my lifetime over the next ~50-80 years
- ThinkBeat 3y agoThe problem with the disaster reporting on the climate is that it is starting to feel like the child who cried wolf. I have no idea for how many years I have heard "Unless we act right now, NOW, we are all FUCKED". Ok. so that was 20 years ago, its still: "Unless we act right now, NOW, we are all FUCKED". Either the models were wrong and have been adjusted every year. or more likely the people shouting about reports who didnt entirely do their homework. I have no doubt that things are getting worse. but reading speeches from 20 years ago, right now we would all be dead, beneath the sea, no food, etc etc. Instead, here we are, a few billion more folks, consumption, and production still increasing. The Paris goal is well and truly blown to bits by now in any sane analysis. Which we know means we are fucked. Yet: Norway holds the most passionate speeches at various conferences and such yet. Oslo keeps buling all the big cultural buildings and most expensive housing right at the water's edge, that will shortly be partially under water. and pumps and produces as much oil and gas as possible. Yet: Netherlands has not started evacuating the parts fofthe country already under the waterline. Yet: Biden giving speeches on the climate. Interpreted and translated by Greta: "Blah blah blah blah jobs, blah blah build back better blah blah". And you see Joe opening up for drilling on federal lands, US #1 producer of oil, 2/3 from fracking. Now either Joe doesnt not believe in his own speeches, and does not believe in science. Or he is one sadistic person. You cant be green and still do your best to increase the production of gas and oil. There is strong doublethink at work here. One thing is said in passionate speeches. The direct opposite is executed. Personally, I concluded some time ago that we are fucked. and now like George Carlin said you can sit back and watch the show.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Yet: Netherlands has not started evacuating the parts fofthe country already under the waterline Um.
- mlyle 3y agoThere's plenty dubious about the comment, but that's not a mistake; they have dikes, dams, and sea barriers. The question is how long they'll be viable with ocean rise.
- 3y ago
- thefz 3y agoBut for a brief moment in time generated great value for the shareholders
- moffkalast 3y agoAnd we'll continue to for a long while I bet. I honestly wish that the end result was either a spectacular fiery apocalypse or an utopia where AGI figures it all out and fixes the problems somehow because that would at least be definitive. But the reality is that we're mobilizing just enough effort to keep ourselves from the worst consequences, and also not nearly enough to prevent widespread damage that's already deteriorating quality of life below what we had yesterday. A banal depressing existence stretching into the pointless forever as we continue to scrape by. Leave it it to humanity to effectively half ass absolutely anything.
- yieldcrv 3y agothey have to keep changing it to quantify their alarmist view is this one really helping anyone? you can be aware of and accept an alarmist view without this oft revised chart
- JoshTriplett 3y agoI dug through the article and the paper it references, and I can't find any definition of what "Biosphere integrity: Genetic" is supposed to be. The paper references two things under "Biosphere" but neither of them sound like something "Genetic" would refer to. EDIT: Managed to find it, it's on https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458 .
- pcurve 3y agoIt's a nice chart. Someone really wanted this chart. There isn't enough materials on this page to support the chart unfortunately.
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- boringuser2 3y ago>"We" >"Humanity" There's something profoundly saccharine and inaccurate about this conceit. The conception of being universally connected in any substantial way to the the "human species" seems extremely artificial and doesn't describe real power relations in a useful way. I think it's more useful to explain what's happening and why it's happening, e.g. "The world has become x% unsustainable due to the actions of y, caused by simple incentives and lack of disincentives". Then again, that also feels fake because A) "the world" has zero inherent meaning, it only has any meaning because humans deem it so and B) "sustainable" is from the perspective of thinking that human life must keep growing on the scale of billions. Even global catastrophe would likely retain a core population from the perspective of some kind of human maximalist. Generating hypotheses upon the basis of dubious moral priors really causes some serious accuracy issues. Much easier to stick to "don't murder/torture people or animals", i.e. something literally everyone agrees with.
- hasty_pudding 3y agoGood. After losing my career to outsourcing and AI. Lets go Apocalypse.
- i-use-nixos-btw 3y agoIt frustrates me that the actual paper is well researched and very interesting, yet the title and even the concept of these 9 boundaries will make many immediately disregard it. There seems to be this notion that scary titles and overly-simplistic frameworks like this make it more digestible and give it more attention, but I think that’s a big PR mistake.
- mistrial9 3y agoagree with the thought, but in this case, that group there was selected about ten years ago (?) from a very wide set of concerned and vocal groups. So this is second or third generation for them, to choose what is in a Press Release, what is in a slideshow and what is in formal papers.
- salynchnew 3y agoIt depends on the audience. If the PR isn't working on you, it could be bad... but in this case, I think it is just that you're not the target audience. As you note, it's very well researched. The problem is that "good" research showing the negative effects of climate changes has been around for decades, but simplistic disinformation that argues either 1) we can ignore the science or 2) we can take our time has been winning in terms of awareness and public opinion for all that time. The challenge is to make the direness of our situation understandable enough so that people will feel compelled to take action NOW, rather than sooner... or later.
- SpicyLemonZest 3y agoBut is this kind of messaging effective even on those terms? I'm fairly informed about climate issues, and I have no idea what action the source article is calling me to take.
- akira2501 3y agoIf the problem is genuinely that intractable and obvious then why would it need PR? What they've done is create a market for "scary titles and overly simplistic" frameworks, and then they've spent lavishly on that market, as evidenced by this website. More damningly, none of this has evidenced any form of a workable socially aware solution at all. This isn't working. It's the opposite of what you want. It needs to stop.
- samstave 3y agoBY WHOM -- If we can quantify such, then we can qualify where that data comes from - we should be able to identify the industries, contributors and manufactures of these inputs. So take a single input and which industry AND companies are at its core.
- aeternum 3y agoOk so is climatology the new scientology? Much of this dribble is unfalsifiable and unscientific. There are some real climate issues to solve over the long term and this kind of planetary boundary BS is completely counterproductive.
- fasteddie31003 3y agoThe real environmental question is how to get out of this situation. Growth or deceleration. It's pretty clear through growth I can get more towards a lower environmental footprint. I can put solar on my roof, drive an electric car, and run heat pumps. If I wanted to I could pretty easily use no grid electricity through growth and technology. There is a deceleration environmental school of thought that says this is all impossible and we should decelerate growth, have no kids, and eat bugs. It makes my blood boil because of how short-sighted this approach is. It's mostly a Western, white, privileged school of thought. The problem is there are huge populations on Earth that don't believe in this deceleration approach and will just steamroll this inherently shrinking mindset in a couple of human generations. The only way out of environmental harm is strong human growth that passes the ethics of environmental stewardship down to growing generations.
- ConanRus 3y ago[dead]
- lifeisstillgood 3y agoMy issue is that “sustainable” is not something we can “go back” to - we have never been sustainable since the Industrial Revolution. Sustainable is a not-yet-invented future. People complain about climate deniers blythly waiting for a technology to fix it all for us, but getting shelter, heating, food and urban lifestyle to 8 billion people is going to come at an enormous energy cost - China spent 30 years building cities for 1 billion and basically Doubled the CO2 output of the planet. We need to invent houses that have ridiculously less carbon, city transport based on bicycles and vegetarian diets for billions. We don’t know what sustainable looks like And that terrifies me more than thinking this is “just a diet”
- mesozoic 3y agoBoomers are the real YOLO generation.
- alfor 3y agoCommunism is missing in their graph and is at all time high. I am tired of the attept to use climate change and other metric to push us toward a totalitarian world government. People are waking up to it. There is no global warming catastrophe. Solar is on an expodential path, so is EV and other initiatives. I am way more concerned about the risk of nuclear war (US proxy war created by the democrats), the creation of other virus in labs and the contamination of everything with BPA and forever chemical. Tech is mostly good, so is freedom and free entreprise.
- EdwardDiego 3y agoIs there any more info on the technicalities of the various measures? The one about phosphorus and nitrogen in particular - are we running out, or is it too much of them ending up in water and causing algal blooms?