Scientists are now telling us that we're blowing past
planetary boundaries at breakneck speed.
«It would be good to define
planetary boundaries at multiple scales — local, regional and global,» adds ecologist Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota and a co-author of the planetary boundaries concept.
Not exact matches
In short, the formation of the
planetary society, the approaching of the earth's ecological limits, and the attainment of certain built - in or intrinsic
boundaries all are coming
at a time when the scientific and technological capabilities of men are enlarging the range of alternative futures.
«The
planetary boundaries framework is not a useful guide for policy or environmental management in any concrete sense, as it does not capture the challenges involved in most of the environmental problems it lists,» argues geographer Linus Blomqvist, policy associate
at the institute's Conservation Program and co-author of the review.
The
planetary boundary itself lies
at the intersection of the green and yellow zones.
«
At those altitudes, there is no
planetary boundary - layer friction with the surface (meaning, the surface terrain does not exert a frictional drag on the wind moving above it), so high - speed winds might be possible.
If the notion of
planetary boundaries had existed
at the time, surely someone would have warned against the spread of agriculture.
Our
Planetary Boundaries research identifies that there are also other processes critical to the functioning of the Earth System that are so impacted by human activities that they, too, demand management
at the global level.
6:57 p.m. Addendum For relevant work with somewhat different conclusions review the presentations from «Intensifying agriculture within
planetary boundaries,» a session
at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London last March.
On the eve of this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a team of scientists led by Will Steffen of the Stockholm Resilience Centre
at Stockholm University and the Australian National University report in the journal Science that the world has now crossed four of nine
planetary boundaries within which humans could have hoped for a safe operating space.
To more precisely define what it is we must sustain, Johan Rockström, a professor of Environmental Science
at Stockholm University, introduced the concept of
planetary boundaries, or the idea that our species must live within a safe operating space.
Also, the NCEP - NCAR data for the module of the ratio of the wind speed u ¯ PBL
at the top of the
planetary boundary layer to that
at the EBL u ¯ enters the denominator of Eq.
The
planetary boundary itself lies
at the intersection of the green and yellow zones.
«We will be working with data providers and conservation organizations to ensure that the number of gold - standard data sets increases and the data are integrated with ongoing efforts around the world,» said Piero Visconti, KR
Planetary Boundary Analyst
at UNEP - WCMC.
The
planetary -
boundaries group, which published a sort of manifesto in 2009, argues for increased restraint and, where necessary, direct intervention aimed
at bringing all sorts of things in the Earth system, from the alkalinity of the oceans to the rate of phosphate run - off from the land, close to the conditions pertaining in the Holocene.
Respecting ecological thresholds, carrying capacity, and
planetary boundaries are, therefore,
at the heart of our approaches.
In addition,
planetary - scale temperature and wind fields were spectrally nudged beginning ~ 500 hPA with a strength of zero and linearly ramped up to 0.0003 s - 1
at the top of the atmosphere, to constrain the large - scale circulation but still allow for free evolution of the
boundary layer states.
Physical needs (that is, nutrition, sanitation, access to energy and elimination of poverty below the US$ 1.90 line) could likely be met for 7 billion people
at a level of resource use that does not significantly transgress
planetary boundaries.
We downscale four
planetary boundaries (climate change, land - system change, freshwater use and biogeochemical flows) to per capita equivalents, and compare these to footprint indicators
at the national scale.
It requires that stocks of critical natural capital be maintained (via the
planetary boundaries requirement), while
at the same time requiring that stocks of critical human and social capital also be maintained (the basic needs requirement).
If all people are to lead a good life within
planetary boundaries, then our results suggest that provisioning systems must be fundamentally restructured to enable basic needs to be met
at a much lower level of resource use.
As the authors of the concept admit, six of the nine proposed «
planetary boundaries» have no global limits
at all.