Earth's Natural Systems Compromised

Perhaps this story will set your sirens wailing, unless you are a crazed and distracted NFL fan! It should. Eighteen scientists from research institutes around the world have published a report in Science concluding humans have "dangerously compromised" four of the planetary boundaries publicly identified by scientists in 2009:

• climate change
• biosphere integrity loss and extinctions
• ozone depletion
• ocean acidification
• biogeochemical flow disruption
• land use change
• freshwater use
• atmospheric aerosol loading
• introduction of novel entities such as plastics, radionucleotides, and engineered organisms

heat map courtesy NASA

Four of the nine, climate change, land use, species extinctions and altered biochemical flows have all exceeded safe operating zones. These conditions threaten to destabilize the Earth's natural systems, driving it into a much less hospitable equilibrium than the present one. The latest report is a refinement of the quantification of where these risks lie said the study's lead author. Two core boundaries--climate change and biosphere integrity--have been identified.

Presistent, substantial alterations in either could result in a new, undesirable equilibrium. 2014 was the warmest year since records began in 1880. Ten of the warmest years except 1998 have occurred since 2000. Anthpromorphic global warming is established as a scientific fact. The study authors warn that the internationally-agreed two degree centigrade increase target lies beyond the planet's safe temperature boundary. Their conclusions will be presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Perhaps this sobering prediction will divert the plutocrats momentarily from celebrating profit-making before survival.