Fossil Fuels, Plastic, and Calm

 

A team of global scientists issued a new report on Wednesday, noting that seven out of nine of key "planetary boundaries" have been crossed. Carbon dioxide emissions have increased ocean acidification, which could have dire impacts on marine life.

Humans are gambling with the very stability of Earth’s life support systems, scientists warned on Wednesday, cautioning that ocean acidity was yet another key planetary threshold to be breached.

A team of global scientists assessed that seven of nine so-called “planetary boundaries” – processes that regulate Earth’s stability, resilience and ability to sustain life – had now been crossed.

Climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, freshwater depletion, overuse of agricultural fertilisers, and the release of artificial chemicals and plastics into the environment were all already deep in the red.

In their new report, the scientists said all seven were “showing trends of increasing pressure – suggesting further deterioration and destabilisation of planetary health in the near future".

Destructive and polluting activities, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, are driving these further into risky territory and increasingly interacting with each other.

“We are putting the stability of the entire life support system on Earth at risk,” said Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), at a press conference to launch the research.

The concept of planetary boundaries was first coined in 2009, when only global warming, extinction rates and nitrogen levels had transgressed their limits.

“We are moving even further away from the safe operating space, risking destabilising our Earth and with an increasing risk growing year by year,” said Levke Caesar, co-lead of Planetary Boundaries Science at PIK.

Many of the causes of deterioration are interlinked, showing both the wide-ranging impact of human activities but also avenues for action.

The use of fossil fuels is a key example, driving climate change as well as fuelling plastic pollution and the rise in ocean acidification.

- (FRANCE 24 with AFP)