Climate change in the Anthropocene: An unstoppable drive to Hothouse Earth?
Can the global climate be stabilized before runaway change creates conditions that are too hot for human civilization and deadly for most species?
Leading Earth System scientists warn: “The Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid pathway toward much hotter conditions. … Incremental linear changes to the present socioeconomic system are not enough to stabilize the Earth System.”
‘Trajectories of the Earth System
in the Anthropocene’
by Will Steffen et al.[1]
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 6, 2018
reviewed by Ian Angus
Scientific papers don’t often make front page news, but this one certainly did.
On August 6, the UK Guardian declared that a “Domino-effect of climate events could move Earth into a ‘hothouse’ state.” The New York Times warned of a “World at risk of heading towards irreversible ‘hothouse’ state.” Sky News said that “Earth is 1°C away from hothouse state that threatens the future of humanity.”
The basis for those excited headlines was an article with the distinctly unexciting title “Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Normally, PNAS articles can only be read by those who pay high subscription fees, but interest in this one ran so high that after one day the publisher removed the paywall, making it accessible to all.
For once — rarely for a climate change story — the mainstream media was right to focus attention on this paper. The authors, a virtual who’s who of the world’s most respected experts on the Anthropocene and Earth System Science, make a major contribution to our understanding of the planetary emergency. They extend the discussion of global warming beyond the usual narrow focus on greenhouse emissions, incorporating the complex cycles and feedbacks that shape the entire Earth System.
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