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Radical changes are needed for transformations to a good Anthropocene

February 23, 2021

Radical changes are needed for transformations to a good Anthropocene

Abstract

The scale, pace, and intensity of human activity on the planet demands radical departures from the status quo to remain within planetary boundaries and achieve sustainability. The steering arms of society including embedded financial, legal, political, and governance systems must be radically realigned and recognize the connectivity among social, ecological, and technological domains of urban systems to deliver more just, equitable, sustainable, and resilient futures. We present five key principles requiring fundamental cognitive, behavioral, and cultural shifts including rethinking growth, rethinking efficiency, rethinking the state, rethinking the commons, and rethinking justice needed together to radically transform neighborhoods, cities, and regions.

Radical departures

The scale, pace, and intensity of human activity on the planet1 is driving global biodiversity and ecosystem decline2, fundamentally altering earth’s climate system3, and increasing social and economic global connectedness4 in ways that threaten stability, resilience, and sustainability of local and regional human and ecological systems5. These patterns suggest we are living in what has been described as the Anthropocene Epoch6 characterized by rapid and fundamental human-driven alterations of earth systems across the globe7. These major shifts to the stocks and flows of human life-support systems8,9 challenge sustainability at any scale without fundamental and radical transformations in human activities and supporting financial, legal, political, and governance systems10.

To shift the human enterprise toward a sustainable relationship with, and within, the earth system requires much more than small tweaks and incremental change11. Instead, it will require radical departures from the status quo8,12,13,14,15,16 where the complex system of intertwined sustainability challenges17 are confronted in order to shift multiple unsustainable trajectories toward ‘good’ Anthropocenes18 where normative goals for sustainability are achieved19 and political and economic power structures deliver the common good20.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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Analysis: Why scientists think 100% of global warming is due to humans

December 15, 2017

Analysis: Why scientists think 100% of global warming is due to humans

The extent of the human contribution to modern global warming is a hotly debated topic in political circles, particularly in the US.

During a recent congressional hearing, Rick Perry, the US energy secretary, remarked that “to stand up and say that 100% of global warming is because of human activity, I think on its face, is just indefensible”.

However, the science on the human contribution to modern warming is quite clear. Humans emissions and activities have caused around 100% of the warming observed since 1950, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fifth assessment report.

Here Carbon Brief examines how each of the major factors affecting the Earth’s climate would influence temperatures in isolation – and how their combined effects almost perfectly predict long-term changes in the global temperature.

Carbon Brief’s analysis finds that:

  • Since 1850, almost all the long-term warming can be explained by greenhouse gas emissions and other human activities.
  • If greenhouse gas emissions alone were warming the planet, we would expect to see about a third more warming than has actually occurred. They are offset by cooling from human-produced atmospheric aerosols.
  • Aerosols are projected to decline significantly by 2100, bringing total warming from all factors closer to warming from greenhouse gases alone.
  • Natural variability in the Earth’s climate is unlikely to play a major role in long-term warming.

Animation by Rosamund Pearce for Carbon Brief. Images via Alamy Stock Photo.

How much warming is caused by humans?

In its 2013 fifth assessment report, the IPCC stated in its summary for policymakers that it is “extremely likely that more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature” from 1951 to 2010 was caused by human activity. By “extremely likely”, it meant that there was between a 95% and 100% probability that more than half of modern warming was due to humans.

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New Look at Rivers Reveals The Toll of Human Activity

January 13, 2017

New Look at Rivers Reveals The Toll of Human Activity

Bob Matcuk/Flickr
The Yellowstone River as it flows through Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

A recent outbreak of a deadly fish parasite on the Yellowstone River may have seemed unremarkable. But a new wave of research shows the episode was likely linked to the cumulative impact of human activities that essentially weakened the Yellowstone’s “immune system.” 

The Yellowstone River has its headwaters in the mountain streams and snowy peaks of the famous U.S. national park with the same name, and makes an unfettered downhill run all the way to the Missouri River, nearly 700 miles away. It is the longest undammed river in the Lower 48 states.

Last August, the Yellowstone made national headlines when a parasite killed thousands of fish, mostly whitefish. Fear of spreading the parasite to other waterways forced Montana officials to close the river to fishermen, rafters, and boaters. At the height of summer, the stunningly scenic, trout-rich river was eerily deserted. Fishing re-opened in the fall, but the parasite has been found in other Montana waterways.

That a non-native parasite somehow got into a river may seem like an unremarkable occurrence. But a new, expansive model of gravel-bed river systems in mountainous areas, such as the Yellowstone, depicts a more complex scenario in which a host of human activities combine to degrade river systems and render them more vulnerable to destructive outside influences such as parasites. This body of research — 40 years in the making, but much of it summed up in a recent paper — rewrites the understanding of the ecological dynamics of these rivers. And it casts a harsh light on human river valley activities such as homebuilding, dam construction, irrigation, and channelization that may be slowly choking highly dynamic river systems — and the biodiversity that depends on them — to death.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Humans Cause Mass Extinctions

August 16, 2015

How Humans Cause Mass Extinctions

STANFORD – There is no doubt that Earth is undergoing the sixth mass extinction in its history – the first since the cataclysm that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. According to one recent study, species are going extinct between ten and several thousand times faster than they did during stable periods in the planet’s history, and populations within species are vanishing hundreds or thousands of times faster than that. By one estimate, Earth has lost half of its wildlife during the past 40 years. There is also no doubt about the cause: We are it.

We are in the process of killing off our only known companions in the universe, many of them beautiful and all of them intricate and interesting. This is a tragedy, even for those who may not care about the loss of wildlife. The species that are so rapidly disappearing provide human beings with indispensable ecosystem services: regulating the climate, maintaining soil fertility, pollinating crops and defending them from pests, filtering fresh water, and supplying food.

The cause of this great acceleration in the loss of the planet’s biodiversity is clear: rapidly expanding human activity, driven by worsening overpopulation and increasing per capita consumption. We are destroying habitats to make way for farms, pastures, roads, and cities. Our pollution is disrupting the climate and poisoning the land, water, and air. We are transporting invasive organisms around the globe and overharvesting commercially or nutritionally valuable plants and animals.

Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mass-extinction-human-cause-by-paul-r–ehrlich-and-anne-h–ehrlich-2015-08#piBFQzcd7dq64wae.99

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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