{"id":36723,"date":"2018-08-16T07:27:12","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T12:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36723"},"modified":"2018-08-16T07:27:12","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T12:27:12","slug":"climate-change-in-the-anthropocene-an-unstoppable-drive-to-hothouse-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36723","title":{"rendered":"Climate change in the Anthropocene: An unstoppable drive to Hothouse Earth?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Climate change in the Anthropocene: An unstoppable drive to Hothouse Earth?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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Can the global climate be stabilized before runaway change creates conditions that are too hot for human civilization and deadly for most species?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Leading Earth System scientists warn: \u201cThe Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid pathway toward much hotter conditions. \u2026 Incremental linear changes to the present socioeconomic system are not enough to stabilize the Earth System.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u2018Trajectories of the Earth System
\nin the Anthropocene\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/a>
\nby Will Steffen et al.[1]<\/sup>
\nProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 6, 2018<\/em><\/p>\n

reviewed by Ian Angus<\/strong><\/p>\n

Scientific papers don\u2019t often make front page news, but this one certainly did.<\/p>\n

On August 6, the UK Guardian<\/em> declared that a \u201cDomino-effect of climate events could move Earth into a \u2018hothouse\u2019 state.\u201d The New York Times<\/em> warned of a \u201cWorld at risk of heading towards irreversible \u2018hothouse\u2019 state.\u201d Sky News <\/em>said that \u201cEarth is 1\u00b0C away from hothouse state that threatens the future of humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

The basis for those excited headlines was an article with the distinctly unexciting title \u201cTrajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene,\u201d published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em>. Normally, PNAS<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

For once \u2014 rarely for a climate change story \u2014 the mainstream media was right to focus attention on this paper. The authors, a virtual who\u2019s who of the world\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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: \u201cThe Earth System may be approaching a planetary threshold that could lock in a continuing rapid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1208,140,8834,141,369,18784,21263,21262],"class_list":["post-36723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-anthropocene","tag-climate","tag-climate-and-capitalism","tag-climate-change","tag-global-warming","tag-ian-angus","tag-uk-guardian","tag-will-steffen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36724,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36723\/revisions\/36724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}