#earth feels

[thoughtswhateverreally]

Do you ever just get really scared about the earths future? Because I do

[beanwitchling]

Right, I marathoned the last 3 eps of Cosmos, I'm all caught up now and full of stars-and-carbon-based-life feelings... time for little witches to go to bed. Gotsta pull another 40 hour week at temp-job so I can finance my tattoo and save for reunions with faraway dearest darling ones.

And I am wearing my key-to-happiness so in the morning I have a solid metal reminder to get that ass outta bed and make time in the morning for self-care, dammit :>

Ninite, tumbls

[scarcelyodd]

The title and the publisher tell you all you need to know.

[beanwitchling]

For y'alls who, like me, may get engrossed with complex systems, especially ecological / economical, and want to look at how people go about researching current trends & possible actions. Or just anyone who has an interest in Earth and the will to look up some of the more wanky research terms. If I hadn't entirely abandoned the idea of future re-entry into academic waters... yanno I may just look into grad programs again now. Dammit social science, why are you so compelling. 

From their research abstract:

Anthropogenic pressures on the Earth System have reached a scale where abrupt global environmental change can no longer be excluded. We propose a new approach to global sustainability in which we define planetary boundaries within which we expect that humanity can operate safely. Transgressing one or more planetary boundaries may be deleterious or even catastrophic due to the risk of crossing thresholds that will trigger non-linear, abrupt environmental change within continental- to planetary-scale systems. We have identified nine planetary boundaries and, drawing upon current scientific understanding, we propose quantifications for seven of them. [...]

We estimate that humanity has already transgressed three planetary boundaries: for climate change, rate of biodiversity loss, and changes to the global nitrogen cycle. Planetary boundaries are interdependent, because transgressing one may both shift the position of other boundaries or cause them to be transgressed. The social impacts of transgressing boundaries will be a function of the social–ecological resilience of the affected societies.

Our proposed boundaries are rough, first estimates only, surrounded by large uncertainties and knowledge gaps. Filling these gaps will require major advancements in Earth System and resilience science. The proposed concept of “planetary boundaries” lays the groundwork for shifting our approach to governance and management, away from the essentially sectoral analyses of limits to growth aimed at minimizing negative externalities, toward the estimation of the safe space for human development. Planetary boundaries define, as it were, the boundaries of the “planetary playing field” for humanity if we want to be sure of avoiding major human-induced environmental change on a global scale.