Earth’s health failing in seven out of eight key measures, say scientists
Nick Young, Head of Communications at Greenpeace Aotearoa,
This should be the biggest story on the planet. Scientists now say the Earth is in the danger zone, close to multiple tipping points of no return after which human survival is under threat.
The research paper in Nature Safe and just Earth system boundaries,
The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked1,2,3, yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently4,5. Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintaining the resilience and stability of the Earth system (safe ESBs) and minimizing exposure to significant harm to humans from Earth system change (a necessary but not sufficient condition for justice)4. The stricter of the safe or just boundaries sets the integrated safe and just ESB. Our findings show that justice considerations constrain the integrated ESBs more than safety considerations for climate and atmospheric aerosol loading. Seven of eight globally quantified safe and just ESBs and at least two regional safe and just ESBs in over half of global land area are already exceeded. We propose that our assessment provides a quantitative foundation for safeguarding the global commons for all people now and into the future.
From the Guardian piece,
Prof Johan Rockström, one of the lead authors, said: “It is an attempt to do an interdisciplinary science assessment of the entire people-planet system, which is something we must do given the risks we face.
“We have reached what I call a saturation point where we hit the ceiling of the biophysical capacity of the Earth system to remain in its stable state. We are approaching tipping points, we are seeing more and more permanent damage of life-support systems at the global scale.”
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The situation is grave in almost every category. Setting global benchmarks is challenging. For climate, the world has already adopted a target to keep global heating as low as possible between 1.5C to 2C above pre-industrial levels. The Earth Commission notes that this is a dangerous level because many people are already badly affected by the extreme heat, droughts and floods that come with the current level of about 1.2C. They say a safe and just climate target is 1C, which would require a massive effort to draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They note it is impossible to stabilise the climate without protecting ecosystems.
This is terrifying. But I also see hope, as the necessity of whole systems thinking is being forefronted. It’s whole systems thinking that will help us out of this mess.
It’s not enough to look at regional rail solely in economic terms, we have to see all the interconnected systems and cycles. It’s the linear thinking rather than whole systems thinking that has created the climate and ecological crises precisely because we ignored how everything is interconnected and how cycles work in the natural/physical world.
For instance, if we were to say New Zealand isn’t suitable for regional rail for a range of economic reasons, this would push us back into roading for land transport.
The most obvious problem with roading are the GHG emissions from transport. If we were to imagine a greentech solution to that, say replacing the transport fleet with electric vehicles, we have to look at the fossil fuels burned to achieve that, the power generation needed ongoing to run that fleet, and the issues of material sourcing and disposal of batteries. This is the cradle to grave approach.
But we also have to look at the roads themselves. New Zealand roads are made from bitumen, concrete and rock. Bitumen is made from petroleum refinery by-products and is a ground and atmospheric pollutant. Concrete has its own set of problems with GHG emissions and pollution. Rock is a non-renewable natural resource that requires nature-destroying extraction.
Because roads have to be maintained in perpetuity, there is an imperative to limit their growth to what we can meaningfully sustain given the inherent environmental impacts in current technology.
In sustainability design systems, closed loops are the holy grail: there is no extraction (renewables are used), there is no pollution (by products are treated as a resource). This is where we are headed, and it still requires working within the natural systems of the physical world. In other words, we can’t keep building MOAR ROADS as if all these issues don’t exist.
Another aspect of roading often ignored is the air, water and soil pollution from car tyres. This impacts human health and ecosystem health. We also have no good way of disposing of or recycling vehicle tyres (remember the Amberley tyre fire?). So why are we acting as if we can keep increasing road vehicles indefinitely?
Everywhere we turn now we are hitting the limits of growth, both the past growth that has left us on the brink of climate and ecological collapse, and the future growth that is now impossible if we want our societies, ecologies and wellbeing to survive. This isn’t hopeless, but it does mean radical changes to our thinking, approach, and lifestyles.
If we look only to high tech solutions in isolation (EVs or recycled road materials or battery recycling) we stay in the same thinking that has us in overshoot with most of earth system boundaries. Even with the most optimal greentech (we are a long way from that still) we will still have to work within the limits of the systems. Instead, those individual solutions need to be seen in the context of whole systems, because the whole systems view is where we take note of the limits and design accordingly.
None of this means we have to give up all concrete or EVs. It means we can’t replace fossil fuel BAU with greentech BAU and have things work out. We have to change the underlying systems design.
We may develop roading materials that aren’t extractive and polluting, but the technology isn’t enough, we have to be able to do it at scale within sustainable systems. Fossil fuels gave us such dense forms of energy we’ve become used to the idea that we can escape the natural limits of the world. Those days are gone. This doesn’t mean we can’t have nice things, it’s that the nice things come from using sustainability principles within whole systems.
Back to rail, the issue isn’t whether regional rail is viable within current BAU economics. It’s what systems can we put in place to both prevent the worst of climate change and create resiliency with the impacts that are already locked in? How we do economics should be serving that.
The case is made in these links,
Regional rail: What is, what was and what could be
Ten popular myths about passenger rail in New Zealand
Why restoring long-distance passenger rail makes sense in New Zealand – for people and the climate
Future of Transport Plan (Green Party 2020 election priority)
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