Articles tagged with: Earth Systems
Global tipping points in the terrestrial biosphere?
Is our planet now threatened by rapid global changes caused by human forcing of the terrestrial biosphere past a planetary tipping point? Two different articles in Nature have suggested that the answer may be …
All is not loss: Plant Biodiversity in the Anthropocene
What are we humans doing to biodiversity in the Anthropocene? Causing Earth’s sixth mass extinction? (e.g. Barnosky et al. 2011 and others). How about something completely new to biodiversity on this planet? How about a …
Thinking Systems
As the fate of the Earth system becomes ever more intertwined with human systems, “thinking in systems” has become more essential than ever. I’ve read books on systems theory (e.g. Allen & Hoekstra 1993), but …
Rocking the Anthropocene
If media attention is any measure of popular thinking- then we have indeed finally arrived in the Anthropocene. Thanks to the leadership (and hard work) of Jan Zalasiewicz, who initiated and convened the Anthropocene Working …
Botkin’s biosphere: ahead of its time
“We cannot expect nature to remain in a constant condition and thus provide us with a simple solution to the questions of what is “natural” and what is desirable.” (Botkin 1990, p 181) . Just …
Cyborg Planet: where the clouds twitter and the forests all have facebook
Now that we’re busy hacking the planet, we need all the help we can get. We humans are pretty good at solving complex problems like choosing the next move in chess- better than most machines. …
On Doctoring the Planet
Our planet is heating up in a hurry! Call in the Earth doctors! Let’s fix the planet!
Now that we’ve pushed Earth systems out of the comfort zone, Earth and environmental scientists are increasingly being called …
Looking Back at the Cradle in the Rear-view Mirror
Are humans pushing earth systems towards environmental catastrophe? Or are we just worrying needlessly about the novel state of the earth that we have now created? Or both?
In a Nature Feature entitled “A safe operating …
Guns, forests and carbon
Not only do humans burn away forests to enhance their food supply, they also do it when they battle each other! Or so says a study published by Zhen Li and his colleagues this week …
Globalization is good for the biosphere
Finally some good news about global change: globalization is making us cooperate! This is no minor discovery. Poverty, global warming, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss- all of these will only be solved when all of …
Recent Comments