In Just 60 Years, Neoliberal Capitalism Has Nearly Broken Planet Earth. This post first appeared at Common Dreams. Humanity’s rapacious growth and accelerated energy needs over the last generation — particularly fed by an economic system that demands increasing levels of consumption and inputs of natural resources — are fast driving planetary systems towards their breaking point, according to a new pair of related studies. Prepared by researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the first study looks specifically at how “four of nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed as a result of human activity.” “It is difficult to overestimate the scale and speed of change. In a single lifetime humanity has become a geological force at the planetary-scale.”
In addition to the four boundaries that have already been crossed, the study looked five other ways in which the planetary systems are under assault by human activity. “I don’t think we’ve broken the planet but we are creating a much more difficult world,” Sarah Cornell, another report author, told Reuters.
Rate of environmental degradation puts life on Earth at risk, say scientists | Environment. Humans are “eating away at our own life support systems” at a rate unseen in the past 10,000 years by degrading land and freshwater systems, emitting greenhouse gases and releasing vast amounts of agricultural chemicals into the environment, new research has found. Two major new studies by an international team of researchers have pinpointed the key factors that ensure a livable planet for humans, with stark results. Of nine worldwide processes that underpin life on Earth, four have exceeded “safe” levels – human-driven climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land system change and the high level of phosphorus and nitrogen flowing into the oceans due to fertiliser use. Researchers spent five years identifying these core components of a planet suitable for human life, using the long-term average state of each measure to provide a baseline for the analysis. All of these changes are shifting Earth into a “new state” that is becoming less hospitable to human life, researchers said.
In Just 60 Years, Neoliberal Capitalism Has Nearly Broken Planet Earth. This post first appeared at Common Dreams. Humanity’s rapacious growth and accelerated energy needs over the last generation — particularly fed by an economic system that demands increasing levels of consumption and inputs of natural resources — are fast driving planetary systems towards their breaking point, according to a new pair of related studies. Prepared by researchers at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, the first study looks specifically at how “four of nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed as a result of human activity.” “It is difficult to overestimate the scale and speed of change. In a single lifetime humanity has become a geological force at the planetary-scale.” In addition to the four boundaries that have already been crossed, the study looked five other ways in which the planetary systems are under assault by human activity. “I don’t think we’ve broken the planet but we are creating a much more difficult world,” Sarah Cornell, another report author, told Reuters.
Scientists: Human activity has pushed Earth beyond four of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ Clmate change: A severe drought plagued a third of Queensland, Australia in 2013. Destabilizing the global environment could make Earth less hospitable for humans. (David Gray/Reuters) At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world. The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They are the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean. Forest cover and land system change: Farming, mining and infrastructure projects are consuming the Amazon rainforest.
The researchers focused on nine separate planetary boundaries first identified by scientists in a 2009 paper. It’s not just a list of F’s.
How Humans Are Changing the Planet—in 7 Dramatic GIFs - Rebecca J. Rosen. Watch as Las Vegas booms, the Amazon disappears, and Dubai grows out into the sea. Google today released an "interactive timelapse experience" that allows users to explore millions of satellite images captured over the last quarter-century -- 25 years of immense growth and destruction. "We believe this is the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public," Google said in a statement. The project was built in conjunction with the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, and TIME. The images come from the USGS-NASA's satellite program LANDSAT, which were often stored on tapes like those in the thumbnail to the right. Google started sorting through a collection of 2,068,467 images back in 2009 -- 909 terabytes of data, according to Google -- finding the highest quality pixels (which is to say, shots not obscured by clouds), "for every years since 1984 and for every spot on Earth.
" They then rendered that data into annual whole-Earth shots, 1.78 terapixels each.
Climate Change Education. Leuren Moret: The International Alliance For Depopulation And Total Control Based On Slavery. The Venus Project. GMO / OGM Genetically Modified Organism Organismes génétiquem. Earth & Environment (Futurity.com) Envir. Organisations, Institutes, Societies. Fauna & Flora. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Homepage | New Ecology, Inc. Museums Related to Nature. New Energies. Reviews, Div. Pollution & it's effects. Monsanto- The Devil behind a mask II. MORE.... About the Climate Change. Surf on Green. Robot Farming and the Future of Food: Hard Work on Wheels.
Seas, Oceans & their Animals. (from Plankton to Sharks. DEFORESTATION. NWS JetStream. The atmosphere is a cloud of gas and suspended solids extending from the Earth's surface out many thousands of miles, becoming increasingly thinner with distance but always held by the Earth's gravitational pull. The atmosphere is made up of layers. it surrounds the Earth and holds the air we breathe; it protects us from outer space; and holds moisture (clouds), gases, and tiny particles. In short, the atmosphere is the protective bubble we live in. This protective bubble consists of several gases (listed in the table to the right) with the top four making up 99.998% of all gases. Of the dry composition of the atmosphere nitrogen, by far, is the most common.
Nitrogen dilutes oxygen and prevents rapid burning at the Earth's surface. It is also necessary for combustion or burning. Argon is used in light bulbs, in double-pane windows, and to preserve the original Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These percentages of atmospheric gases are for a completely dry atmosphere. HOME.