Europe’s politicians have moral responsibility to tackle air pollution, says WHO environment director
GuardianSEP 12 2023
According to a recent study of the planet's life support systems, researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) say industrial civilization is on the verge of or has already crossed the seventh of nine planetary bounderies.
The researchers say there has been a breach of the boundaries for climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater change, biogeochemical flows, and the introduction of novel entities like synthetic chemicals or plastics.
The notion of planetary boundaries, initially introduced in 2009, highlights nine global objectives related to human-caused changes to the environment's stability and livability. While crossing a boundary does not imply that catastrophic changes will happen right away, they do indicate that the "patient" is not doing well. The notion of "planetary boundaries," introduced in 2009, highlights nine global objectives related to human-caused changes to the environment's stability and livability. While crossing a boundary does not imply that catastrophic changes will happen right away, they do indicate that the "patient" is not doing well.
The release of the first Planetary Health Check Report represents a significant step forward in our understanding and preservation of Earth's stability and resilience. Staying within the safe operating zone of the nine planetary boundaries is critical to establishing a stable and sustainable world. However,Surpassing surpassing a boundary heightens the risk of irreversibly altering Earth's life support systems and crossing critical points, leading to irreversible change. This is a call to action to mobilize political support to help restore already breached boundaries.
The notion of planetary boundaries is flawed and may mislead global environmental management initiatives. Six of the nine proposed boundaries don't actually have clear global biophysical limits. These— are land use change, nitrogen levels, species loss, freshwater use, chemical pollution, and aerosol loading. In other words, there are no apparent global tipping points for these boundaries that would cause natural systems to behave differently than they have historically.