9/15/23

Humanity has driven Earth past six of nine planetary boundaries

Global warming has been accelerating since humans began setting fires to clear habitat, as a weapon or just for amusement and even protohumans tamed fire long before Homo sapiens did. About 200,000 years ago Neanderthal learned to make fire with flint and pyrite by sprinkling manganese dioxide onto woody debris to lower the ignition point but they had cleared much of Southern Europe's forests shortly after their arrival there as long ago as 800,000 years.

Fast forward to European settlement and the Industrial Revolution where in the New World settlers took hardwoods for charcoal then humans allowed fast-growing conifers to replace lost forests. Humans are sixth on historian Christopher Lloyd's list of 100 important species because of anthropogenic climate change and for no other attribute.
This planetary boundaries framework update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity. Ocean acidification is close to being breached, while aerosol loading regionally exceeds the boundary. Stratospheric ozone levels have slightly recovered. The transgression level has increased for all boundaries earlier identified as overstepped. As primary production drives Earth system biosphere functions, human appropriation of net primary production is proposed as a control variable for functional biosphere integrity. This boundary is also transgressed. Earth system modeling of different levels of the transgression of the climate and land system change boundaries illustrates that these anthropogenic impacts on Earth system must be considered in a systemic context. [Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries]
In 1991 after the Soviet Union fell Republicans began their war on the environment substituting a new Green Scare for the old Red Scare. This blog was established in 2010 as a vehicle for rewilding the American West.
The CO2 Coalition, established by William Happer, a senior director with the White House National Security Council, has received more than $1 million from energy executives and conservative foundations that fight regulations since it was founded four years ago. The group is stacked with researchers who cast doubt on climate science. Other members have spent years fighting regulations that would reduce fossil fuel consumption. The largest donation — $170,000 — came from the Mercer Family Foundation, a top donor to President Trump. The Mercers have also contributed more than $7 million to the Heartland Institute, which attacks climate science. The Charles Koch Institute provided $33,283 to the CO2 Coalition, while the Wisconsin-based Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation donated $50,000. The Sarah Scaife Foundation contributed $135,000, and the Florida-based Thomas W. Smith Foundation gave $75,000. EOG Resources Inc., an oil and gas company spun off from Enron Corp., gave $5,000. The Randolph Foundation in New York provided $40,000. [Trump adviser created group to defend CO2]
In March the CO2 Coalition was booted from the National Science Teaching Association’s convention in Atlanta. 

This time we're the asteroid according to University of Leicester geologist Colin Waters, who chaired the Anthropocene Working Group.
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