Planetary boundaries are a framework to describe limits to the impacts of human activities on the Earth system. Beyond these limits, the environment may not be able to self-regulate anymore. This would mean the Earth system would leave the period of stability of the Holocene, in which human society developed. Crossing a planetary boundary comes at the risk of abrupt environmental change. The framework is based on scientific evidence that human actions, especially those of industrialized societies since the Industrial Revolution, have become the main driver of global environmental change. According to the framework, "transgressing one or more planetary boundaries may be deleterious or even catastrophic due to the risk of crossing thresholds that will trigger non-linear, abrupt environmental change within continental-scale to planetary-scale systems."
The normative component of the framework is that human societies have been able to thrive under the comparatively stable climatic and ecological conditions of the Holocene. To the extent that these Earth system process boundaries have not been crossed, they mark the "safe zone" for human societies on the planet. The concept has since become influential in the international community (e.g. United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development), including governments at all levels, international organizations, civil society and the scientific community. The framework consists of nine global change processes. In 2009, according to Rockström and others, three boundaries were already crossed (biodiversity loss, climate change and nitrogen cycle), while others were in imminent danger of being crossed.
In 2015, several of the scientists in the original group published an update, bringing in new co-authors and new model-based analysis. According to this update, four of the boundaries were crossed: climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and nitrogen).
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This course provides an overview of global environmental change through the perspective of the planetary boundaries and examines how human health is interlinked with social and ecological contexts.
L'objectif de ce cours est de donner une compréhension globale des enjeux de la durabilité et de ses implications. Que signifie "durabilité"? Comment est-elle mesurée? Comment l'atteindre?
Students will develop the theoretical and practical basis for leveraging corporate strategies to foster global sustainable development. In teams, we will apply the strategic planning process to develo
Global change in broad sense refers to planetary-scale changes in the Earth system. It is most commonly used to encompass the variety of changes connected to the rapid increase in human activities which started around mid-20th century, i.e., the Great Acceleration. While the concept stems from research on the climate change, it is used to adopt a more holistic view of the observed changes. Global change refers to the changes of the Earth system, treated in its entirety with interacting physicochemical and biological components as well as the impact human societies have on the components and vice versa.
Environmental issues are disruptions in the usual function of ecosystems. Further, these issues can be caused by humans (human impact on the environment) or they can be natural. These issues are considered serious when the ecosystem cannot recover in the present situation, and catastrophic if the ecosystem is projected to certainly collapse. Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment on the individual, organizational or governmental levels, for the benefit of both the environment and humans.
Overexploitation, also called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to replenish. The term applies to natural resources such as water aquifers, grazing pastures and forests, wild medicinal plants, fish stocks and other wildlife. In ecology, overexploitation describes one of the five main activities threatening global biodiversity.
Allowing companies to damage ecosystems and pay for restoration is unsuitable as a governance mechanism in the current biodiversity crisis, and is highly unlikely to restore genetic and functional biosphere integrity, At the same time, restoring previously ...
This document aims to help ensure consistent use of wellbeing in all work packages and activities of SWICE (Sustainable Wellbeing for the Individual and the Collectivity in the Energy transition). Sustainability is usually defined as a practice that “meets ...
SWICE (Sustainable Wellbeing for the Individual and the Collectivity in the Energy transition)2023
The provision of decent housing for all is a core sustainable development goal (SDG) and a fundamental human right. However, the construction sector is the world's largest consumer of raw materials, and 40% of global CO2 emissions are attributed to housing ...