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Wolfgang Lucht

💥 And here you have it:

The new official "Planetary Boundaries" graphic!

👉 For the first time, all boundaries have been quantified
👉 The colour gradients are the same as in the IPCC's "Reasons for Concern", showing increasing risk, not just for climate heating but also other Earth system dimensions
👉 Scaling is logarithmic beyond each boundary

This is the update by the original authors: Johan Rockström, Will Steffen, Katherine Richardson - a group I was privileged to join with my team.

A complex figure showing the state of transgression in 9 planetary boundary dimensions, some subdivided. Six of nine are transgressed, some strongly. Scaling is logarithmic. A green space in the center shows the safe operating space for humanity, where Earth system resilience against human pressure would not be at risk.
Sep 13, 2023, 06:02 PM·Public·Tusky
290boosts·215favorites
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Georg Arne Spenden

@W_Lucht Is there a source with more explanatory legends?

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Thomas Bratananium

@W_Lucht this is major. i like the logarithmisch figure

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Wolfgang Lucht

@Bratananium
Glad to hear that! You wouldn't believe how long we discussed it ... whatever you do, it has pros and cons. For example, one can't compare the length of the wedges to each other, they each have their own topical metric (of how far that boundary has been transgressed). So we added these thin grey lines to indicate separation ... but I don't think many get that.

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Carly Sagan

@W_Lucht all the ones still in the green are about to be obliterated by the space industry just fyi

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Jens Daniel Müller

@W_Lucht Interesting update, Wolfgang. Thanks for sharing. I was surprised to see OA still being considered in the safe operating space. Would you mind sharing who is the topical expert of this assessment?

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Cat - One Creative Cat she/her

@W_Lucht
Thanks.
May I just say - the word "same" in the image description should be read as "safe" instead.
#AltText

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Lorenz Lorenz-Meyer

@W_Lucht Just a minor question I've already asked before, but received no decisive answers so far: What's the name for this type of 'wedgy' chart you are using here? TIA.

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Wolfgang Lucht

@lorenzlm
I don't think it has a commonly used name.

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ChookMother 🇦🇺🦘

@W_Lucht Not sure how to interpret it. Do the orange and red areas indicate stages we've already reached?

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Wolfgang Lucht

@anne_twain
Current status of control variables for all nine PBs. Green is the safe operating space (below the boundary). Yellow to red is the zone of increasing risk. Purple indicates the high-risk zone where interglacial Earth system conditions are transgressed with high confidence. Values for control variables are normalized so that the origin represents mean Holocene conditions and the planetary boundary lies at the same radius for all boundaries. Wedge lengths are scaled logarithmically.

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Paul Maidowski

Thanks @W_Lucht! What are the novel entities? - The paper mentions untested chemicals; spontaneously I thought an unprecedented phenomenon like "Living with Covid" (=systematically degrading people's immune systems or the human immunosphere over time) would fit as well.

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Dr. Jennifer

@W_Lucht Honestly I was not a fan of the first articles because of the lack of quantitative info - but this is really a big step toward showing the potential of the framework as a tool! I really like how the new “Novel Entities” category is integrated - & as someone working on system-based environmental impact theory this looks like if EIA were properly quantified they could be included by industrial sector ?

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Wolfgang Lucht

@ecology_revised
It's very much true that the scientific foundations on which the framework builds - from knowledge synthesis to observation to modelling - has to be substantially strengthened and deepened going forward. Where we are at present is not yet what we think is needed, and could be done. That requires a coordinated major initiative from science. We'll be announcing something on Monday.

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Wolfgang Lucht

@ecology_revised
I think this paper is the best description to date of how perhaps to downscale boundaries to territories, organisations, groups or people:
sustainableearthreviews.biomed

BioMed CentralThe Planetary Accounting Framework: a novel, quota-based approach to understanding the impacts of any scale of human activity in the context of the Planetary Boundaries - Sustainable Earth ReviewsBackground Human impacts on the environment are so great that we are at risk of changing the state of the planet from one that is hospitable to one that is hostile to humanity. Scientists have proposed nine Planetary Boundaries, global environmental limits within which the risk of changing the state of the planet is low, but already, four have been exceeded. Policy makers and scientists want to use the Planetary Boundaries as a tool for global environmental management. However, the Boundaries were intended as a gauge of the magnitude and urgency of the situation, not as a guide to resolving it. They are not easily applied to personal or policy action that is measurable or scalable. Here we show how the Planetary Boundaries can be translated into a framework for the management of the global environment, the Planetary Accounting Framework. Results The Planetary Accounting Framework is a new approach to environmental accounting in which environmental impacts are compared to global limits, the Planetary Quotas. The Planetary Quotas are limits for human activity, derived from the Planetary Boundaries. Each Quota is a limit for an “environmental currency” such as carbon dioxide emissions, or reforestation that can be scaled and compared to human activity using existing environmental assessment frameworks. The Quotas and Framework were developed by combining three key theories. Management theory shows that a multi-level, poly-scalar approach is needed to manage the global environment. Accounting theory highlights the importance of accounting against limits if a realistic approach to achieving change is sought. Environmental accounting theory demonstrates that there are different categories of indicators, and that only if indicators are uniformly in the pressure category can human activity be related to a limit and scaled accordingly. Conclusions The Planetary Accounting Framework shows how individual actions, strategies by firms, city level infrastructure, and national policies can be expressed in terms of the Planetary Boundaries. Decisions can now be made at different levels or sectors regarding policy, planning, technology, business operations, legislation, and behaviour in the context of global environmental limits. It enables the practical application and communication of the Planetary Boundaries to different scales of human activity. Additional file 1: Video abstract. (MP4 600 kb)
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Dr. Jennifer

@W_Lucht I’m looking forward to the news ! and thanks for the link I did not see that ref -

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