You are crossing the line!

Era: The Anthropocene

Location: Planet Earth

One of my favorite topics to research during my five years of architecture was to look at the evolution and analyze the existence of humans on earth. The fact that we have successfully managed to become our own geological epoch from simply being a resident on this planet fascinated me. So I would like to touch upon this topic in regard to sustainability.

Anthropocene is the era that we have entered into, an era that is only about us because we have dominated in every single way.

Q: So, what has this got to do with sustainability?

A: We, as a species, have single-handedly destabilized the entire living ecosystem of the Earth, disrupting cycles of biology, geology, earth systems, etc. to a point that we are facing a planetary crisis.

(Yay! Proud moment for us.)

Before we defined our own era and took over the world, we were in this era called 'Holocene'. So let me talk a bit about the Holocene and its relevance to the topic.

Holocene is the past 10 000 years when our planet was in a perfectly stable condition. This era is when modern civilizations develop as we know them. This is the period when we've had an extraordinarily stable climate, varying with only 1 degree Celsius up and down over the entire period. This is a period where we know the global carbon cycle, the global nitrogen and phosphorus cycle, all the biogeochemical processes that regulate the stability, which has enabled Earth to stay in the Holocene.

So the starting point of thinking around a recognition that the stable desired state of the planet is the Holocene. So researchers further started looking into the conditions of the Holocene. As in that makes our planet stay in the Holocene and what are the boundaries that we should not cross to stay in the Holocene. This is more like a reverse psychological process to figure out the solutions to the climate change crisis we are facing right now.

Below, I will mention 9 fundamental environmental processes that are key to regulating the resilience and stability of our desired state of the planet. These processes are crucial for the Earth to remain in a 'Holocene' like state, which is the most desired stable state for our planet. This concept of defining the biophysical processes of the Earth System that determine the self-regulating capacity of the planet is called 'Planetary Boundary'.

Planetary Boundaries

We often talk about setting boundaries for everything in our life, our relationships, our work, our personal time, etc. But did you ever know that even the planet we are living on has set its boundaries for us? Yes, you heard me the earth has its own boundaries within which we were supposed to operate and carry out our activities, but like any toxic relationship out there, we just chose to cross these boundaries.

So what are these boundaries and why do these boundaries matter?

This concept was proposed in 2009 by Stockholm Resilience Center, Stockholm University in their research. It aimed at defining a 'Safe operating space for humanity'. These are the 9 boundaries or the lines that we should not cross to keep our species alive on Earth without disrupting its balance.

So what are the nine thresholds that we should not transgress, which will be deleterious to humanity?

1. Stratospheric ozone depletion

2. Loss of biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss and extinctions)

3. Chemical pollution and the release of novel entities

4. Climate Change

5. Ocean acidification

6. Freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle

7. Land system change

8. Nitrogen and phosphorus flows to the biosphere and oceans

9. Atmospheric aerosol loading

The three large planetary boundaries with global scale tipping points: climate change, ocean acidification, and ozone depletion. These boundaries are categorized based on the continental and planetary thresholds.

Confused much? I know there are a lot of scientific jargons in there and for all the dummies out there like me, I have broken it down. Tune in for the next article to understand more about 'Planetary Boundaries'.