Preface. This post has excerpts from the famous paper by Rockström et al (2009) as well as a more recent proposal by Running (2012) on an easier measure of how close we’re coming to rendering the planet uninhabitable. We have already exceeded 6 of the 9 boundaries: Richardson K et al (2023) Earth beyond 6 of 9 planetary boundaries. Science. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458
Not surprising that pollution is one of them given that the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), allowed 62,000 chemicals used in commerce to be “grandfathered in”, without being reviewed for safety or requiring companies to provide health or environmental safety data on them
The media almost exclusively focuses on climate change even though there eight other existential boundaries. Steffen et al (2015) has since then found that four of the nine are now breached: climate change, species loss, land-use change, and altered bio-geochemical cycles from overuse of fertilizers. The other five are ocean acidification, chemical pollution, atmospheric aerosol loading, global freshwater use, and the phosphorus cycle, summarized below.
Preface. This post is a book review of Be Wilson’s Swindled. From Poison Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee – The Dark History of the Food Cheats.
