Entering the Anthropocene

Science indicates that although the Holocene is our desired state, we have moved into the Anthropocene. Human influence has constituted a force of change that is, in pace and magnitude, larger than the natural forces on the Earth. Professor Rockström introduces what he calls a 3-6-9 world, in which science indicates that we are moving towards 3 degrees of warming in this century, we are in the 6th mass extinction of species, and we are committed to a population of 9 billion people. Already we see the impacts of climate change in heat waves, extreme weather events, etc.; global changes now affect local conditions, and urban economic changes now affect complex changes in the Earth system. While carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have to stay within a very narrow band of +/- a few hundred ppm for Earth system safety, we have now moved far past that. We are now near (or past) a tipping point that could change life conditions on the Earth. This could have intense effects on health, as well as agriculture and climate.

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