I Know You Don't Want to Hear This. I'll Keep It Brief.


How did we screw up this planet, our one and only, so thoroughly in just one lifetime?

No, this isn't about greenhouse gases or global warming. It's about a new study looking at chemical contamination, a different sort of tipping point. 

From The Guardian:

The study concludes that chemical pollution has crossed a “planetary boundary”, the point at which human-made changes to the Earth push it outside the stable environment of the last 10,000 years.

Chemical pollution threatens Earth’s systems by damaging the biological and physical processes that underpin all life. For example, pesticides wipe out many non-target insects, which are fundamental to all ecosystems and, therefore, to the provision of clean air, water and food.

“There has been a fiftyfold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950 and this is projected to triple again by 2050,” said Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez, a PhD candidate and research assistant at the Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) who was part of the study team. “The pace that societies are producing and releasing new chemicals into the environment is not consistent with staying within a safe operating space for humanity.”


Breaching a Planetary Boundary.

“There’s evidence that things are pointing in the wrong direction every step of the way,” said Prof Bethanie Carney Almroth at the University of Gothenburg who was part of the team. “For example, the total mass of plastics now exceeds the total mass of all living mammals. That to me is a pretty clear indication that we’ve crossed a boundary. We’re in trouble, but there are things we can do to reverse some of this.”

Villarrubia-Gómez said: “Shifting to a circular economy is really important. That means changing materials and products so they can be reused, not wasted.”

The researchers said stronger regulation was needed and in the future a fixed cap on chemical production and release, in the same way carbon targets aim to end greenhouse gas emissions.

The Swiss, meanwhile, are expected to bring a motion before the General Assembly next month for the creation of a science policy panel, along the lines of the IPCC, to  "connect the scientific community and policy-makers and establish consensus on the issues of managing chemical pollution and waste."

Comments

  1. lungtaJanuary 19, 2022 at 11:02 AM

    10 years ago there was an article that i have quoted in conversation many times.
    Basically the recognition of the 50 millionth chemical patent being registered .
    Millions of tons of prescription drugs that cannot be filtered out enter the water system every day
    There are so many "planetary boundaries " crossed and "tipping points" reached and "points of no return" passed and each one by themselves is lethal but like the chemicals; in combination , totally unpredictable.

    ReplyDelete

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