juli 2023

Novel entities are defined as new substances, new forms of existing substances and modified life forms, including chemicals and other new types of engineered materials or organisms not previously known to the Earth system as well as naturally occurring elements (for example, heavy metals) mobilized by anthropogenic activities. Novel means new in the geological sense, that is, created, introduced, or recirculated by humans. The entities are intentionally and unintentionally manufactured chemicals, engineered materials, and their transformation products, that have the potential to cause effects on vital Earth System processes as well as naturally occurring elements and materials mobilized in new…

Oceans are a crucial regulator of the climate, absorbing large amounts of the additional planet-warming carbon that humans have pumped into the atmosphere since the mid-1800s, as well as more than 90 percent of the increased heat. Sea surface temperatures have risen significantly—hitting new records earlier this year—while warming is also melting ice sheets in polar regions, spilling huge quantities of freshwater into the ocean. The ocean covers 71 percent of the planet and holds 97 percent of its water, making the ocean a key factor in the storage and transfer of heat energy across the globe. The movement of…

“NOT ABOUT WHAT IS TO COME BUT WHAT IS ALREADY HAPPENING”. “THE CATASTROPHE IS THAT IT CONTINUE TO GO ON”. The Club of Rome commissioned the report The Limits to Growth in 1972 that shifted how we see what humans are doing to the planet. Looking back five decades later, what did we do and not do, what did we learn -if we did-, and what happens now? Humanity is not dealing with only a single-incident, non-interconnected local or regional crisis. Humanity is heading into a deteriorating and undeclared globalized emergency involving the collapse of its critical global survival and stability systems (such as the trespassing geobiophysical boundaries of…