Lunch and Learn: Planetary Boundaries
Jennifer Carrigan spoke on Planetary Boundaries at our May Lunch and Learn at Hi-Wire in Durham.
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Scroll through Jennifer’s presentation and see some of the things we chatted about below:
The 9 Planetary Boundaries:
Climate change: long-term change in the average weather patterns driven by human activities, particularly fossil fuel burning.
Biosphere integrity: biodiversity loss and species extinction
Stratospheric ozone depletion
Ocean acidification
Biogeochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles): mostly due to agriculture
Land-system change (for example, deforestation)
Freshwater use
Atmospheric aerosol loading (microscopic particles in the atmosphere that affect climate and living organisms)
Introduction of novel entities (like plastics)
Key Takeaways:
Climate Primacy is the idea that we are prioritizing addressing Climate Change (usually understood as reducing CO2 emissions), but missing the broader picture. The Planetary Boundaries help us understand the broader picture. There are other related areas that we need to be paying attention to as urgently as climate change.
Remember in the 90’s when we took action to save the ozone layer? We can see how that paid off in the Ozone Depletion and Aerosol Loading boundaries. We can make change when we put our minds to it!
Other Resources Shared:
Stockholm Resilience Center: https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html
Breaking Boundaries (Documentary on Netflix)
DeGrowth Conference in June (in Europe with online options)
Climate & social justice emergency film series with socioeconomic context and piratical next steps. Film #2 on slide 3 is a concise summary intro of the Boudaries.
Our better stories is a summary of resources organized to help orient folks quickly to what’s really going on.
