Charles C. Mann Quote
Today the concept of global carrying capacity has evolved into the idea of planetary boundaries. The boundaries set the environmental terrain within which we expect that humanity can operate safely, a team of twenty-nine European and American scientists argued in an influential report from 2009. (It was updated in 2015.) To prevent non-linear, abrupt environmental change, they said, humankind must not transgress nine global limits. That is, people must not 1. use too much fresh water; 2. put too much nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer into the land; 3. overly deplete the protective ozone in the stratosphere; 4. change the acidity of the oceans too much; 5. use too much land for agriculture; 6. wipe out species too fast; 7. dump too many chemicals into ecosystems; 8. send too much soot into the air; and 9. put too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Today the concept of global carrying capacity has evolved into the idea of planetary boundaries. The boundaries set the environmental terrain within which we expect that humanity can operate safely, a team of twenty-nine European and American scientists argued in an influential report from 2009. (It was updated in 2015.) To prevent non-linear, abrupt environmental change, they said, humankind must not transgress nine global limits. That is, people must not 1. use too much fresh water; 2. put too much nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizer into the land; 3. overly deplete the protective ozone in the stratosphere; 4. change the acidity of the oceans too much; 5. use too much land for agriculture; 6. wipe out species too fast; 7. dump too many chemicals into ecosystems; 8. send too much soot into the air; and 9. put too much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
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