Planetary Boundaries and Resilience

Student Worksheet

Introduction

The methods of analysis and the related debates about the limits to human growth and
consumption have become more focused on providing information to support global policy
decisions in the last decade or so.

One of the most often cited approach was developed in Sweden by NGOs like The Natural
Step and more recently by scholars at the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

A paper in the prestigious British science journal, Nature in 2009 summarizes this
approach. It is closely related to analysis presented in The Limits to Growth but advances
the discussion by combining resource and ecosystem limits in the selection and evaluation
of the 9 critical planetary boundaries. The Planetary Boundaries approach points to 3 key
areas where rapid policy initiatives are needed.

Assignment

Watch the TED Talk video and use the article linked below for additional detail and
explanation:

Steffen, W. Rockström, J. Costanza, R. 2011. How Defining Planetary Boundaries Can

Transform Our Approach to Growth . Solutions. Vol 2, No. 3. pp. - -
http://www.thesolutionsjournal.com/node/935

A TED Talk video presentation of provides a similar presentation of this information:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgqtrlixYR4#t=37

Questions:

1. What is the Halocene? Why do the authors and TED presenter refer to that period of
geological history as the time when our “ecosystem capital accumulated”? The Holocene
was Earth’s grace period. It was the stable period that supported human development and
technology. It was also a period in which global average temperature was considerably
stable. In Rockstrom, Steffen, and Costanza’s article, they wrote that the Holocene was a
phase of the last 12,000 years, during which we developed agriculture, villages, cities, and
contemporary civilizations.”

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 2. What is the quadruple squeeze that Dr. Rockstrom describes? In his TED Talk, Rockstrom
mentions that humans are “putting a ‘quadruple squeeze’ on this poor planet.” He said the
first pressure was population growth, but not just pertaining to numbers. He said that the
majority of environmental impacts have been caused by the rich minority of our planet.
The second pressure was climate change, in which average temperatures are exceeding to
unstable degrees. He said the third pressure was loss of ecosystems and decline in their
functions, with one of them being able to regulate long-term climate in our forests, land,
and biodiversity. The fourth pressure was “’the surprise dilemma,’ in which humans think
ecosystems live unpredictably and controllably in our linear systems, surprise is universal,
and that systems tip over very rapidly, abruptly, and often irreversibly.”

3. What is the Anthropocene? What evidence does Dr. Rockstrom offer for the
Anthropocene? When does he claim the Anthropocene begins? The Anthropocene is
viewed as the period during which human activity has begun to influence Earth’s climates,
environments, and ecosystems much more than they can provide humans with resources
and services. This period is being referred to as the recent “Age of Man.” In his TED Talk,
Rockstrom gives these pieces of evidence: rising atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentration, Northern Hemisphere temperatures, atmospheric dinitrogen oxide
concentration, atmospheric methane concentration, ozone depletion, loss of ocean
ecosystems, tropical rainforest and woodland loss, species extinctions, coastal zone
nitrogen flux, and land degradation. In the article, the authors wrote that the
Anthropocene period began around the 1800s with the Industrial Revolution.

4. Explain system tipping points (and also thresholds) and resilience using the diagrams
below:

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In his TED Talk, Rockstrom mentioned that “systems
have multiple states separated by thresholds.” The
thresholds in systems are levels of magnitude at which
sudden or rapid change occurs.
In the two diagrams to the left, the depths of the “cups”
are the resilience of the systems. The resilience of a
system is the ability to withstand a major disruption
within acceptable parameters and recover within an
acceptable time.
Under the pressure of climate change, erosion,
biodiversity loss, etc., a system’s resilience “cups” may
gradually loose depth but appear to be stable. In the
second diagram, the system shifts to a new state caused
by a trigger (a regime shift). This shift can cause a
system to end up in an undesired situation, in which a
new species takes over, and the system gets “locked” in
that state.
Image credit: L. Schmalbeck

5. What does Rockstrom claim is sustainable development and why is “redundancy” part of
the solution? He claimed that for humans to achieve sustainable development, there needs
to be shifts in their mindsets in their “persistence, transformability, and adaptability”
within Earth’s systems. He said humans need to start backcasting their future and ask
themselves, “What are the planetary limits where we can safely operate in?” From there,
Rockstrom said that humans can then begin to backtrack their contributions toward a
desired future. He also said that “redundancy” is part of this solution because it will help
countries conserve more resources.

6. What is the planetary boundary framework? What are the components in the framework?
In the article, the authors wrote that this framework “emphasizes the Earth as a complex
system.” At a global scale, these “boundaries” focused on in this are points in environment
beyond which human activity should not go to risk approaching dangerous or potentially
dangerous thresholds in the Earth’s systems. Nine specific “boundaries” or components
make up this framework: climate change; loss of biodiversity; excess nitrogen and
phosphorous pollution, which pollute soils, waters, etc.; stratospheric ozone depletion;

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 ocean acidification; global consumption of freshwater; change in land use for agriculture;
air pollution; and chemical pollution.

7. How does the planetary framework blend the approaches used in World3 and the
Ecological Footprint? Blending the approaches used in both frameworks, the planetary
boundary approach to sustainable development mainly focuses on measuring humans’
rising demand for Earth’s resources and their impacts on environments and ecosystems
with respect to Earth’s biocapacity over time. These measurements are based on
population growth and consumption, and this helps countries to develop better policies to
conserve natural resources. While these are all strong approaches, there are still too many
“unknowns” to fully predict human behavior and how humans can and/or will choose to
change to avoid an unpleasant future.

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Copyright 2012. North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. .
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