1 – Introduction to Environmental Science & Plastic
Pollution
Environmental science = the aim to understand and predict the impact of anthropogenic stressors on
species and its environment.
By:
- Indentifying sustainability challenges.
- Sets boundaries conditions for these challenges
- Creating framework and analysis
“Beyond the Anthropocone” – Johan Rockström
5 decades exponential rise à now we need transformation to stability
The polar regions are the cooling systems for the earth, which absorbs a lot of sunlight (2 degrees
warming in the world, means 5 degrees warming in the arctic).
Holocene is a stable period, where the temperature fluctuates between +1,+2 degree Celsius (this is
small), people went from hunters and gathers to farmers.
1750 à industrial evolution, still linear graph, impacts on all the parameters like GHG emission,
overfishing, penicillin, etc.
In 1950 the great acceleration took place with a large population size à exponential rise starts.
Negative impacts for humanity, arctic ice melting, etc.
In the late 1980s the people saw that we reached the saturation points, scientists called the new
period; the Anthropocene.
The main message that scientists have now that the Earth has moved from the Holocene to the
Anthropocene: The Holocene is the only state we know that can support our modern world; other
states come with great risks.
Global tipping points
,The Paris Agreement:
The Earth’s temperature is allowed to only rise with 2 degrees Celsius more.
Even if we succeed with the Paris Agreement, it is still 2 degrees above the maximum value of the
Holocene.
The uncertainty range of the tipping points in the Paris Agreement (see first tipping points, they can
be affected even with the Paris Agreement).
In 50 years we tipped from the Holocene to the Anthropocene.
What we do next 50 years will determine next 10,000 years.
The Earth can go into three different states.
, Feedback loops/Reinforcement loops: ice-age or the ice-free state which keeps the degree at +1 or
+2 degree Celsius, or heated earth.
The range of maximal 2 degrees Celsius of global warming of the Paris Agreement is not necessarily a
safe range, because there is an overlay with the risk of some tipping points.
Planetary Boundaries (PBs) are boundaries in which it still is a safe operating space for humanity,
being in a manageable Holocene-like journey/state.
The two “core” PBs are climate change and biosphere integrity (earlier “biodiversity loss”), based on
their fundamental importance for the Earth system (ES). The reason for this is that staying below
these boundaries is fundamental for the stability and resilience of the Earth system.
The other planetary boundaries are: land-system change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows, and
atmospheric aerosol loading, stratospheric ozone depletion, novel entities, ocean acidification.
The peak in GHG emissions should be in 2020, after that the line should go down.
By 2050 we land use and fossil fuels should be 0.
Build/maintain new carbon sinks, in oceans and land/ecosystem sinks.
So, we need a carbon law.
The danger of inducing the tipping points of earth systems is that the Earth system transfers from a
linear to an exponential response.
The aim of the planetary boundary framework is to define a safe operating space for humanity for
the international community, including governments at all levels, international organizations, civil
society, the scientific community and the private sector, as a precondition for sustainable
development.
