1 The Anthropocene: A Planet Under Pressure Will Steffen Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, and The Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden 1.1. The Nature of the Earth System ‘The advent of climate change, and the broader issue of global change (Steffen et al., 2004), has begun to alter humanity's perspective on the planet we evolved in and is now beginning to influence at the worldwide scale, To understand how humanity's role in the functioning of the Earth System (the term I use here to refer to the dynamic and systemic features of the global environment), a basic understanding of Earth history is essential, For most of its 4.6 billion-year history, life hhas been a feature of the Farth System and has wrought vast and significant changes to the planet's environment, including the atmos- phere. But, for contemporary issues, the past 60 million years or so are most relevant (Zalasiewiex etal, 2012). During that period. the Earth has cooled slowly from a much warmer state, the continents have migrated into their current positions and the great polar ice sheets have appeared from the earlier ice-free world ~ first the Antarctic ice sheets about 34 million years ago and then the northern hemisphere ice sheets, only about 1012 million years ago. Fully modern humans ~ Homo sapiens — are ‘a much more recent phenomenon: we are only about 200,000-250,000 years old as a species (Oppenheimer, 2004), and our hominid ances tors are only a few million years old. The period of the planet during which humans evolved is. called the late Quaternary; itis characterized by arich biodiversity dominated by mammals and a climate that oscillates in a strikingly regular pat- tern between long, cold ice ages and shorter, intervening warm periods (Petit et al, 1999: EPICA Community Members, 2004), The regular climatic pattern of the late Quaternary provides strong evidence that the Earth as a whole operates as a single complex. system, albeit a highly complex one. Many spe- cific features of the late Quaternary environ ‘ment support this perspective (Scheffer, 2009}: ©The two states of the late Quaternary are well defined, with the ice ages apparently the more stable state. © The oscillations between these states are exceptionally regular, with a periodicity of about 100,000 years through the past mil- lion years, and a periodicity of about 40,000 years before that. Thisis an example of ‘phase focking’, in which the internal dynamics of the Earth System are in synchronization with a regular, but weak, external forcing agent. In this case, regular variations in the Earth's orbit are the weak external forcing and the waxing and waning of the northern hemisphere ice sheets are probably the fea- ture of the Earth's internal dynamics that locks into various modes of the Farth’s orbit. ‘* Perhaps the most important feature of the Earth System is the ‘limit eycles’—that Is, as © CAB Intemational 2014. Climate Change and Global Health (ed. C.D. Butler) 12 W. Stetten the Barth cycle oscillates between ice ages and warm periods, the variation in tem- perature, greenhouse gas (GHG) concentra- tions and other features of the environment are tightly constrained between well-defined limits ‘* Feedbacks ~ both reinforcing (positive) and damping (negative) — are essential features of the complex Earth System in the late Quaternary. The two most important of these are: (i) the waxing and waning of the great northern hemisphere ice sheets, which change the reflectivity of the Earth's sur- face; and (i) the concentration of atmos- pheric GHGs, the most important of which 1s carbon dioxide (CO,). Both of these feed- backs significantly alter the energy balance at the Earth's surface and modulate the rather modest variations in incoming solar radiation 1.2. The Expani Human Enterprise For nearly all of our existence, the relationship between humans and the Earth System has essentially been one way: the features of the Barth System described above, and many modes of natural variability on finer spatial and tem- poral scales, have had significant influences, sometimes devastating ones, on the viability of human societies. But humans have operated under the planetary radar screen in terms of their influences back on to the functioning of the Earth System. Our activities may have had environmental impacts at local and sometimes even regional levels, but we did not have any appreciable influence on the functioning of the Earth System on the global level (Steffen et a., 2007, and references therein), ‘That benign relationship changed with the advent of the Industrial Revolution late in the 18th century, first in England and then else- where in Europe and the New World, The most. striking feature of the Industrial Revolution was the widespread use of fossil fuels, which broke through a long-standing bottleneck in the devel- ‘opment of the human enterprise. Until then, the extent and rate of activity of civilization was constrained tightly by the limits of animal muscle power — that is, the power of humans and their domesticated animals, augmented to a small extent by water power. Fossil fuels shat- tered that bottleneck The impacts of fossil fuel use were not con- ‘ined to their direct impact on energy production and transport. Arguably more important were the flow-on effects that a cheap and plentiful new energy source facilitated, together with science, governance and popular acceptance. ‘These effects included: (i) the capability to ‘fix lunreactive nitrogen from the atmosphere and to make it available to support food production: (G) the provision of fresh water in reliable ways to most human settlements; and (it) the design. and construction of much more effective sewage systems, leading to a great improvement in human health, These factors led to an explosion of the human population, and to their capability to produce and consume goods and services (McNeill, 2000; Hibbard etal, 2006; "The vast changes in the human enterprise since the Industrial Revolution are presented in Fig. 1.1. "The timescale begins at 1750, to cap- ture the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and continues to the beginning of the new millennium. The graphs encompass indicators not only of population and economic activity but also of resource use, communication, trans- port and globalization. One feature stands out strongly in the figures ~ the year 1950. In each ‘of the panels, the rate of increase rises sharply about that year, and there is no appreciable value at all for several of the indicators before 1950, This remarkable explosion of the human enterprise soon after the Second World War is sometimes called the ‘Great Acceleration’ (Hibbard etal, 2006). Many excellent narratives have been created to explain this 20th century phenomenon (e.g. MeNeill, 2000). and out of these, a few important drivers of the Great Acce!- ‘eration can be distilled (Hibbard eta, 2006): ‘© Global connectivity — people, finance and goods and services became much more con- nected around the globe as new technolo- gies in communications and transport built the foundation for what is now known as globalization, ‘© Neo-liberal economics ~ a free market eco- nomic system became dominant and, by the end of the 20th century, had achieved‘The Anthropacene: A Planet Under Pressure 3a Population Total real DP Foreign ree inves PEL PES Damming of rivers 1990 international Dollars (10°), oe 8 & 1998 US Dolars ‘eilion) CL LPL LS Water uee ssegeg CSP PES Fertiizer consumption % Bb8 _ PL ILLS Urban population OFF PES Paper consumption on) “ons (miion 28 8e88 Number (thousands) ‘agnzaunes PLP LPS CLELCLLES SELLS Transport: ‘Communication sar vnties co anon oor _isnaonal osm E 00 60 F soo. #8 sco. 200 ah, oP Pees Peo s oS SPOS Fig. 1.1. Increasing rates of change in several indicators of human activity since the beginning of the. Industrial Revolution Significant increases in the rates of change ofall indicators occur simultaneously around 1950, ushering in a period of dramatic and unprecedented change, often called the Great ‘Acceleration (Stetfen etal, 2004) (vhicn includes references to the original data for each of the 12 panels). (Reprinted with kind petmission of Springer Science+Business Media.) virtually complete coverage of the entire global economic system. The Bretton Woods Institutions, created following the Second ‘World War, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, played a key role in this trend. '* Armies of scientists and engineers—the war effort generated a large cadte of scientists andengineers, and this significant technical capacity was tapped by the civilian economy soon after hostilities had ceased, ‘The economic growth imperative—the need to rebuild economies after the devastation. of the Depression and Second World War led to a period of rapid growth and the embedding of continuous, strong economic growth as a core value of late 20th century societies,4 W. Stetten The post-1950 Great Acceleration was sup- ported by an abundance of natural resources, especially cheap fossil fuels such as petroleum and coal, and was driven almost entirely by the wealthy countries of the world, which repre sented no more than 20% of the human popu- lation, The first decade of the 2st century brought some changes to this pattern. The envi onmental contribution from wealthy count is now amplified by several rapidly industrial- ining economies, such as those of Brazil, Russia, India and China (the so-called BRIC countries), as well as South Africa and Indonesia, Furthe more, the era of abundant natural resources, especially cheap fossil fuels. seems to be coming rapidly to an end, with the concept of “peak 0 (eg, Sorrel et al, 2009) becoming the poster child for a growing array of resource constraints. 1.3 Global Change The Great Acceleration is an important phe- nomenon in terms of human history, but it has perhaps even greater significance for the his- tory of planet Earth. The imprint of the human enterprise on the environment can be seen at remarkably early times in our planetary exist ence, but almost always at local and regional levels only, As shown in Fig. 1.2, human a ities have recently become so pervasive that their imprint on the environment at the global level is obvious. The intertwining planetary- level changes in human activities and the environment is now often called ‘global change (eg, Steffen et al., 2004) Undoubtedly, the most well known of the changes depicted in Fig. 1.2 is that of the energy balance at the Earth's surface, resulting what is commonly known as ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming’. The warming of the Earth's surface is unequivocal, and there are many other associated changes in the climate system, ranging from alteration in the patterns of pre cipitation to a slowly but inexorably rising sea level (PCC, 2007), Although natural variability makes some aspects of climate change difficult to interpret, there is a high degree of scientific consensus that human activities, most notably the increase of GHGs in the atmosphere, are the primary cause of the temperature increase and associated climate changes we have experienced since the mid-20th century (IPCC, 2007) Perhaps most worrying is that the influence of, human-driven climate change can already be seen in the characteristics of some extreme cli- ‘matic events (IPCC, 2012), the aspect of climate that most directly and obviously affects human well-being. While much of the media attention has been focused on climate change, largely missing. from the public discourse is the fact that many other human-driven changes in the global envir~ onment are perhaps even more pronounced than climate change. A good example is the nitrogen cycle, which has been even more modified by human action than the carbon cycle (Galloway and Cowling, 2002). Currently human activities ~ the direct fixation of unre- active atmospheric nitrogen (N,) into reactive forms used primarily in fertilizers and the plant- ing of leguminous crops ~ fixes more nitrogen from the atmosphere than all of the natural ter- restrial fixation processes combined. In essetice human activities are inserting into the Earth System about 135 million tonnes (Mt) per annum of additional reactive nitrogen com- pounds (Galloway and Cowling, 2002). These then cascade through the environment as add- itional flows from the land to freshwater systems and the coastal seas, as a range of gaseous com- pounds that contribute to local air pollution and add to the GHG burden in the atmosphere, and as reactive compounds that slowly accumulate in the soil, ‘The loss of biodiversity (bottom right panel of Fig, 1.2) is another change to the planetary environment that can be attributed uneguivo: cally to human activities. This impact goes far beyond the loss of charismatic species, but also has implications for the provision of ecosystem services on which human. well-being depends (Cardinale. 2011). Iis estimated that the rate of species extinctions, as measured by extinctions of mammal, bird and amphibian species, is now 100-1000 times greater than the natural back: ground level, and is expected to rise by another factor of 10, at least by 2100, if present trends continue (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Ibis even possible that there is a planetary- level tipping point beyond which biodiversity loss will become so rapid and uncontrollable that the Earth may experience the sixth great extinction event in its history (Bamnosky et al, 2011).‘Tho Anthropocone: A PI lanat Under Pressure Atmosphere: 60, concentration NO concentration Atmosphere: CH, concentration — wr or pu ge iso ge 5 oo Eras Ste S 200 F 1000 o 270- 780: PLP ELE GCLPPLE LCLPLLE cima moar horas cin: st Sain ia uoetonccimgerae 4, oes ay ° ee des os § pom she i 4 hoon 8 £0. EB #20 ¥o i a 08 of PPPOE S “EPEPES BPEPES nat zr casts ze: cssmensuns gj, Sa vesestety gee]? aap 7 2 BE 22 fy i a @ Bt PLP ELE” CIE PIIS CL ELLS Teresi acon: “oes! cope sat top ars rato Sag monotone go, tomecalland global every ao) e°r BT gs 3 TF Sis a ay #0. s ge Bos 3 Bo 2 & CPP LL SE Pees Pe PPPS ES Fig. 1.2, Globally aggregated changes in the Earth System: 1750-2000, These result from the dramatic Increase in human activity shown in Fig. 1.1 (Steffen et al, 2004) (which includes references to the original data for each of the 12 panels). (Reprinted with kind permission of Springer Science-Business Mé Nowhere more than in land systems has the direct impact of human activities been apparent, as shown in the bottom left two panels of Fig. 1.2.'This is not surprising as humans, being terrestrial creatures, obtain most of their eco- system services from terrestrial ecosystems. The loss of tropical forests and woodlands has been a dominant feature of land-system change in the 20th century and has continued through the first decade of the 21st century. Overall, the human imprint on the Earth’s land surface is perhaps best summarized as the increase in ‘domesticated land’ that isin croplands and pas- ‘tures, at the expense of forests and other more natural land covers (bottom middle panel of Fig. 1.2)6 W. Stetten Methods have been developed to integrate the overall human impact on the global environ- ‘ment, One of them isthe application of the I= PAT identity (Holdren and Ehrlich, 1974), in which the overall impact (I) isa function of the agere- gation of the global population (P); their affluence (A), which is used as a proxy for con- sumption of goods and services; and the tech- nology (T) used to produce the goods and services. Not surprisingly, the global impact of the human enterprise shows a dramatic rise since 1950, in the Great Acceleration (Kolbert. 2011). While population increase is, indeed, a factor in grow- ing cnvironmental impact, it is not nearly as important as the increase in consumption per capita ‘A second method of estimating the aggre- gate global impact of humanity is the so-called global footprint analysis’, which estimates the area of land and ocean per person required to provide all of the resources needed to support each person's consumption and to absorb and process the wastes that are generated (Global Footprint Network, 2011). The country-by-country results are aggregated to give global total, which can be expressed as the number of planet Earths required to support the human enterprise, At present, that total is about 1.35 planets and rising, which implies that the human enterprise is now in overshoot, consuming more of the Earth's natural resources than can be replen. ished annually ~ that is, we are eating into the natural capital of the planet and thus reducing. its capacity to support future generations, 1.4 The Anthropocene: A Planetary Game Changer The ultimate consequence of the rapidly accel- erating suite of global changes was summar- ized by Nobel Laureate, Paul Crutzen, in the concept of the Anthropocene (Crutzen, 2002), a proposed new geological epoch in which the hhuman enterprise has become significant in com- parison to the great forces of nature. In essence, the arrival of the Anthropocene implies that the Earth is leaving its current geological epoch, the Holocene. Lasting now for over 10,000 years, the Holocene epoch is the most recent geological period in Earth history and has proven to be an exceptionally accommodating environment for human development. It was, ater all, during the Holocene that we developed agriculture, villages and cities, and the more complex civilizations, including the contemporary civilization we now know. ‘The arrival of the Anthropocene implies a profound shift in the human-environment rela- tionship at the global level, challenging the assumption that the Earth System will automat- ically continue to provide an accommodating environment for further human development. Our interaction with the Earth System has passed beyond a simple pressure-impact rela- tionship into one governed by the more chaotic, ‘unpredictable dynamics of complex systems. ‘We are learning rapidly about these com- plex system dynamics. An important advance in arth System science over recent decades has been the elucidation of a number of ‘tipping elements’ in the Earth System ~ critical regions for processes where small changes in driving variables can twigger abrupt changes in critical processes, with significant implications for the functioning of the whole Earth System (Plate 1; Schellahuber, 2002; Lenton et al, 2008: Richardson et al., 2011). ‘Tipping elements in the Earth System are basically of three types: 1. Those that involve the melting of ice, such as the loss of Arctic sea ice, the potential loss of ‘most or all of the Greenland ice sheet and large ‘emissions of methane from melting permafrost. 2. Changes in circulation, such as a shift in the behaviour of the South Asian monsoon, or a slowing or shutting down of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (i.e. the ‘Gulf Stream’) 3. Flips of major biomes from one state to another, such as the conversion of the Amazon basin from a tropical rainforest toa grassland or a savannah, Although much uncertainty surrounds the nature of these tipping elements, we know from the palaco-record that abrupt changes in all of them have occurred in the past and we are begin. ning to estimate where the tipping point might lie for some (Lenton etal, 2008), where the term tipping point refers to a threshold along an important controlling variable (such as tem- perature) beyond which the tipping element changes into a fundamentally different state‘The Anthropacene: A Planet Under Pressure 7 For example, based on expert judgement, it is highly likely that the threshold for loss of Arctic summertime sea ice has already been crossed, and there is a medium-to-high likelihood that the threshold for loss of the Greenland ice sheet may bbe crossed by 2100, By contrast, the likelihood of a significant slowing or shutting down of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation by 2100 Js judged to be low (Richardson et al, 2011), Returning now to the complex systems analysis outlined in Section 1.1 above, what are the ultimate implications of the modifications of the global environment by human activities? ‘Thatis, where is the Anthropocene going? Itis clear that the Earth as a whole oper- ates as a single complex system, oscillating between two well-defined states in the late Quaternary. Up to now, the assumption has been that, depending on the amount of GHG emissions, the climate will stabilize at a tempera. ture 2, 3, dor more degrees C above pre-industrial levels (IPCC, 2007), That is, the aggregate amount of emissions determines the final state of the climate system (Meinshausen et al, 2009). A complex systems perspective suggests that this may not be so. It is conceivable that there is a planctary-level threshold or tipping point beyond which the Earth System as a whole will move to a much warmer, stable, ice-free stale —a state that has existed for long periods in the past. This implies that a number of the indi vidual tipping elements shown in Plate 1, esp cially those that change the reflectivity (albedo) of the Earth's surface (mainly loss of ice), o: those that add significant amounts of GHGs to the atmosphere {methane outburst from permafrost), act in concert once a temperature threshold (or series of closely placed tempera- ture thresholds) is crossed and push the Earth System into a much warmer state. Once such a threshold(s) is crossed, there is nothing that humanity could do to prevent the transition. If there is such a tipping point, it is very unlikely to lie below a temperature rise of 2°C, ands much more likely to lie above arise of 4°C. (Richardson etal, 2011), 1.5 Challenges of the 21st Century Achieving sustainability, however that con- ceptis defined, is widely agreed to be the most fundamental challenge facing humanity in the 21st century, and will soon be formalized in the post-2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs) (UN, 2012). While attempting to bring the bulk of the world’s population out of poverty will remain at the core of the SDGs, there is a growing recognition that protecting the environment is not an optional extra but essential to support the ongoing human enterprise. This imperative is nowhere more profound than at the global level, where a destabilized and rapidly changing global envir onment would make sustainability at any other level very difficult or virtually impossible. Yet, this is the risk posed as humanity heads further into the Anthropocene, with no sign of slowing. There are two fundamentally different approaches to managing the human environment relationship in the Anthropocene, One aims actively to manage the Earth System, itself, steering it in ways perceived to be benefi- cial to humanity. Geo-engineering is a term often used for this approach, and reflects the dominant belief of the Great Acceleration, namely that humanity can now shape, steer and transform the environment to suit its own, purposes, ‘The most prominent example of geo- ‘engineering is the proposal to counteract GHG- induced warming by inserting aerosols into the stratosphere to scatter some of the incoming solar radiation and thus cool the planet (Roval Society, 2009). This approach, using simple ccause-eflect logic, ignores the complexity of Earth System dynamics. Injecting aerosols into the stratosphere would change rainfall patterns in ways that we cannot predict, would not coun- teract the rapid increase in ocean acidity caused by the dissolution of atmospheric CO, and would likely lead to other as yet unanticipated changes in Earth System dynamics The other approach is based on planetary stewardship. This is a fundamentally different philosophy aimed at reducing human pressure on the Barth System and allowing it to fane- tion with less interference. Stewardship is a basic human approach to respecting the integ- rity of the environment on which we depend, and is deeply rooted in our existence, found in all major religions and in indigenous cultures. It approaches humanity's relationship with8 W. Stetten the environment by managing human values and behaviour, rather than by attempting to control, manipulate, dominate and transform the environment to suit us. ‘The most prominent global-scale example of the stewardship philosophy is the plan- etary boundaries approach (Rockstrém et al 2009a,b), which recognizes that the Holocene is the only state of the Earth System that we Know for sure can support contemporary so- ciety. The approach aims to define a safe op ating space for humanity, allowing Earth System functioning to continue in a way that we know can support our continued develop- ment and well-being. In short, the approach recognizes that the Earth System has intrinsic, hard-wired properties and processes (e.g. tip- ping elements, Plate 1 and Section 1.4), many of which have thresholds beyond which abrupt, and/or irreversible change, detrimental to human well-being, can occur, These features form the basis for boundaries. Plate 2 summarizes the planetary bound: aries approach, showing the nine features and processes of the Earth System that are suffi- cient to define the state of the System. They are: climate change, ocean acidification, strato- spheric ozone depletion, the nitrogen and phos- phorus eycles, global freshwater use, change in land use, biodiversity loss, atmospheric aerosol loading and chemical pollution. The inner green circle defines the safe operating space — the set of boundaries that define a Holocene- like state of the Earth System. The red wedges show the current position of the human modi- fication of the process in relation to the boundary. We have already transgressed three of the boundaries — climate change. biodiversity loss and the nitrogen cycle. The climate change issue is already well known. Much less known. is the seriousness and urgency of the biodiver- sity crisis, At its most fundamental level, the genetic code embodied in biodiversity acts as a giant control panel, complete with its set of in-built redundancies and back-up systems, that guides biosphere functioning, in tun providing the range of ecosystem services on which we depend (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). In fact, without the bio sphere, the composition of the atmosphere would be vastly different than it is today, and the functioning of the Earth System as a whole would be significantly altered. The planet would be unrecognizable. Although there is, indeed, considerable redundancy and resili- cence in the Earth’s biosphere, it too has its intrinsic limits, and planetary-scale shifts are possible (Barnosky et al., 2011). Implementation of the planetary bound- aries approach has already generated criticism (e.g. Lewis, 2012). Perhaps the most common is based on the long-standing tension between development and environment; that is, setting environmental limits will constrain develop- ment and constrain the task of developing ‘countries to lift their populations from poverty e.g. Kosoy et al, 2012), However, arecent ana- lysis argues that, in fact, there are significant synergies ~ not conflicts ~ between respecting. the planetary boundaries and improving many aspects of social equity, including improving the material well-being of the poor in devel- oping countries (Steffen and Stafford Smith. 2013). The synergies are especially apparent for the so-called aggregated planctary bound- aries, such as those for the phosphorus and nitrogen evcles, land-use change and biodiver- sity loss. A transfer of resources or access to ‘ecosystem services from those areas of overuse (ie. the wealthy countries) to those that lack resources or services will simultaneously help keep Earth within the boundaries and improve social equity outcomes, Such analyses hold out hope for the future — that we can build an effective planetary stewardship regime while addressing the great inequities that still plague civilization. 1.6 Conclusion Confronting the Anthropocene is the most com- plex. difficult and important challenge that humanity has yet faced in its existence on Earth. Are we headed for a new era of sustainability and enhanced human well-being, or are we headed for environmental degradation, conflict and collapse? 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