Chaotic Behaviour of the Earth System in the Anthropocene

Bernardini, Alex E.; Bertolami, Orfeu; Francisco, Frederico

doi:10.48550/arxiv.2204.08955

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Even the term poly-crisis (many parallel related problems) does not quite cut it. MTI peoples simply do not 'get' complexity; nor do they comprehend the lags, thresholds, and unpredictably discontinuous behaviours of overlapping complex systems under stress from overshoot [30]. This is crucially important if only because, while no major symptom of overshoot can be adequately addressed in isolation from the others, addressing overshoot directly would reduce all important symptoms simultaneously.…”

Section: Why Is Nobody Listening?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable

Rees

2023

World

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Homo sapiens has evolved to reproduce exponentially, expand geographically, and consume all available resources. For most of humanity’s evolutionary history, such expansionist tendencies have been countered by negative feedback. However, the scientific revolution and the use of fossil fuels reduced many forms of negative feedback, enabling us to realize our full potential for exponential growth. This natural capacity is being reinforced by growth-oriented neoliberal economics—nurture complements nature. Problem: the human enterprise is a ‘dissipative structure’ and sub-system of the ecosphere—it can grow and maintain itself only by consuming and dissipating available energy and resources extracted from its host system, the ecosphere, and discharging waste back into its host. The population increase from one to eight billion, and >100-fold expansion of real GWP in just two centuries on a finite planet, has thus propelled modern techno-industrial society into a state of advanced overshoot. We are consuming and polluting the biophysical basis of our own existence. Climate change is the best-known symptom of overshoot, but mainstream ‘solutions’ will actually accelerate climate disruption and worsen overshoot. Humanity is exhibiting the characteristic dynamics of a one-off population boom–bust cycle. The global economy will inevitably contract and humanity will suffer a major population ‘correction’ in this century.

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Section: Why Is Nobody Listening?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable

Rees

2023

World

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The appeal of the circular economy revisited: on track for transformative change or enabler of moral licensing?

Eickhoff

2024

Humanit Soc Sci Commun

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The proposal of an economy that is circular and without the need for material or energy input has an irresistible appeal to those who recognize the precautionary concept of planetary boundaries and acknowledge that resources are limited. Thus, in the public discourse, its narrative outperforms other lines of arguments when it comes to keeping radical critics of destructive extractivism and the growth imperative in check and averting discussion of degrowth, post-growth, or other systemic alternatives by larger segments of the population and government bodies. Moreover, the myth of a circular economy has the additional benefit that it can win over parts of the environmental movement that is apprehensive of radical and transformative change, particularly in the urban milieus of a middle class that enjoys the privileges of the current social order. In this paper, I argue that the circular economy narrative tends to hinder the necessary systemic transformation while entailing a wide range of specific measures that deserve to be recognized for their merit.

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Chaotic Behaviour of the Earth System in the Anthropocene

Cited by 2 publications

References 16 publications

The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable

The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable

The appeal of the circular economy revisited: on track for transformative change or enabler of moral licensing?

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