Article Synopsis
- The Earth system's stability is closely tied to human well-being, but their interconnections are often overlooked.
- Using models and literature review, the authors define safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for various environmental factors.
- Findings indicate that justice requirements are stricter than safety limits for climate and aerosols, highlighting that many existing ESBs have already been surpassed, underscoring the need for urgent action to protect global resources for everyone.
Video Abstracts
Category Ranking
98%
Total Visits
921
Avg Visit Duration
2 minutes
Citations
20
Article Abstract
The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked, yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently. Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintaining the resilience and stability of the Earth system (safe ESBs) and minimizing exposure to significant harm to humans from Earth system change (a necessary but not sufficient condition for justice). The stricter of the safe or just boundaries sets the integrated safe and just ESB. Our findings show that justice considerations constrain the integrated ESBs more than safety considerations for climate and atmospheric aerosol loading. Seven of eight globally quantified safe and just ESBs and at least two regional safe and just ESBs in over half of global land area are already exceeded. We propose that our assessment provides a quantitative foundation for safeguarding the global commons for all people now and into the future.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
|---|---|
| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10322705 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06083-8 | DOI Listing |
Publication Analysis
Top Keywords
Similar Publications
Investigation of the global translational response to oxidative stress in the model archaeon reveals untranslated small RNAs with ribosome occupancy.
mSphere
September 2025
Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Oxidative stress induces a wide range of cellular damage, often causing disease and cell death. While many organisms are susceptible to the effects of oxidative stress, haloarchaea have adapted to be highly resistant. Several aspects of the haloarchaeal oxidative stress response have been characterized; however, little is known about the impacts of oxidative stress at the translation level.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReproducibility of fixed-node diffusion Monte Carlo across diverse community codes: The case of water-methane dimer.
J Chem Phys
September 2025
Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom.
Fixed-node diffusion quantum Monte Carlo (FN-DMC) is a widely trusted many-body method for solving the Schrödinger equation, known for its reliable predictions of material and molecular properties. Furthermore, its excellent scalability with system complexity and near-perfect utilization of computational power make FN-DMC ideally positioned to leverage new advances in computing to address increasingly complex scientific problems. Even though the method is widely used as a computational gold standard, reproducibility across the numerous FN-DMC code implementations has yet to be demonstrated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTracing priming effects in palsa peat carbon dynamics using a stable isotope-assisted metabolomics approach.
Front Mol Biosci
August 2025
Department of Environmental Science, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, United States.
Introduction: Peatlands store up to a third of global soil carbon, and in high latitudes their litter inputs are increasing and changing in composition under climate change. Although litter significantly influences peatland carbon and nutrient dynamics by changing the overall lability of peatland organic matter, the physicochemical mechanisms of this impact-and thus its full scope-remain poorly understood.
Methods: We applied multimodal metabolomics (UPLC-HRMS, H NMR) paired with C Stable Isotope-Assisted Metabolomics (SIAM) to track litter carbon and its potential priming effects on both existing soil organic matter and carbon gas emissions.
Diverse marine species convert methylphosphonate to methane.
Mar Life Sci Technol
August 2025
Frontiers Science Center for Deep Ocean Multispheres and Earth System, and College of Marine Life Sciences, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003 China.
Unlabelled: Microbial degradation of methylphosphonate (MPn) is an important pathway contributing to the 'methane paradox' in the oxic ocean. spp. are suggested to participate in this process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdvancing ecological and environmental biology research.
Mar Life Sci Technol
August 2025
The Key Laboratory of Mariculture, Ministry of Education, Fisheries College, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, 266003 China.