A new study by an international team of 29 scientists from eight countries provides the third update to the planetary boundaries framework. The update shows how human activities are increasingly impacting our planet, thus augmenting the risk of triggering drastic changes in Earth’s overall conditions.

The nine planetary boundaries represent the limits within which humans can continue to thrive and develop.

“The planetary boundaries framework draws upon Earth system science,” the study said. “It identifies nine processes that are critical for maintaining the stability and resilience of Earth system as a whole. All are presently heavily perturbed by human activities. The framework aims to delineate and quantify levels of anthropogenic perturbation that, if respected, would allow Earth to remain in a ‘Holocene-like’ interglacial state. In such a state, global environmental functions and life-support systems remain similar to those experienced over the past ~10,000 years rather than changing into a state without analog in human history.”

The study found that two-thirds of the boundaries had already been breached, indicating the planet is entering dangerous, uncharted territory.

“This planetary boundaries framework update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity. Ocean acidification is close to being breached, while aerosol loading regionally exceeds the boundary. Stratospheric ozone levels have slightly recovered,” the study said.

Climate interacting with life on Earth has controlled our planet’s environmental conditions for more than three billion years, reported the University of Copenhagen. Human activities like altering water levels in soil and rivers, land-use changes, greenhouse gas emissions and the introduction of toxic chemicals into the environment have all had an influence on this delicate interplay.

“A world that develops within science defined boundaries is the only way to navigate our current situation with rising, potentially catastrophic risks, at the planetary scale. We already recognize this on climate, where the Paris agreement has adopted the climate planetary boundary of holding the 1.5°C limit. Similarly, the world has accepted the planetary boundary on biodiversity, when decided at the 2022 Montreal-Kunming COP15, to halt and reverse biodiversity loss on land and in the ocean,” said Johan Rockström, who is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, as well as the original proposer, in 2009, of the planetary boundaries framework, the University of Copenhagen reported.

It is essential that interactions within Earth’s system are maintained and respected so that they do not deviate much from those that have been in control of planetary conditions for the past several millenia. Otherwise, drastic changes could cause a decrease in the ability of the planet to support modern human civilizations.

“Our study shows that humans are appropriating the equivalent of ~30 % of the energy that was available to support biodiversity before the Industrial Revolution,” said Katherine Richardson, leader of the study, a professor at Globe Institute and leader of University of Copenhagen’s Sustainability Science Center, as reported by University of Copenhagen. “Surely, the removal of so much of the energy that otherwise would have been available to nature must be a driver of biodiversity loss. Therefore, we propose the adoption of Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP), i.e., biomass use, as one of two metrics when assessing human impacts on biodiversity.”

The nine planetary boundaries — climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, ocean acidification, freshwater use, land system change, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, chemical pollution and biodiversity loss — are environmental components that regulate the livability and stability of our planet for humans. Human activities have caused the breaching of safe levels that are affecting these components.

The planetary boundaries framework uses the most recent scientific knowledge of Earth’s system functioning to determine a “safe operating space” for humans and proposes limits to human activities’ impact on the planet’s essential processes.

In the study, measurements for all nine boundaries were presented. It was found that not only had six of them been transgressed, transgression was increasing for all of the boundaries except the degradation of Earth’s ozone layer.

“Crossing six boundaries in itself does not necessarily imply a disaster will ensue but it is a clear warning signal. We can regard it as we do our own blood pressure. A BP over 120/80 is not a guarantee of a heart attack but it increases the risk of one. Therefore, we try to bring it down. For our own — and our children’s — sakes we need to reduce the pressure on these six planetary boundaries,” Richardson said, as University of Copenhagen reported.

The researchers concluded that there needs to be more focus on interactions between boundaries.

“The Planetary Boundaries science provides a ‘guide for action’ if we truly want to secure prosperity and equity for all on Earth, and this goes well beyond climate only, requiring novel Earth system modeling and analysis, and systematic efforts to protect, recover and rebuild planetary resilience,” Rockström said.

The study, “Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries,” was published in the journal Science Advances.

“Hopefully, this new study will serve as a wake-up call for many and increase focus in the international community on the necessity of limiting our impacts on the planet in order to preserve and protect the Earth conditions that allow advanced human societies to flourish,” Richardson said.

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After years of protests by students, New York University has announced plans to divest from fossil fuels.

Chair of NYU’s Board of Trustees William R. Berkley stated the university’s commitment in August in a letter to student activist organization Sunrise NYU.

“New York University commits to avoid any direct investments in any company whose primary business is the exploration or extraction of fossil fuels, including all forms of coal, oil, and natural gas, and not to renew or seek out any dedicated private funds whose primary aim is to invest in the exploration or extraction of fossil fuels,” Berkley wrote, as reported by The Guardian.

One of the largest private universities in the country, NYU has an endowment of more than $5 billion. In the letter, Berkley highlighted other measures the university has taken to respond to the climate crisis, including its pledge to get to net zero by 2040 and goals for the reduction of food-related emissions.

In 2014, four percent — $139 million — of NYU’s endowment was invested in fossil fuels, according to university disclosures at the time. However, Berkley wrote the university does not have “direct ownership of public securities” in any fossil fuel companies now.

NYU spokesperson Joseph Tirella said the university’s divestment will apply to the biggest 200 fossil fuel companies.

“Sunrise NYU just won divestment at New York University! This is a huge win for climate justice!” Sunrise NYU wrote on X. “Congratulations to every student organizer who made this happen.”

The first time students launched a divestment campaign at NYU was in 2004, Common Dreams reported.

In 2015, the NYU Senate passed a resolution encouraging the endowment to divest, but it was rejected by the Board of Trustees.

Berkley’s recent letter followed a meeting in February between Sunrise NYU and the investments committee of the board of trustees, reported The Guardian.

“The board was very pleased with the tenor of its conversations with the students and the letter arose from those exchanges,” Tirella said, as The Guardian reported. “The University is glad to know the students were also pleased by the outcome of those conversations and by the letter.”

Berkley’s tune has changed since an open letter he penned in 2016 said the board did not agree that divestment would cut dependency on fossil fuels, and that the decision would be “disingenuous,” since they would still be being used on campus.

“It would be hard to make those arguments today,” said recent NYU graduate Dylan Wahbe, who is the co-founder of Sunrise NYU, as reported by The Guardian. “The global climate movement has done a great job at educating the world.”

There have been calls from activists to remove some of NYU’s board members, like CEO of BlackRock Larry Fink. BlackRock’s investments in fossil fuels have been publicly scrutinized.

According to Stand.earth, 1,596 institutions worldwide have divested from fossil fuels, 15.8 percent of which are educational institutions.

Some of the educational institutions in the U.S. that have already divested are Columbia University, Brown University, the University of Southern California, Boston University, Georgetown University, Middlebury College and Yale University, Inside Higher Ed reported.

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U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced $1.13 billion in competitive grants for tree planting projects around the country. The tree planting initiatives are meant to provide more relief from extreme heat, curb climate change and provide more green space in communities.

The funding, granted through the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry Program and made possible from Inflation Reduction Act investments, will be distributed across 385 selected grant proposals in all 50 states as well as Washington, DC and multiple U.S. Territories and Tribal Nations.

“These investments arrive as cities across the country experience record-breaking heatwaves that have grave impacts on public health, energy consumption, and overall well-being,” Vilsack said in a statement. “Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we are supporting communities in becoming more resilient to climate change and combating extreme heat with the cooling effects of increased urban tree canopy, while also supporting employment opportunities and professional training that will strengthen local economies.”

The selected projects address planting and maintaining trees and were selected from a total of 842 applications. 

By planting more trees in communities, the goal is to mitigate the extreme heat that many areas have experienced this summer. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, urban forests are an average of 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than areas with no tree cover.

“We believe we can create more resilient communities in terms of the impacts of climate,” Vilsack said, as reported by The Associated Press. “We think we can mitigate extreme heat incidents and events in many of the cities.”

There are both pros and cons to planting trees in the face of climate change. One study found that increasing tree cover to 30% in a city could prevent hundreds of heat-related deaths in the summer months. The New York State Department of Environmental Conversation noted that exposure to trees can alleviate stress, improve mood and lower blood pressure. Further, Yale Climate Connections reported that exposure to trees can also promote more movement and may result in improved immune system functioning and lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

But a recent report found that government and corporate climate pledges are overly optimistic on tree planting, and these efforts must complement other initiatives to curb climate change and its impacts.

Still, the winning proposals are expected to increase green space in communities, ultimately providing more access to nature and offering some relief from extreme heat.

“Today’s landmark funding from the U.S. Forest Service will increase urban access to nature, improve air quality, keep city streets cool during sweltering summers, tackle the climate crisis, and create safer, healthier communities in every corner of America,” John Podesta, senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, said in a statement. “That makes a huge difference for the grandmother who doesn’t have air conditioning, or the kid who has asthma, or the parent who works outside for ten hours a day. This investment will create not just greener cities — it will create healthier and more equitable cities.”

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Are you a crafter or an artist who likes to experiment with different materials? If…

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Though the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is best known for disaster response, it has emerged as perhaps the federal government’s most robust resource for preparing the country for the effects of a warming world. The agency has pumped billions of dollars into climate adaptation projects over the past few years, helping states and cities relocate flood-prone homes and harden infrastructure against wildfires. But the agency’s infrastructure programs have drawn criticism for disproportionately funneling money toward larger, wealthier, and whiter communities, leaving smaller and poorer jurisdictions without the money they need to adapt to worsening climate-driven disasters.

There are two big reasons for this funding gap. The first is that FEMA doles out adaptation money through competitive grant programs, which means that a local government needs significant funding and staff to put together an application that stands a chance of attracting federal dollars. The second is that federal law requires the agency to fund only those adaptation projects that pass what it calls a “benefit-cost analysis.” In other words, a city must prove that its proposed project prevents more damage than it costs to build. Big infrastructure projects like sea walls and stormwater pipes are much more likely to pencil out in dense cities with high property values than in smaller, low-income towns.

“We know we have work to do in this area,” said David Maurstad, a senior FEMA official, when he acknowledged the funding gap during congressional testimony on the subject last year.

This week, FEMA finally moved toward narrowing that gap. The agency announced a new loan program that will give states a total of $500 million to dole out to local governments in the form of low-interest loans for small-scale adaptation projects. This way, not only can local officials representing small towns, minor cities, and tribes skip the extensive application process associated with federal grants, but they also don’t have to justify their projects in cost-benefit terms.

“There’s large infrastructure projects that communities need to fund in order to adapt to the changing climate, but there’s often many small projects that need to get done as well,” said Victoria Salinas, FEMA’s associate administrator for resilience, in a press conference announcing the program on Tuesday. “The burden of getting a smaller project done that actually has a major impact on reducing human suffering is very high.”

The agency is piloting the program by sending $50 million in “seed capital” to seven states — Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia — as well as Washington, D.C. The states will get about $6 million each, and they’ll be able to loan that money out to smaller governments at interest rates of less than 1 percent. (The benchmark interest rate for mortgage and credit card lending in the U.S. is currently around 5.5 percent.) The local governments can use that money to buy out homes that are in the path of fire or flood, elevate streets, or repair water infrastructure. States will decide how long local governments will have to pay the loans back.

In Washington, D.C., officials are planning to loan money to pay for storm drain upgrades in a public housing complex that has faced frequent flooding. The District of Columbia has already received money to upgrade a stormwater pump station through FEMA’s other climate adaptation initiative, the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, but the new loan will help officials pursue projects that wouldn’t qualify for that grant money.

Because states themselves will be running the loan programs, rather than the federal government, borrowers won’t have to worry about following the extensive federal spending guidelines that often hamper adaptation projects, or about passing a strict cost-benefit analysis. Experts have criticized federal benefit-cost regulations for placing too much emphasis on property values and neglecting to consider intangible assets like community cohesion and cultural heritage.

Furthermore, the program is a “revolving” loan fund, meaning states can reuse FEMA’s seed capital over and over again. If a state gives a city a loan of $1 million and the city pays the loan back after five years, the state will then have just over $1 million to lend out somewhere else. The program doesn’t have an expiration date, which Salinas said makes it “a more durable source of financing” than the agency’s other grant programs. The loan interest rates are far lower than cities tend to pay for standard municipal bonds, so the risk of default is low.

Anna Weber, an adaptation policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the program could help fill the gaps in FEMA’s still-nascent effort to finance climate adaptation.

“The underlying way that we distribute funding for hazard mitigation currently serves to drive resources to places that already have resources,” she said. “There’s a lot of potential for this program to slot into this patchwork of funding in a way that fills in some gaps.”

Editor’s note: The Natural Resources Defense Council is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline FEMA rolls out climate adaptation loans for small and overlooked communities on Sep 14, 2023.

First aid kits typically contain single-use, disposable medical supplies that inevitably end up in landfills…

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How can we improve the carbon footprint of our yards and gardens? The traditional tools…

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More than 80 percent of the world is affected by light pollution. Humans have become so accustomed to not seeing stars in the city that, following a blackout caused by a 1984 earthquake in Los Angeles, people reported seeing a “giant silvery cloud,” which was in fact our own Milky Way galaxy showing up in the absence of artificial light.

It is well known that artificial light at night (ALAN) affects terrestrial lifeforms, from birds and moths to humans and their sleeping patterns. Now, a new study explores how light pollution affects entire coastal marine ecosystems, from corals and fish to whales and the plankton they eat.

“[L]ittle is known about effects of light on broad groups of marine taxa such as cetaceans, ecosystem-level effects, or interactive impacts of light and other anthropogenic stressors. Light is a key structuring factor of the marine environment and can therefore elicit immense downstream effects on marine organisms individually, at the population- or ecosystem-level,” the study said.

The study highlights important knowledge gaps in marine light pollution ecology and makes recommendations for management and research going forward.

“Sea creatures have evolved over millions of years to adapt to natural light intensity and patterns,” said lead author of the study Colleen Miller, who conducted the research as a doctoral student working in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, reported the Cornell Chronicle. “But now they face an ever-increasing flood of light from human development along the coasts and, except for a few case studies, we have a limited understanding about how it affects many species and entire ecosystems.”

The study, “A synthesis of the risks of marine light pollution across organismal and ecological scales,” was published in the journal Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems.

Natural light from the moon and stars, which is important to marine creatures and affects their behavior, feeding, hormonal cycles and reproduction, is easily obscured or even entirely blocked by artificial light.

“Artificial light at night is harmful to sea turtles in two ways,” Miller said, as the Cornell Chronicle reported. “Females trying to find a quiet dark spot to lay their eggs avoid light and may end up not coming ashore at all. Hatchlings head toward inland lights instead of moonlight on the water and then die of dehydration or starvation.”

LED lights make matters worse. Their usually shorter light wavelengths penetrate the water more deeply than older types of lighting.

“The blue light can actually penetrate right down to the seafloor,” said professor Tim Smyth, head of science for marine biogeochemistry and observations at the UK’s Plymouth Marine Laboratory and lead author of another study on ALAN’s disruption of marine habitats, as reported by Mongabay. “Certainly, when I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s, the cities were much more of an orange glow… I think if we go towards that kind of coloring of that spectrum again, that would be a positive step.”

Campaigns on the local state and regional levels to keep skies darker in order to help migrating birds have been helpful to coastal marine ecosystems near cities.

“We also need to look at artificial light at night on a broader scale,” Miller said, as the Cornell Chronicle reported. “We need much more data from a larger geographic area and over a broader range of organisms. We should be urgently concerned about how artificial light at night is affecting marine ecosystems.”

The use of more red light is another viable possibility, as it penetrates less deeply into the water. Barriers could also be placed along coastlines to block artificial light from cities.

“Light pollution is an urgent concern for marine ecosystems because marine organisms have tight relationships with their natural light environment. As the world moves deeper into the Anthropocene, assessing and mitigating the risks of this pollutant to key environmental and economic marine systems is critical to maintaining a healthy ocean,” the study said.

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