Earth crosses seven planetary boundaries
The Earth system could be heading toward a tipping point: seven of the nine planetary boundaries have been breached — thresholds that should not be crossed in order to avoid irreversible effects — and they have never been further from the levels considered safe.
That is the warning issued by the Planetary Health Check 2026, an annual report launched in 2023 and led by Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), involving more than 60 researchers, CE Report quotes ANSA.
The number of breached boundaries reached seven last year. The latest addition was ocean acidification, which joined the already extensive list of climate change, biodiversity and ecosystem integrity decline, land-use change through deforestation and urbanization, disruption of the freshwater and nutrient cycles, and the introduction of human-made substances and materials such as plastics.
The only two indicators that have improved over the past decade, and therefore remain within the levels considered safe, are the thickness of the ozone layer surrounding the planet and the amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere.
“The diagnosis is unequivocal,” said Boris Sakschewski, who led the team responsible for the report.
“Pressure is increasing on every planetary boundary that is already outside the safe operating space. This means,” Sakschewski continued, “that the risk of large-scale, persistent and potentially irreversible changes is increasing, while our room for error in addressing these problems is shrinking.”
Photo: Chat GPT
