“We are playing with fire”: with chemical pollution, the Earth is about to cross a “planetary limit”

In 2009, a scientific team determined nine critical levels that should not be exceeded in order to preserve the viability of our environment. Four are already beyond the precautionary threshold. And that concerning chemical pollution has reached such a level that scientists are sounding the alarm.

Global warming, loss of biodiversity, ocean acidification. Did you know that we are talking about “planetary boundaries” here? Conceptualized by a team of Swedish scientists in 2009, these define the critical thresholds not to be exceeded, at the risk of irreversibly unbalancing the Earth system. And to expose all of life to a global collapse. Of these nine limits, four have already been crossed. A fifth is on the way: the introduction of“new entities” in the biosphere. Understand, chemical pollution on such an unprecedented scale that its incalculable destructive effects escape scientific knowledge.

Doctor of Earth and Environmental Sciences and co-author of the book Planetary Boundaries (with Natasha Gondrand, ed. la Découverte), Aurélien Boutaud deciphers for Liberation che points of no return that humanity has crossed. And those she could pass shortly.

What are “planetary boundaries”?

These nine limits are in fact the variables that are essential to the proper functioning of our ecosystem, but which are disrupted by human activity. Eight are quite specific: we talk about global warming,…