Humans may be driving Earth toward catastrophe

JUN 07, 2012

Physics Today

Chronicle of Higher Education : Earth is fast approaching a critical state, according to an interdisciplinary team of 22 biologists, ecologists, geologists, paleontologists, and complex-systems theoreticians. In their report published yesterday in Nature, the scientists discuss the ever-increasing dominance of humans and the alarming rate at which we are transforming the planet’s land surface, from what was forest and prairies to agricultural fields and parking lots. The result has been an increasing rate of species extinctions, extreme climate fluctuations, and other potential threats to the planet. If humans continue as they have, warns the report, the planet could reach a “tipping point” beyond which recovery will be impossible and “widespread social unrest, economic instability and loss of human life could result.”