While this blog mostly focuses on climate change and the global energy transition, our civilization is facing so many other issues and the latest report from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) reminds us all of that.
As the press release notes :
A major new scientific review, “Planetary Health Check 2025”, shows that seven of nine planetary boundaries have now been exceeded. For the first time, this also includes the boundary for ocean acidification.
This means that several of Earth’s life-supporting systems risk crossing critical thresholds, with severe consequences for both ecosystems and societies.
The seven breached planetary boundaries are: Climate Change, Biosphere Integrity, Land System Change, Freshwater Use, Biogeochemical Flows, Novel Entities, and Ocean Acidification (new in 2025). All of these seven boundaries show worsening trends.
Only Ozone Depletion and Aerosol Loading remain in the safe zone.“We are witnessing widespread decline in the health of our planet. But this is not an inevitable outcome. The drop in aerosol pollution and healing of the ozone layer, shows that it is possible to turn the direction of global development. Even if the diagnosis is dire, the window of cure is still open. Failure is not inevitable; failure is a choice.
For those visual learners among us :
To learn out more about this, please read the official press release or the article by France 24. Both are well worth your time.
I just wish that at some point in the near future our elected representatives focused less on GDP and more on the actual wellbeing of their constituants and the environment on which we all depend. To do so, countries can start using alternatives to Gross Domestic Product such as Social Progress Index and more.
Likewise many if not most business leaders have been caring exclusively about this quarter’s profits. This short termism is both absolutely wrong from a shareholder view – cf my book review of The Shareholder Value Myth – and as it is absolutely and litterally destroying everything around us : both our societies and our environment suffer immensely.
Having blogged about all these topics for over 18 years now, I just can’t wait to see our communities repairing all the damage done in the past 70 years and start building a desirable future for our kids and for our older selves. If not now, when ?
