Human Impacts on Planetary Boundaries Amplified by Earth System Interactions

The authors examine a critical shortcoming of the planetary boundary framework for sustainability governance: it currently fails to represent how impacts related to one planetary boundary affect the status of others. By surveying and provisionally quantifying interactions between the Earth system processes represented by the planetary boundaries, they identify a dense network of interactions and the cascades and feedbacks that result from it. They find that these cascades and feedbacks predominantly amplify human impacts on the Earth system, thereby shrinking the safe operating space for future human impacts. The authors conclude that an integrated understanding of Earth system dynamics is critical to navigating towards a sustainable future.