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The Holocene, the Anthropocene, and the Planetary Boundaries

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Planetary Accounting

Abstract

People have been trying to determine environmental limits for the planet since as early as the 1600s. However, this task is inherently difficult as it requires a high level of value judgement. Assumptions regarding lifestyle, technology, and population underpin most past attempts to determine planetary limits.

The Holocene is the period of time that started 11,650 years ago. This is only a small fraction of human history which can be traced back 300,000 years. Prior to the Holocene, the climate was highly variable. Humans lived as hunter-gatherers moving from place to place to survive. The Holocene was an unusually stable and warm period in human history. In this nurturing environment, humans developed from hunter-gatherers to urban and agricultural settled societies. The Holocene is the only state in which we know humanity can thrive with anything like the 7.5 billion humans being supported today.

We have now left the Holocene and are in the transition to the Anthropocene. This new geological epoch was named to acknowledge human influence on the state of the planet. The state of the planet in the Anthropocene is not yet determined, but at current trends in human activity, predictions are for a much hotter and less stable climate, a “hot-house Earth” scenario.

In 2009, the Planetary Boundaries were proposed. These are environmental limits for the planet within which the climate and other environmental conditions in the Anthropocene are likely to resemble those of the Holocene. There are no assumptions regarding lifestyle, technology, or population underpinning the Planetary Boundaries. The limits are based on the latest scientific understanding of the planet’s environmental processes. At least four of the Planetary Boundaries have been exceeded.

It would be prudent for humans to try to return to and operate within the Planetary Boundaries so that the risk is low of changing the state of the planet from a Holocene-like state which is favourable to humanity and especially to the kind of civilization based on cities and agriculture, to one where substantial collapse of the population is likely.

There is no planet B

Richard Branson

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  1. The Planetary Accounting Network, Auckland, New Zealand

    Kate Meyer

  2. Curtin University, Western Australia, WA, Australia

    Peter Newman

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Meyer, K., Newman, P. (2020). The Holocene, the Anthropocene, and the Planetary Boundaries. In: Planetary Accounting. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1443-2_3

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