well, that was short-lived

The sky is falling.

Scientists are working to identify measures that can be used to determine safe (translation: livable) levels of activity in 10 planetary systems that are affected by human industry. Their findings are discussed in a Scientific American article titled, "Grappling with the Anthropocene".

They have announced the safety thresholds for 8 of these 10 systems.

We already fail 3 of them.

Earth System	Threshold Measure	Boundary	Current Level	Preindustrial
Climate Change	CO2 Concentration	350 ppm	387 ppm	280 ppm
Biodiversity Loss	Extinction Rate	10 pm	>100 pm*	0.1-one pm
Nitrogen Cycle	N2 Tonnage	35 mmt**	121 mmt	0
Phosphorous Cycle	Level in Ocean	11 mmt	8.5-9.5 mmt	–1 mmt
Ozone Layer	O3 Concentration	276 DU#	283 DU	290 DU
Ocean Acidification	Aragonite^^ Levels	2.75	2.90	3.44
Freshwater Usage	Consumption	4,000 km3^	2,600 km3	415 km3
Land Use Change	Cropland Conversion	15 km3	11.7 km3	Low
Aerosols	Soot Concentration	TBD	TBD	TBD
Chemical Pollution	TBD	TBD	TBD	TBD

*pm=per million
**mmt=millions of metric tons
#DU=dobson unit
^km3=cubic kilometers
^^Aragonite is a form of calcium carbonate. Measurement is in global mean saturation state.

(edit:) this photo from http://www.physorg.com/news172937155.html

Sometimes I read too much when I should instead be spending my time digging in the garden drinking blueberry lager.

I need a boyfriend.