Scientists present bold solution to climate change, biodiversity loss and social injustice

An international team of scientists led by researchers at Oregon State University has used a new 500-year-old dataset to define a “restorative” pathway by which humanity can avoid the worst ecological consequences and social issues of climate change.

In addition to charting a possible new path for society, the researchers say their “paradigm shift” plan can support climate modeling and debate by proposing a set of actions that place a strong emphasis on justice social and economic as well as environmental sustainability.

Oregon State’s William Ripple, former OSU postdoctoral researcher Christopher Wolf, and colleagues argue that their scenario should be included in climate models, alongside the five “shared socioeconomic pathways,” or SSP, used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“We understand that the proposed scenario may pose a major challenge to implement given current emissions trends, lack of political will and widespread social denial, but its merits cannot even be honestly debated if it’s not included in the set of options,’” ​​said Ripple, distinguished professor of ecology at the OSU College of Forestry.

“We make the case for radical incrementalism: achieving massive change through small, short-term steps. And we provide a much-needed contrast to many other climate scenarios, which might be more aligned with the status quo, which does not “It doesn’t work.”

Ripple and his co-authors from the United States, the Netherlands and Australia present their restorative path in a paper published in Environmental Research Letters. They say this pathway is inspired by a unique compilation of Earth system variables that vividly illustrate how humanity’s demand for resources has exploded since 1850, indicating ecological overshoot.

“The supporting data underscores the urgent need for action,” said Wolf, now a scientist at Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates, based in Corvallis. “Growth in human population, gross domestic product and energy consumption, which depend mainly on fossil fuels, has led to an extraordinary increase in greenhouse gas emissions, significantly changing land use and triggering a massive decline in biodiversity.”

The authors note that current climate change modeling relies on multiple assumptions and factors linked to policy options and societal developments. An international team of climate scientists, economists and energy system modelers developed the SSPs, which are used to derive greenhouse gas emissions scenarios under different policy packages that assume continued growth and significant increase in GDP until 2100.

“The SSPs describe plausible developments that would lead to different challenges in climate change mitigation and adaptation in the future,” Wolf said.

“They are based on five narratives that describe alternative socio-economic developments, some more sustainable than others. Our scenario focuses on reducing the consumption of primary resources to a level that keeps environmental pressures within planetary limits, with a stabilization of GDP per capita over time.”

Wolf, Ripple and their collaborators looked at a series of long-term variables: fossil fuel emissions, human population, GDP, land use, greenhouse gas concentrations, global temperature, vertebrate wildlife abundance, income inequality and meat production.

Collectively, the data paints a comprehensive picture of the profound changes Earth has undergone, say the authors, who include Jillian Gregg of Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates, Detlef P. van Vuuren of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and Manfred Lenzen of the University of Sydney.

“The income sharing variable dates back to 1820 and shows how the richest 10% have consistently received at least 50% of all income, illustrating global economic inequality over the long term,” Ripple said.

“The restorative path would represent a more equitable and resilient world, emphasizing the preservation of nature as a natural solution to climate; the well-being and quality of life of society; equality and high levels of education for girls and women, leading to low fertility rates and higher standards of living and a rapid transition to renewable energy.

Unlike some of the current shared socio-economic pathways, the reparative pathway does not rely on the development of carbon capture technologies, nor does it assume continued economic growth as SSPs do.

“By prioritizing large-scale societal change, the pathway we propose could limit warming much more effectively than pathways that support increasing resource consumption by rich countries,” Ripple said. “We aim to bend the curves of a wide range of planetary vital signs with a holistic vision to combat climate change, biodiversity loss and socio-economic injustice. Our work presents a case for how Humanity can embark on the journey to save the world from these environmental and social crises.”

In October 2023, Ripple, Wolf and 10 other American and international scientists published research in Biosciences which showed that Earth’s vital signs have deteriorated beyond anything humans have yet seen, to the point that life on the planet is in peril.

Ripple is also a co-author of another recent Biosciences article, which examines climate change and the associated biodiversity crisis from a cosmic perspective using “long-term planetary thinking,” he said.