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Global change in broad sense refers to planetary-scale changes in the
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
system. It is most commonly use to encompass the variety of changes connected to the rapid increase in human activities which started around mid-
20th century The 20th (twentieth) century began on January 1, 1901 ( MCMI), and ended on December 31, 2000 ( MM). The 20th century was dominated by significant events that defined the modern era: Spanish flu pandemic, World War I and World War II, nuclear ...
, i.e. the Great Acceleration. While the concept stems from research on the
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
, it is used to adopt a more
holistic Holism () is the idea that various systems (e.g. physical, biological, social) should be viewed as wholes, not merely as a collection of parts. The term "holism" was coined by Jan Smuts in his 1926 book '' Holism and Evolution''."holism, n." OED On ...
view on the observed changes. Global change refers to the changes of the
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...
system, treated in its entirety with interacting physicochemical and biological components as well as the impact
human Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
societies A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...
have on the components and ''vice versa''. Therefore, the changes are studied through means of
Earth system science Earth system science (ESS) is the application of systems science to the Earth. In particular, it considers interactions and 'feedbacks', through material and energy fluxes, between the Earth's sub-systems' cycles, processes and "spheres"— atmo ...
.


History of global-change research

The first global efforts to address the environmental impact of human activities on the environments worldwide date before the concept of global change was introduced. Most notably, in 1972
United Nations Conference on the Human Environment The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, Sweden, from June 5–16 in 1972. When the United Nations General Assembly decided to convene the 1972 Stockholm Conference, taking up the offer of the Government of S ...
was held in
Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...
, which led to
United Nations Environment Programme The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...
. While the efforts were global and the effects across the globe were considered, the Earth system approach was not yet developed at this time. The events, however, started a chain of events that led to the emergence of the field of global change research. The concept of global change was coined as researchers investigating climate change started that not only the climate but also other components of the Earth system change at a rapid pace, which can be contributed to human activities and follow dynamics similar to many societal changes. It has its origins in the
World Climate Research Programme The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) is an international programme that helps to coordinate global climate research. The WCRP was established in 1980, under the joint sponsorship of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the Inter ...
, or WCRP, an international program under the leadership of Peter Bolin, which at the time of its establishment in 1980 focused on determining if the climate is changing, can it be predicted and do humans cause the change. The first results not only confirmed human impact but led to the realisation of a larger phenomenon of global change. Subsequently Peter Bolin together with James McCarthy,
Paul Crutzen Paul Jozef Crutzen (; 3 December 1933 – 28 January 2021) was a Dutch meteorologist and atmospheric chemist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his work on atmospheric chemistry and specifically for his efforts in studying ...
,
Hans Oeschger Hans Oeschger (2 April 1927, Ottenbach, Switzerland, Ottenbach – 25 December 1998, Bern) was a Swiss climatologist. He founded the Division of Climate and Environmental Physics at the Physics Institute of the University of Bern in 1963 and was ...
and others started
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) was a research programme that ran from 1987 to 2015 dedicated to studying the phenomenon of global change. Its primary focus was coordinating "international research on global-scale and regio ...
, or IGBP, under the sponsorship of International Council for Science. In 2001, in Amsterdam, a conference was held focused around the four major global-change research programmes at the time: WCRP, IGBP,
International Human Dimensions Programme The International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) was a research programme that studied the human and societal aspects of the phenomenon of global change. IHDP aimed to frame, develop and integrate social science ...
(IHDP) and Diversitas (now continued as
Future Earth Future Earth is an international research program which aims to build knowledge about the environmental and human aspects of Global change, and to find solutions for sustainable development. It aims to increase the impact of scientific research o ...
). The conference was titled ''Challenges of a Changing Earth: Global Change Open Science Conference'' and was concluded with ''The Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change'', best summarized in its first paragraph:


Causes

In the past, the main drivers of planetary-scale changes have been
solar variation The solar cycle, also known as the solar magnetic activity cycle, sunspot cycle, or Schwabe cycle, is a nearly periodic 11-year change in the Sun's activity measured in terms of variations in the number of observed sunspots on the Sun's surfa ...
,
plate tectonics Plate tectonics (from the la, label=Late Latin, tectonicus, from the grc, τεκτονικός, lit=pertaining to building) is the generally accepted scientific theory that considers the Earth's lithosphere to comprise a number of large ...
,
volcanism Volcanism, vulcanism or volcanicity is the phenomenon of eruption of molten rock (magma) onto the surface of the Earth or a solid-surface planet or moon, where lava, pyroclastics, and volcanic gases erupt through a break in the surface called ...
, proliferation and abatement of
life Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
,
meteorite A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the ...
impact,
resource depletion Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources (see also mineral resource classification). Use of either ...
, changes in Earth's orbit around the sun, and changes in the tilt of Earth on its axis. There is overwhelming evidence that now the main driver of the global change is the growing human population's demand for resources; some experts and scientists have described this phenomenon as the anthropocene epoch. In the last 250 years, human-caused change has accelerated and caused
climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
, widespread species extinctions, fish-stock collapse,
desertification Desertification is a type of land degradation in drylands in which biological productivity is lost due to natural processes or induced by human activities whereby fertile areas become increasingly arid. It is the spread of arid areas caused by ...
,
ocean acidification Ocean acidification is the reduction in the pH value of the Earth’s ocean. Between 1751 and 2021, the average pH value of the ocean surface has decreased from approximately 8.25 to 8.14. The root cause of ocean acidification is carbon dioxid ...
,
ozone depletion Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's atmosphere, and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone (the ozone l ...
,
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
, and other large-scale shifts. Scientists working on the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme have said that Earth is now operating in a "no analogue" state. Measurements of Earth system processes, past and present, have led to the conclusion that the planet has moved well outside the range of natural variability in the last half million years at least. ''
Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
'' have been around for about 200,000 years.


Physical evidence

Humans have always altered their environment. The advent of agriculture around 10,000 years ago led to a radical change in land use that still continues. But, the relatively small human population had little impact on a global scale until the start of the
industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
in 1750. This event, followed by the invention of the
Haber-Bosch The Haber process, also called the Haber–Bosch process, is an artificial nitrogen fixation process and is the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia today. It is named after its inventors, the German chemists Fritz Haber and C ...
process in 1909, which allowed large-scale manufacture of
fertilizers A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
, led directly to rapid changes to many of the planet's most important physical, chemical and biological processes. The 1950s marked a shift in gear: global change began accelerating. Between 1950 and 2010, the population more than doubled. In that time, rapid expansion of international trade coupled with upsurges in capital flows and new technologies, particularly information and communication technologies, led to national economies becoming more fully integrated. There was a tenfold increase in economic activity and the world's
human population Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
became more tightly connected than ever before. The period saw sixfold increases in water use and river damming. About 70 percent of the world's
freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...
resource is now used for agriculture. This rises to 90 percent in India and China. Half of the Earth's land surface had now been domesticated. By 2010, urban population, for the first time, exceeded rural population. And there has been a fivefold increase in fertilizer use. Indeed, manufactured reactive nitrogen from fertilizer production and industry now exceeds global terrestrial production of reactive nitrogen. Without artificial fertilizers there would not be enough food to sustain a population of seven billion people. These changes to the human sub-system have a direct influence on all components of the Earth system. The chemical composition of the atmosphere has changed significantly. Concentrations of important
greenhouse gases A greenhouse gas (GHG or GhG) is a gas that absorbs and emits radiant energy within the thermal infrared range, causing the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are water vapor (), carbon dioxide (), methane ...
,
carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...
,
methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...
and
nitrous oxide Nitrous oxide (dinitrogen oxide or dinitrogen monoxide), commonly known as laughing gas, nitrous, or nos, is a chemical compound, an oxide of nitrogen with the formula . At room temperature, it is a colourless non-flammable gas, and has a ...
are rising fast. Over
Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...
a large hole in the ozone layer appeared. Fisheries collapsed: most of the world's fisheries are now fully or over-exploited. Thirty percent of tropical
rainforests Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainforest ...
disappeared. In 2000, Nobel prize-winning scientist
Paul Crutzen Paul Jozef Crutzen (; 3 December 1933 – 28 January 2021) was a Dutch meteorologist and atmospheric chemist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his work on atmospheric chemistry and specifically for his efforts in studying ...
announced the scale of change is so great that in just 250 years, human society has pushed the planet into a new geological era: the
Anthropocene The Anthropocene ( ) is a proposed geological epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change. , neither the International Commissio ...
. This name has stuck and there are calls for the Anthropocene to be adopted officially. If it is, it may be the shortest of all geological eras. Evidence suggests that if human activities continue to change components of the Earth system, which are all interlinked, this could heave the Earth system out of one state and into a new state.


Society

Global change in a societal context encompasses social, cultural, technological, political, economic and legal change. Terms closely related to global change and society are globalization and global integration. Globalization began with long-distance trade and
urbanism Urbanism is the study of how inhabitants of urban areas, such as towns and cities, interact with the built environment. It is a direct component of disciplines such as urban planning, which is the profession focusing on the physical design and ...
. The first record of long distance trading routes is in the third millennium BC. Sumerians in
Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...
traded with settlers in the Indus Valley, in modern-day India. Since 1750, but more significantly, since the 1950s, global integration has accelerated. This era has witnessed incredible global changes in communications, transportation, and computer technology. Ideas,
cultures Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...
, people, goods, services and money move around the planet with ease. This new global interconnectedness and free flow of information has radically altered notions of other cultures,
conflicts Conflict may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Conflict'' (1921 film), an American silent film directed by Stuart Paton * ''Conflict'' (1936 film), an American boxing film starring John Wayne * ''Conflict'' (1937 film) ...
, religions and
taboos A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
. Now, social movements can and do form at a planetary scale. Evidence, if more were needed, of the link between social and environmental global change came with the 2008-2009 global
financial crisis A financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and man ...
. The crisis pushed the planet's main economic powerhouses, the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and much of
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
into recession. According to the
Global Carbon Project The Global Carbon Project (GCP) is an organisation that seeks to quantify global greenhouse gas emissions and their causes. Established in 2001, its projects include global budgets for three dominant greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (), methan ...
, global atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide fell from an annual growth rate of around 3.4% between 2000 and 2008, to a growth rate of about 2% in 2008.


Planetary management

Humans are altering the planet's biogeochemical cycles in a largely unregulated way with limited knowledge of the consequences. Without steps to effectively manage the Earth system – the planet's physical, chemical, biological and social components – it is likely there will be severe impacts on people and ecosystems. Perhaps the largest concern is that a component of the Earth system, for example, an
ocean circulation An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours, ...
, the
Amazon rainforest The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...
, or
Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...
sea ice, will reach a tipping point and flip from its current state to another state: flowing to not flowing, rainforest to
savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...
, or ice to no ice. A
domino effect A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect generated when a particular event triggers a chain of similar events. This term is best known as a mechanical effect and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically ...
could ensue with other components of the Earth system changing state rapidly. Intensive research over the last 20 years has shown that tipping points do exist in the Earth system, and wide-scale change can be rapid – a matter of decades. Potential tipping points have been identified and attempts have been made to quantify thresholds. But to date, the best efforts can only identify loosely defined "
planetary boundaries Planetary boundaries is a concept highlighting human-caused perturbations of Earth systems making them relevant in a way not accommodated by the environmental boundaries separating the three ages within the Holocene epoch. Crossing a planetary ...
" beyond which tipping points exist but their precise locations remain elusive. There have been calls for a better way to manage the environment on a planetary scale, sometimes referred to as managing "Earth's life support system". The
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
was formed to stop wars and provide a platform for dialogue between countries. It was not created to avoid major environmental catastrophe on regional or global scales. But several international environmental conventions exist under the UN, including the
Framework Convention on Climate Change The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in th ...
,
Montreal Protocol The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed sinc ...
,
Convention to Combat Desertification The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa (UNCCD) is a Convention to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought throug ...
, and
Convention on Biological Diversity The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is a multilateral treaty. The Convention has three main goals: the conservation of biological diversity (or biodiversity); the sustainable use of its ...
. Additionally, the UN has two bodies charged with coordinating environmental and development activities, the
United Nations Environment Programme The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on th ...
(UNEP) and the
United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...
(UNDP). In 2004, the IGBP published "Global Change and the Earth System, a planet under pressure." The publication's executive summary concluded: "An overall, comprehensive, internally consistent strategy for stewardship of the Earth system is required". It stated that a research goal is to define and maintain a stable equilibrium in the global environment. In 2007, France called for UNEP to be replaced by a new and more powerful organization called the "
United Nations Environment Organization Proposals for the creation of a United Nations Environmental Organization (UNEO) have come as some question the efficacy of the current United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at dealing with the scope of global environmental issues. Created to ...
". The rationale was that UNEP's status as a "programme", rather than an "organization" in the tradition of the
World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...
or the
World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Internati ...
, weakened it to the extent that it was no longer fit for purpose given current knowledge of the state of the planet.


See also

*
Biogeochemistry Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, ...
*
Climate change In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
*
Earth system science Earth system science (ESS) is the application of systems science to the Earth. In particular, it considers interactions and 'feedbacks', through material and energy fluxes, between the Earth's sub-systems' cycles, processes and "spheres"— atmo ...
**
Earth system governance Earth system governance is a recently developed paradigm that builds on earlier notions of environmental policy and nature conservation, but puts these into the broader context of human-induced transformations of the entire earth system. The in ...
*
Ozone depletion Ozone depletion consists of two related events observed since the late 1970s: a steady lowering of about four percent in the total amount of ozone in Earth's atmosphere, and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone (the ozone l ...
*
Sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...
*
Tipping point (climatology) In climate science, a tipping point is a critical threshold that, when crossed, leads to large and often irreversible changes in the climate system. If tipping points are crossed, they are likely to have severe impacts on human society. Tippin ...
* '''' * ''''


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Global Change Anthropocene Climate change Environmental science
Change Change or Changing may refer to: Alteration * Impermanence, a difference in a state of affairs at different points in time * Menopause, also referred to as "the change", the permanent cessation of the menstrual period * Metamorphosis, or change, ...
Biological globalization World Change Complex systems theory