Second study predicts imminent irreversible planetary collapse

June 11 2012 – PLANET – Using scientific theories, toy ecosystem modeling and paleontological evidence as a crystal ball, 18 scientists, including one from Simon Fraser University, predict we’re on a much worse collision course with Mother Nature than currently thought. In approaching a state-shift in Earth’s biosphere, a paper just published in Nature, the authors, whose expertise span a multitude of disciplines, suggest our planet’s ecosystems are careening towards an imminent, irreversible collapse. Earth’s accelerating loss of biodiversity, its climates’ increasingly extreme fluctuations, its ecosystems’ growing connectedness and its radically changing total energy budget are precursors to reaching a planetary state threshold or tipping point. Once that happens, which the authors predict could be reached this century, the planet’s ecosystems, as we know them, could irreversibly collapse in the proverbial blink of an eye. “Once a threshold-induced planetary state shift occurs, there’s no going back. So, if a system switches to a new state because you’ve added lots of energy, even if you take out the new energy, it won’t revert back to the old system. The planet doesn’t have any memory of the old state.” These projections contradict the popularly held belief that the extent to which human-induced pressures, such as climate change, are destroying our planet is still debatable, and any collapse would be both gradual and centuries away. This study concludes we better not exceed the 50 per cent mark of wholesale transformation of Earth’s surface or we won’t be able to delay, never mind avert, a planetary collapse. –Terra Daily  

2010 Book quote: Earth’s stability is collapsing…and one by one; the biospheric processes regulating life itself are going awry. These are early characteristics of climate shock and are indications that even more ominous changes are yet to unfold. The fact that Earth’s systems are all crashing in concert (Climate, biodiversity and ecosystems, atmosphere, aquifers, and geological processes) is evidence geological change is accelerating on a planetary scale…the frequency of natural disasters and cataclysms will intensify without respite as the planet succumbs more and more to this chaotic model. Earth is falling under the shadow of a death march…nature is under a scientific directive. It is irreversible. It is the extinction protocol.” –The Extinction Protocol, pp. 9-10