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Global change in broad sense refers to planetary-scale changes in the Earth system. It is most commonly used to encompass the variety of changes connected to the rapid increase in human activities which started around mid-20th century, i.e., the Great Acceleration. While the concept stems from research on the climate change, it is used to adopt a more Holism view of the observed changes. Global change refers to the changes of the Earth system, treated in its entirety with interacting physicochemical and Biosphere components as well as the impact human societies have on the components and vice versa. Therefore, the changes are studied through means of Earth system science.
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, 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, Hans Oeschger and others started International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, 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 (IHDP) and Diversitas (now continued as Future Earth). 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: (2025). 9783642624070, Springer Berlin Heidelberg. ISBN 9783642624070
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 have been around for about 300,000 years.
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 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 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, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are rising fast. Over Antarctica 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 disappeared.
In 2000, Nobel prize-winning scientist Paul Crutzen 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. 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.
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, 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, Group conflict, religions and taboos. 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 financial crisis. The crisis pushed the planet's main economic powerhouses, the United States, Europe and much of Asia into the Great Recession. According to the Global Carbon Project, 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.
Societies everywhere are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of rapid global change (including climate change). In such a context there is need for generatively contributing to transformative social learning systems and green skills learning pathways development. Through this focus, the Chair'
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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" 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".9789075365368, Uitgeverij Æneas BV, 2000. . ISBN 9789075365368 The United Nations 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, Montreal Protocol, Convention to Combat Desertification, and Convention on Biological Diversity. Additionally, the UN has two bodies charged with coordinating environmental and development activities, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Development Programme (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". The rationale was that UNEP's status as a "programme", rather than an "organization" in the tradition of the World Health Organization or the World Meteorological Organization, weakened it to the extent that it was no longer fit for purpose given current knowledge of the state of the planet.
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