To what extent diverse biological systems’ adaptability and vulnerability to climate change can sustain their economic productivity and the global economic growth?

All economic systems are grounded on the productivity of biological diversities used as primary, secondary and tertiary raw materials. Yet, they are being threatened by environmental changes. also, some biological systems adapt to the change by threatening other species. Therefore, it becomes imperative to study mechanisms of adaptability and vulnerability to climate change of different systems, and try to find out the extent to which they are able to sustain the human society livelihood under extreme climatic events. Unless we answer that question, the world may face a very extreme economic crisis that will lead to an everlasting financial crisis.

How do we meet the human wellbeing requirements (e.g. food and nutritional security, health, livelihoods) of current and future human populations without increasing pressure on already vulnerable ecosystems?

Increasing evidence suggests that demands on food production are likely to reach a peak mid-century. At the same time, our ability to produce and transport sufficient food is predicted to be reduced by climate change (temperature and water dynamics), carbon costs (chemicals, transport), and the loss of land to energy production.

There will therefore be increasing pressure on:
• natural resources (land and associated water and soil, biodiversity), leading to trade-offs for ecosystem service provisioning (with impacts on livelihoods, ecosystem and human health, security) and other land uses (agriculture, biofuels, urban planning, conservation, recreation)
• agricultural practice leading for the need for new and innovative techniques and technologies, and the concomitant risks for environmental and human health

To stand a chance of tackling these inter-related issues, mechanisms and funding for regional and global projects that move beyond assessment are required. Projects should be interdisciplinary and participatory incorporating researchers, practitioners and the people whose wellbeing is under investigation. Such work should not only allow conceptual and theoretical development in the fields of environmental and sustainability science but must also have impact on the ground, creating opportunities for improved human wellbeing and increased resilience not just for now, but into the future also.

What are the most effective ways climate change and natural scientists can engage with politicians and natural resource managers to facilitate implementation of more ecosystem-based management approaches to natural resource use?

The basic processes of climate change are reasonably well understood; what is needed are appropriate methods of communication to decision-makers about the socio-economic and biophysical impacts of climate change. Information on impacts needs to be communicated in such a way that policians and resource managers can see why it will be their interests to act on this information sooner rather than later.

Obstacles? Short timeframe based on electoral cycles in many developed countries hinders long-term strategic view needed for more sustainable natural resource use policies.

How can we identify and manage looming thresholds in social-ecological systems arising from resilience – development trade-offs, especially those across scales?

Rising human numbers and increasing use of natural resources are lowering resilience in most regions of the world. Some of the changes will result in irreversible, or very hard to reverse, regime shifts in the coupled social-ecological systems concerned. They are already happening (salinized agricultural regions, desertified rangelands, collapsed fisheries, degraded ex-forest areas, etc.). We need to know how to identify such threshold effects before they happen, and how to manage them.

How much longer are extractive land uses sustainable? The fate of nutrients.

Searching harvest, export, cycle, biogeochemical, mineral on this site (Aug7): no questions were found addressing the continuous export of nutrients. The human enterprise today is based on consuming natural resources (NR) in highly concentrated places, like cities. Much valuable nutrients end up in waters, dumps or burns. Areas of NR production tend to be wide spread and at large distance from site of use. Fluxes of nutrients are thus frequently one-way: site of production-cities-oceans.

The remedy: fertilizers. The ABC for gardeners and farmers (actually NPK). However, fertilizing has become necessary EVEN FOR EXTENSIVE livestock production, or forest harvesting. The rate of change may be slower, but soil reserves have been depleted in such systems, and fertilizing is necessary. Besides NPK, in some situations plants need other elements like Ca, Mg, S, Bo. HOWEVER, livestock, wildlife and humans need some additional trace elements which are not needed by plants, or in much lesser quantity: THESE are practically never placed in fertilizers.

Thus, some elements are being constantly removed and exported, but without replacement. If soil conditions do not replenish them, then soil reserves become depleted over time. Continuous NR extraction in semi-natural extensive system without fertilizer will thus deplete soils and affect wildlife and ecosystems. Not only is fertilizer application at the landscape level expensive, but some key nutrients are becoming in short supply, beside being practically non-renewable. To mention is phosphorous (2009 The story of phosphorus: Global food security and food for thought. Global Environ Change 19:292). Oil peak? The current discussion about peak phosphorous is also eminent. Other nutrients are also in discussion, but more in technical circles, and far from mainstream.

Biomass export, biogeochemical nutrient cycles affect various future scenarios:
- nutrient competition between growing for food versus bio-energy
- competition of nutrients used for food versus alternative energy systems (e.g. photovoltaic, batteries)
- nutrient limitations in extensive systems (with little opportunity for remedy), and effects on ecosystem service

What are earth system thresholds that are sensitive to biotic impoverishment?

Through the predominant period of the rise of humanity as the dominant species (the Holocene), earth system properties have been relatively benign with respect to the constraints within which the current biosphere remains viable. We are distracted by climate change to the point that Heinrich events, Dansgaard-Oeschger events, and the Bølling-Allerød transition draw us away from the more basic scientific issue as to why climate remains largely within boundary conditions conducive to life on Earth. It is also possible that the question of global biotic thresholds is mistakenly assumed to be some form of Gaia-Hypothesis like thinking, a topic which has some strong supporters, but is largely unpopular among many scientists. Because there is likely to be an immense suffering in the face of climate change, it would be inappropriate to suggest that such questions should not dominate our attention – they deserve substantial, immediate attention. Climate change research, however, in its current form, incorporates enormous “black boxes” and this is not the best science. GCM models tax even the best super computers, but until such models contain hundreds of ecosystem types, each made up of hundreds of functional species types, and contain key interactions among species and their environment, we are avoiding the true challenge before us – to understand Earth systems in its entirety – physical, chemical, and biological with spatial and temporal accuracy all coupled to social systems.

The Millennium Assessment achieved an unprecedented consensus among natural and social scientists from around the world declaring that the most pervasive environmental problems we face are caused by the massive spending down of natural capital – our biodiversity and our natural resources. Thirty years ago no one might have imagined we would have multi-million dollar, international efforts and intergovernmental panels seeking to understand the global carbon cycle and its relationship to climate using the most advanced research methods and techniques ever developed. Yet, the scientific foundation for this endeavor can be traced back to Arrhenius in 1896. To wait a similar period to build upon the Millennium Assessment’s findings would leave us facing problems in the future that were readily addressed today.

Given rates of local and global extinction, tt is difficult to imagine any challenge greater and more urgent than identifying earth system thresholds sensitive to biotic impoverishment.

How will human and natural systems co-evolve into the next 50 years?

The interaction between natural and human systems is a two-way street; the impacts are jointly determined by what happens in both systems and the feedback loops that lead to adaptations and change. Understanding better how humans and environmental systems co-evolve–the likely direction and trends–is vital for allocating scarce resources to protect the earth.

What is the exergy balance and its break down into components of the planet earth and how is it fluctuating over time (seasonal and long term)? Has it been changed by human impact?

Exergy is the general thermodynamical quantitative concept of the resources available for any activity and changes in nature or by human origin. It measures useful energy, structured matter, and active information. Exergy is dissipated when used (the amount of exergy is conserved but its quality is lowered when dissipated) and that quality change is related to entropy production. Exergy balance could give us the most complete picture of the planet earth situation from a resource point of view.

How can human development and survival be assured if industrial and other processes that contribute to global warming, ozone depletion, forest degradation, etc., are terminated?

This question is vital if earth system science is suggesting ways of surviving the planet. Humankind is part of the planet, and their own survival must be properly integrated into the whole. For example, we must extract and burn fossil fuel if man must live and survive in temperate and polar regions, or if man must move from place to place – requiring some means of transportation. Therefore, as we look at anthropogenic effects on global ecosystem changes, we should not forget to check the effects of environmental stresses to mankind, and how these would influence human interaction with environmental systems. So, can we stop cutting down the forest, burning fossil fuel, extracting uranium and running nuclear reactors, reduce our numbers, say, through birth control, etc., and still survive?

Given boundary conditions (e.g. budget constraints; human kind’s need for food and shelter; present state, pace and length of physical processes, etc.), what is, from an economic (but not only) point of view the right mix of mitigation/prevention and adaptation actions and policies to deal with (and cope with the consequences of) natural resource (land, water, climate, biodiversity, etc.) and sustainability problems?

Policy makers have to make real life choices which include accepting that some/most impacts of human activities on nature are unavoidable. The question is what is the most efficient way to deal with them: mitigation or adaptation, or more likely which combination of the two.

Analysis to arrive at answers will be complicated not in the least because of its interdisciplinary nature.