QUERY Carrying Capacity and Ecological Tipping Points (SD6778)

[SDMAIL Bill Harris]

Posted by  Bill Harris <bill_harris at facilitatedsystems.com>


Some years ago, John Sterman pointed out a very good article in the 
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)
that began to quantify the carrying capacity of this planet.  You can
find a reference to it and related articles at
http://www.facilitatedsystems.com/weblog/2005/03/not-good-news-what-do-we-do-about-it.html

Now you can see "Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system" by John
Schellnhuber et al., in which the authors begin to quantify a number of
ecological tipping points.  In particular, they investigated nine and
ranked them according to their threat to society.  You can also see a
profile of Schellnhuber, although you have to pay for it if you don't
have access to a physical copy.

See volume 105 no. 6, if you have access to a library, or go to
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/105/6/1786 (note that older PNAS
articles seem to be available for free, but one has to pay for recent
articles, although this article is available for free).

Bill
- -- 
Bill Harris 
Facilitated Systems
Posted by  Bill Harris <bill_harris at facilitatedsystems.com>
posting date  Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:22:25 -0800