Meanwhile, we have brutally breached 6 planetary boundaries so far: There are 9 planetary boundaries which allow human beings to thrive on Earth; and we have destroyed 6 of them, so far, and are continuing the destruction at pace 1 Climate change: Atmospheric CO2 levels are at a 15-million-year high, and global mean temperatures are now higher than at any point since human civilizations emerged on Earth 2 We've destroyed the resilience, adaptability and the capacity of Earth's biosphere to protect us by crossing the biosphere integrity of our planetary boundary 3 We've destroyed our forests possibly beyond repair 4 We are putting our water resources at risk, and we can no longer take our freshwater resources for granted 5 We've exceeded beyond any reasonable safety level the biogeochemical flows on which we depend because our use of phosphorus and nitrogen in agriculture has destroyed our environment, cue unsustainable levels of water pollution, eutrophication, harmful algal blooms, and "dead zones" in freshwater and marine ecosystems 6 Big Oil has introduced such vast quantities of synthetic chemicals and plastics that we have disrupted critical Earth system processes possibly beyond repair (e.g., CFCs notably damaged the ozone layer), ecosystems (e.g., pesticides causing significant declines in insect and pollinator populations), and endangered everyone's health through the contamination of soil and water bodies, everyone breathing and drinking and eating plastic and the alteration of natural habitats pik-potsdam.de/en/institute/…