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For nitrogen deposition as for other pollution, waiting until we approach the limits of environmental degradation merely allows us to continue our bad habits until it's too late to change them.
Humanity must learn to live within a stable Holocene environment, but the boundary limit for land use depends on more than the amount of surface covered.
Setting a limit on long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations merely distracts from the much more immediate challenge of limiting warming to 2 °C.
A boundary that expresses the probability of families of species disappearing over time would better reflect our potential impacts on the future of life on Earth.
At the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen this December, talk will turn to scientific, political and economic issues with a global reach and a long history — not easy to pick up from the daily news. We asked select experts on climate change what books we should be reading ahead of the big event.
