Planetary management
Encyclopedia
Planetary management is intentional global-scale management of Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

's biological, chemical and physical
Physical property
A physical property is any property that is measurable whose value describes a physical system's state. The changes in the physical properties of a system can be used to describe its transformations ....

 processes and cycles
Biogeochemical cycle
In ecology and Earth science, a biogeochemical cycle or substance turnover or cycling of substances is a pathway by which a chemical element or molecule moves through both biotic and abiotic compartments of Earth. A cycle is a series of change which comes back to the starting point and which can...

 (water
Water cycle
The water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle or H2O cycle, describes the continuous movement of water on, above and below the surface of the Earth. Water can change states among liquid, vapor, and solid at various places in the water cycle...

, carbon
Carbon cycle re-balancing
The carbon cycle is the process by which carbon is exchanged between the four reservoirs of carbon: the biosphere, the earth, the air and water. Exchanges take place in several ways, including respiration, transpiration, combustion, and decomposition...

, nitrogen
Nitrogen cycle
The nitrogen cycle is the process by which nitrogen is converted between its various chemical forms. This transformation can be carried out by both biological and non-biological processes. Important processes in the nitrogen cycle include fixation, mineralization, nitrification, and denitrification...

, sulfur
Sulfur cycle
The sulfur cycle are the collection of processes by which sulfur moves to and from minerals and living systems. Such biogeochemical cycles are important in geology because they affect many minerals...

, phosphorus
Phosphorus cycle
The phosphorus cycle is the biogeochemical cycle that describes the movement of phosphorus through the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. Unlike many other biogeochemical cycles, the atmosphere does not play a significant role in the movement of phosphorus, because phosphorus and...

, and others). Planetary management also includes managing human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...

ity’s influence on planetary-scale processes. Effective planetary management aims to prevent destabilisation of Earth's climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...

, protect biodiversity
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...

 and maintain or improve human well-being. More specifically, it aims to benefit society and the global economy
World economy
The world economy, or global economy, generally refers to the economy, which is based on economies of all of the world's countries, national economies. Also global economy can be seen as the economy of global society and national economies – as economies of local societies, making the global one....

, and safeguard the ecosystem services
Ecosystem services
Humankind benefits from a multitude of resources and processes that are supplied by natural ecosystems. Collectively, these benefits are known as ecosystem services and include products like clean drinking water and processes such as the decomposition of wastes...

 upon which humanity depends – global climate, freshwater
Freshwater
Fresh water is naturally occurring water on the Earth's surface in ice sheets, ice caps, glaciers, bogs, ponds, lakes, rivers and streams, and underground as groundwater in aquifers and underground streams. Fresh water is generally characterized by having low concentrations of dissolved salts and...

 supply, food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...

, energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...

, clean air, fertile soil
Soil
Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...

, pollinators, and so on.

Because of the sheer complexity and enormous scope of the task, it remains to be seen whether planetary management is a feasible paradigm for maintaining global sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...

. The concept currently has defenders and critics on both sides: Environmentalist
Environmentalist
An environmentalist broadly supports the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities"...

 David W. Orr
David W. Orr
David W. Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College and a James Marsh Professor at the University of Vermont. He is a well known environmentalist and is active in many areas of environmental studies, including environmental education and...

 questions whether such a task can be accomplished with human help and technology or without first examining the underlying human causes, while geographer Vaclav Smil
Vaclav Smil
-Books:* 2010 : Prime Movers of Globalization: The History and Impact of Diesel Engines and Gas Turbines The MIT Press Cambridge, 261 p. ISBN 978-0-262-01443-4...

 acknowledges that "the idea of planetary management may seem preposterous to many, but at this time in history there is no rational alternative".

Background

The term has been around in science fiction novels since the 1970s. In 2004, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme is a research programme that studies the phenomenon of global change.The International Council of Scientific Unions, a coordinating body of national science organizations, launched IGBP in 1986...

 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 2009, the planetary boundaries
Planetary boundaries
Planetary boundaries is the central concept in an Earth system framework proposed by a group of Earth system and environmental scientists led by Johan Rockström from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Will Steffen from the Australian National University...

 concept was published in the science journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

. The paper identifies nine boundaries in the Earth system. Remaining within these nine boundaries, the authors suggest, may safeguard the current equilibrium.

In 2007, France called for UNEP to be replaced by a new and more powerful organization, 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
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...

 or the World Meterological Organization, weakened it to the extent that it was no longer fit for purpose given current knowledge of the state of Earth. The call was backed by 46 countries. Notably, the top five emitters of greenhouse gas
Greenhouse gas
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...

es failed to support the call.

See also

  • Brundtland Commission
    Brundtland Commission
    The Brundtland Commission, formally the World Commission on Environment and Development , known by the name of its Chair Gro Harlem Brundtland, was convened by the United Nations in 1983...

  • Commission on Sustainable Development
    Commission on Sustainable Development
    The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development was established in December 1992 by General Assembly Resolution as a functional commission of the UN Economic and Social Council, implementing a recommendation in of Agenda 21, the landmark global agreement reached at the June 1992 United...

  • Environmental management
    Environmental management
    Environmental resource management is “a purposeful activity with the goal to maintain and improve the state of an environmental resource affected by human activities” . It is not, as the phrase suggests, the management of the environment as such, but rather the management of the interaction and...

  • Earth system science
    Earth system science
    Earth system science seeks to integrate various fields of academic study to understand the Earth as a system. It considers interaction between the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere , biosphere, and heliosphere....

  • Global governance
    Global governance
    Global governance or world governance is the political interaction of transnational actors aimed at solving problems that affect more than one state or region when there is no power of enforcing compliance. The modern question of world governance exists in the context of globalization...

  • Holocene extinction
  • Earth systems engineering and management
    Earth systems engineering and management
    Earth systems engineering and management is a discipline used to analyze, design, engineer and manage complex environmental systems. It entails a wide range of subject areas including anthropology, engineering, environmental science, ethics and philosophy...

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