One Earth - Multidisciplinary Journals Emphasize the Earth's Limits

 It is increasingly becoming apparent that the Earth has limits, as warned by scientists already in the 1970’s. The Club of Rome gave out the report Limits to Growth in 1974. Even before that the worries about the impact of increasing human population had been expressed (Paul R. Ehrlich, Population Bomb, 1968). However, marked media attention of the limits of the Earth has first been gained in the last couple of years because of climate change. The scientific world is now having new multidisciplinary journals. Cell Press (Elsevier) has started the journal One Earth, which in the editorial of inaugural issue says the following:

“Climate change is not the only grand challenge we face. Food security, water scarcity, rapid urbanization, mass migration, environmental pollution, biodiversity loss, and societal inequalities are all intricately woven into the tapestry of environmental change. These are wicked problems, intertwined and related to societal, economic, political, and behavioral dynamics and not simply physical systems.”

Springer-Nature has plans of starting a similar journal. Common to the new initiatives is that they see the need to combine humanistic, social and economic studies to what has earlier only been the mandate of environmental scientists.  There is, indeed, a huge need for this, as the outset of economic theories and politics is continuation of growth. To change the outset to sustainability in the world with limits is needed, if we want to have a peaceful and orderly change to sustainable life. All too often one hears that “there are many opinions about climate change”, even though virtually all scientists studying climate-related phenomena agree on the topic. The different opinions are often those of people, who are focussing on one question they are familiar with, without noticing that the uncertainties caused by the phenomenon have been taken into account in the climate research. What is really worrying is that many of the problems have been known by fossil fuel industry for decades, but have been hidden in order to make big profits. Regardless, even if there were no climate change, the planet has limits, and the other challenges mentioned above remain.

What has long remained within the circles of environmental scientists, should now be discussed and implemented in economic theories and politics. Hopefully the multidisciplinary journals will be read by humanistic, social and economic scientists, and politicians. There are still possibilities to change attitudes from growth to sustainability, but it cannot be done without political and economic leaders.