Interconnected Environmental Issues

The article I just read from VICE News doesn't really present entirely new information to me. It essentially relays information compiled into a study published in the journal Science into article format, and that information is basically what we've learned in class: that things are getting shitty for the environment, and we're going to need to do something about it sooner than later.

Something I did notice from this article that I wanted to point out is the separation of environmental issue that it seems to pose. To explain this as best I can, I need to quote a paragraph from the article: "In 2009, a group of 28 scientists from around the world came together to create the 'planetary boundaries framework,' which identified nine processes that need to be monitored in order to maintain life on Earth. The processes were ozone depletion, biodiversity loss, chemical pollution, climate change, ocean acidification, freshwater composition, land systems change, nitrogen and phosphorous flows, and atmospheric aerosol loading. Crossing the recommended thresholds for any of these processes could generate abrupt and possibly irreversible environmental changes."

 I was surprised to read that among the other eight, climate change is one process, when what I've learned from class suggests to me that many of these processes falls under climate change, and that global warming might be a better name for a process that needs to be monitored. Steve Carpenter, a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, makes a note that all of these issue are interconnected, and I think that's an essential selling point to get people to understand and care about the problems. When they learn that they aren't separate incidents, maybe they'll start to recognize the gravity of our environmental situation.

Source: https://news.vice.com/article/humans-are-destroying-the-environment-at-a-rate-unprecedented-in-over-10000-years