Planetary Threats Research Articles

Triple planetary crisis: why healthcare professionals should care.

Humanity currently faces an ecological crisis with devastating consequences to all living species. While climate change is estimated to lead to 250,000 extra deaths per year between 2030 and 2050, pollution is known to cause 9 million premature deaths: a figure much greater than the deaths caused by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. The healthcare sector is both burdened by, and contributes to, the impact of climate change and environmental degradation. Amidst glaring evidence of the interdependence of human health and the eco system, there is an urgent call for healthcare professionals to concern themselves with the triple planetary threat humanity currently faces. Without immediate mitigative measures, the future seems uncertain. Some healthcare systems at local, national and global levels have taken numerous initiatives to address, mitigate and adapt to these changes, however, these are not sufficient. A lack of awareness among healthcare professionals of the ecological crisis, its interconnectedness, and the role of healthcare in it, plays a significant role in the lack responsibility of healthcare professionals in this space. Therefore, this paper presents a discussion of the current landscape of the triple threat of climate change, loss of biodiversity, and pollution, while emphasising the contribution of healthcare professionals to it. Furthermore, interrelated concepts such as planetary health and eco-anxiety are briefly discussed. This perspective paper also presents several key prospective research areas that may lay the foundation for motivating healthcare professionals to play an active role in preventing and mitigating the ecological crises humanity currently faces.

Nanoscale Abrasive Wear of Polyethylene: A Novel Approach To Probe Nanoplastic Release at the Single Asperity Level.

There is a growing concern that nanoplastic pollution may pose planetary threats to human and ecosystem health. However, a quantitative and mechanistic understanding of nanoplastic release via nanoscale mechanical degradation of bulk plastics and its interplay with photoweathering remains elusive. We developed a lateral force microscope (LFM)-based nanoscratch method to investigate mechanisms of nanoscale abrasive wear of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) surfaces by a single sand particle (simulated by a 300 nm tip) under environmentally relevant load, sliding motion, and sand size. For virgin LDPE, we found plowing as the dominant wear mechanism (i.e., deformed material pushed around the perimeter of scratch). After UVA-weathering, the wear mechanism of LDPE distinctively shifted to cutting wear (i.e., deformed material detached and pushed to the end of scratch). The shift in the mechanism was quantitatively described by a new parameter, which can be incorporated into calculating the NP release rate. We determined a 10-fold higher wear rate due to UV weathering. We also observed an unexpected resistance to initiate wear for UV-aged LDPE, likely due to nanohardness increase induced by UV. For the first time, we report 0.4-4 × 10-3 μm3/μm sliding distance/μN applied load as an initial approximate nanoplastic release rate for LDPE. Our novel findings reveal nanoplastic release mechanisms in the environment, enabling physics-based prediction of the global environmental inventory of nanoplastics.

Overview of the Participation of Nurses in Antimicrobial Stewardship Activities

Antibiotic resistance is a planetary threat demanding the maximum attention from health and social care services worldwide due to the clinical, economic, and human cost. Interventions to address resistance –antimicrobial stewardship programmes, AMS– are multipronged and require close collaboration of all healthcare workers involved in antimicrobial decisions and use. Nurses have been traditionally absent from such engagement. This Commentary highlights existing evidence about the need and impact of nursing involvement and leadership in AMS.Additionally, four barriers to the increased involvement of nurses in AMS are discussed (foundational, ownership, education, and leadership), with implications and potential solutions.

Underappreciated microplastic galaxy biases the filter-based quantification

Long-term environmental loading of microplastics (MPs) causes alarming exposure risks for a variety of species worldwide, considered a planetary threat to the well-being of ecosystems. Robust quantitative estimates of MP extents and featured diversity are the basis for comprehending their environmental implications precisely, and of these methods, membrane-based characterizations predominate with respect to MP inspections. However, though crucial to filter-based MP quantification, aggregation statuses of retained MPs on these substrates remain poorly understood, leaving us a “blind box” that exaggerates uncertainty in quantitive strategies of preselected areas without knowing overview loading structure. To clarify this uncertainty and estimate their impacts on MP counting, using MP imaging data assembled from peer-reviewed studies through a systematic review, here we analyze the particle-specific profiles of MPs retained on various substrates according to their centre of mass with a fast-random forests algorithm. We visualize the formation of distinct galaxy-like MP aggregation—similar to the solar system and Milky Way System comprised of countless stars—across the pristine and environmental samples by leveraging two spatial parameters developed in this study. This unique pattern greatly challenges the homogeneously or randomly distributed MP presumption adopted extensively for simplified membrane-based quantification purposes and selective ROI (region of interest) estimates for smaller-sized plastics down to the nano-range, as well as the compatibility theory using pristine MPs as the standard to quantify the presence of environmental MPs. Furthermore, our evaluation with exemplified numeration cases confirms these location-specific and area-dependent biases in many imaging analyses of a selective filter area, ascribed to the minimum possibility of reaching an ideal turnover point for the selective quantitive strategies. Consequently, disproportionate MP schemes on loading substrates yield great uncertainty in their quantification processing, highlighting the prompt need to include pattern-resolved calibration prior to quantification. Our findings substantially advance our understanding of the structure, behavior, and formation of these MP aggregating statuses on filtering substrates, addressing a fundamental question puzzling scientists as to why reproducible MP quantification is barely achievable even for subsamples. This study inspires the following studies to reconsider the impacts of aggregating patterns on the effective counting protocols and target-specific removal of retained MP aggregates through membrane separation techniques.

Efficient solvent- and hydrogen-free upcycling of high-density polyethylene into separable cyclic hydrocarbons.

Plastic pollution is a planetary threat that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic due to the surge in medical waste, personal protective equipment and takeaway packaging. A socially sustainable and economically viable method for plastic recycling should not use consumable materials such as co-reactants or solvents. Here we report that Ru nanoparticles on zeolitic HZSM-5 catalyse the solvent- and hydrogen-free upcycling of high-density polyethylene into a separable distribution of linear (C1 to C6) and cyclic (C7 to C15) hydrocarbons. The valuable monocyclic hydrocarbons accounted for 60.3 mol% of the total yield. Based on mechanistic studies, the dehydrogenation of polymer chains to form C=C bonds occurs on both Ru sites and acid sites in HZSM-5, whereas carbenium ions are generated on the acid sites via the protonation of the C=C bonds. Accordingly, optimizing the Ru and acid sites promoted the cyclization process, which requires the simultaneous existence of a C=C bond and a carbenium ion on a molecular chain at an appropriate distance, providing high activity and cyclic hydrocarbon selectivity.

Discrimination of Plastic Waste using Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy-principal Component Analysis: Highlighting Molecular LIBS

Growing plastic waste emission as a planetary threat urges the development of a rapid and efficient recycling process, especially during the classification process. Herein, we aimed to solve the problem by employing laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) in combination with principal component analysis (PCA) as means for automated plastic waste classification. Samples used in the study were plastic wastes derived from beverage, food, and stationery products of different brands. The Nd:YAG laser was shot to the sample surface without a pre-treatment and under an open-air system (laser energy= 54 mJ; time delay= 1-2 μs). The spectral profile of each plastic waste revealed the presence of metal components such as those indicated by Ca II 396.85 nm, Al I 395.92 nm, Mg I 383.83 nm, and Fe I 404.85 emission lines. Peak intensities of organic material-related emission lines (C I 247.86 nm, O II 777.32 nm, O I 844.48 nm, H I 666.22 nm, N II 818.83 nm, and N II 821.62 nm) were revealed fluctuating, suggesting that a mere LIBS spectral analysis could not discriminate the plastic waste. PCA analysis revealed that C2 molecular band 490—520 nm had the most discriminative properties against polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polypropylene (PP). The molecular band was generated differently between PET and PP because of their contrast thermal behavior. In conclusion, molecular LIBS-PCA could be used to distinguish PET and PP in a simple and rapid way.

The eternal return: Imagining security futures at the Doomsday Vault

This article examines how imaginaries of security in the Anthropocene function at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault (SGSV), otherwise known as the ‘Doomsday Vault’. Recent explorations by scholars of security have suggested that different ways of seeing, understanding, acting in, and imagining the world are necessary to adequately respond to complex crises in the Anthropocene. The dissolution of the nature/culture divide and the existential risk from planetary threats are said to require new and creative formations of security. Buried in the Norwegian high Arctic, the heavily fortified SGSV was built in 2008 as a planetary-scale, ‘deep-time organisation’ that would forever secure a wide variety of plant seeds and their genetic makeup against regional or global upheavals. The article argues that his seed ‘ark’ materialises three Anthropocene security imaginaries: apocalypse, hope and escape. The prevalence and use of these imaginaries reveal the stability of long-held security logics and challenge the widely-held belief in the innately transformative properties of the Anthropocene concept for security. Instead, the SGSV demonstrates the difficulty in overcoming a collective mindfulness that fixes security to eternal forms even in the midst of unprecedented threats, interventions and technology.

The ecological impact of plastic pollution in a changing climate.

Assessing three interlinked issues, plastic pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss separately can overlook potential interactions that may lead to positive or negative impacts on global ecosystem processes. Recent studies suggest that threatened species and ecosystems are vulnerable to both plastic pollution and climate change stressors. Here we consider the connectivity and state of knowledge between these three environmental issues with a focus on the Global South. Nine out of top ten Long-Term Climate Risk Index (CRI) (2000-2019) ranked countries are located within the Global South, yet research is focused in the Global North. A literature search for the top ten Long-Term Climate Risk Index (CRI) (2000-2019) ranked countries matched a total of 2416 (3.3% of global publications) search results on climate change, with 56 (4% of the global publications) on plastic pollution, and seven (7.7% of the global publications) on both climate change and plastic pollution. There is a strong correlation between the Global South and high biodiversity hotspots, high food insecurity and low environmental performance. Using Bangladesh as a case study, we show the erosion rates and sea level rise scenarios that will increase ocean-bound plastic pollution and impact high biodiversity areas. Poverty alleviation and promoting renewable energy and green practices can significantly reduce the stress on the environment. We recommend that these connected planetary threats can be best addressed through a holistic and collaborative approach to research, a focus on the Global South, and an ambitious policy agenda.

Lessons From Insect Fungiculture: From Microbial Ecology to Plastics Degradation.

Anthropogenic activities have extensively transformed the biosphere by extracting and disposing of resources, crossing boundaries of planetary threat while causing a global crisis of waste overload. Despite fundamental differences regarding structure and recalcitrance, lignocellulose and plastic polymers share physical-chemical properties to some extent, that include carbon skeletons with similar chemical bonds, hydrophobic properties, amorphous and crystalline regions. Microbial strategies for metabolizing recalcitrant polymers have been selected and optimized through evolution, thus understanding natural processes for lignocellulose modification could aid the challenge of dealing with the recalcitrant human-made polymers spread worldwide. We propose to look for inspiration in the charismatic fungal-growing insects to understand multipartite degradation of plant polymers. Independently evolved in diverse insect lineages, fungiculture embraces passive or active fungal cultivation for food, protection, and structural purposes. We consider there is much to learn from these symbioses, in special from the community-level degradation of recalcitrant biomass and defensive metabolites. Microbial plant-degrading systems at the core of insect fungicultures could be promising candidates for degrading synthetic plastics. Here, we first compare the degradation of lignocellulose and plastic polymers, with emphasis in the overlapping microbial players and enzymatic activities between these processes. Second, we review the literature on diverse insect fungiculture systems, focusing on features that, while supporting insects’ ecology and evolution, could also be applied in biotechnological processes. Third, taking lessons from these microbial communities, we suggest multidisciplinary strategies to identify microbial degraders, degrading enzymes and pathways, as well as microbial interactions and interdependencies. Spanning from multiomics to spectroscopy, microscopy, stable isotopes probing, enrichment microcosmos, and synthetic communities, these strategies would allow for a systemic understanding of the fungiculture ecology, driving to application possibilities. Detailing how the metabolic landscape is entangled to achieve ecological success could inspire sustainable efforts for mitigating the current environmental crisis.

Humanizing Digital Culture with Wisdom VR

How do we harvest wisdom to guide us through uncertain times into an unknown future? Leonardo/ISAST aspires to do this through Leonardo and our other publications, curated programs, signature partnerships such as with Arizona State University (ASU), and our growing community of outside-the-box creatives from around the world.In a recent conversation, visual storyteller and software pioneer Gary Yost shared how using VR and stereoscopic 3D film can create immersive experiences of shared wisdom. In exploring his Wisdom VR project, we discussed far-ranging issues: how proximity and scale create larger-than-life encounters, the distance required to see emerging patterns, cultivating empathy through relational rather than transactional immersive experience, the value of dwelling in fog, and the sense of urgency driving creativity for transformation today.Pushing the boundaries of up-close-and-personal, Wisdom VR features intimate profiles of diverse elders and teachers. Paraphrasing Robert Kappa, Yost says, “If your photographs aren’t powerful enough, you’re not close enough.” The Wisdom VR film series uniquely overcomes technical issues of getting close enough by using the only stereoscopic, 360° camera on the planet. This technology creates intense imagery and radical access, deliberately allowing viewers to feel extremely close to the subjects. Charting the emotional impact when subjects are 36 inches away, 37, 38, 39, through to 45-inch distance, the filmmakers’ research tracked a nonlinear closeness curve. For subjects to appear in their own personal space, they need to be 43 inches away from viewers, but for viewers to virtually inhabit the subject’s space, subjects need to appear 36–37 inches away. This proximity field creates a feeling of connection that can’t be managed with other cameras. The immersive experience can be disorienting, uncomfortable, deeply personal and moving. Students in ASU’s Humanizing Digital Culture Lab referenced how liberating and weird it is to virtually hover within three feet of someone who is sharing their life story, while floating around their environment, checking out hidden details of private living and workspaces. This virtual presence heightens viewer awareness above a merely transactional experience of information exchange, into a more authentic, interrelational encounter, cultivating empathy and receptivity for diverse insights and identities.Simultaneously, stepping back allows peripheral vision in space and distance over time; both are required for context and scope. Kinetic artist Reuben Margolin shares his views on perspective during his interview in the VR series: “If you step back far enough, everything emerges as pattern.” I’m reminded of those “magic eye” art images with embedded 3D elements that only become visible when you move back and soft-focus, or entirely defocus, your eyes in order to see more clearly what’s right in front of you. Similarly, Yost speaks of the value of hanging out with the fog, walking through the Bay Area’s invisibility cloak of mist, a meditative atmosphere of dense grey that miraculously gives way to clarity. This is how to see the world and move through it in new light. This is how to infuse digital tools with consciousness, conscientiousness and reverence.Using VR technology to inspire pathways and illuminate patterns is urgent given the precious window remaining to glean wisdom from elders and indigenous communities. The sense of urgency driving creativity for transformation reflects recognition of the whiplash speed of systems-level change underway, accompanied by unparalleled existential and planetary threats to humankind. This urgency underscores an imperative to do creative work that matters. Perhaps imperative is the word of our time; this is an imperative moment to unlock, cultivate and excavate creative wisdom to guide us into the future.

Eleven theses on the Fool

Perhaps, today we can reverse Hegel’s objective idealist formula in The Philosophy of History. It is not reason but foolery that rules the world and foolery is the false-true, eternally apparent and the absolutely powerful. The Fool in ‘thought’, orientation, action and expression (destruction of the planet, submission to traditional and modern hierarchies, deification of private property, granting free movement to corporates and capital over beings, mass caging of the vulnerable, populism, virtual lynching, ‘cancel culture’, hoarding toilet paper and canola oil, etc.) poses an existential social and planetary threat. All of this begs the urgent question, who is the being that commits to such acts? And, what social forces, processes and apparatuses give birth to or encourage the emergence of this being? In other words, who or what is the Fool, and what is their tomfoolery? Here via a historical materialist account I put forward eleven ontological, epistemological and ethical theses on what constitutes, manufactures and defines the properties of the Fool. It would seem that foolishness is one subset of the set of alienation derived from statist hierarchical relations and the regime of private property. A Fool is always alienated but an alienated being is not necessarily a Fool.

Coming to Terms Will Do It: Students Engaging with Climate Change Through Sensemaking and Collective Efficacy Perceptions

Within climate change instruction, effective instructional crisis communication is necessary to attain cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning outcomes so students comprehensively learn the reality and implications of this planetary crisis. I locate this learning as coming to terms with climate change. This study explores how students affectively and cognitively learned to come to terms with the immense threat of the climate crisis outside their initial exposure to climate change fear appeals communicated in their classrooms. Drawing from interviews and focus groups with college students, I found students came to terms with climate change outside their classrooms by coping with the immense threat while enacting sensemaking with their peers. These findings suggest coping and sensemaking are crucial for students to come to terms with climate change after instructor-delivered fear appeals to access the efficacy needed to face this planetary threat. Ultimately, this study advances instructional crisis communication by providing insight into student to student out-of-classroom communication and how it affects cognitive and affective learning outcomes concerning climate change.

ПРОБЛЕМНО-ТЕМАТИЧНІ КОМПЛЕКСИ В РОМАНІ «УРОКИ» (2022) І. МАК’ЮЕНА: ТОПІКА «ШЛЯХУ ГЕРОЯ»

In the paper, the author explores the problem-thematic landscape explicated in Ian McEwan’s post-postmodern novel “Lessons” (2022). Philosophical aspects of the literary work by the British writer have been studied, in particular, the representation of environmental issues that shape the worldview of the protagonist (Roland). The genre specification of the novel has been clarified, and the genre forms exploited in the novel Lessons have been outlined. Emphasis is placed on the reinforcement of the topics of romantic discourse (with a focus on the metaphysical/transcendental phenomenon represented through music), which is a general typological feature of the British post-postmodern novel. The scope of problem-thematic complexes that define the existential and epistemological landscape of the novel has been determined: the interaction of erotic and thanatological aspects in the life of the protagonist, problems of sexuality, the motif of Roland’s coming of age, awareness of the planetary threat to humanity, the fragility of human life in the second half – end of the 20th century. The specific events in Roland’s life are compared with historical, social and political events, particularly in terms of how the specific and general interact in the space of the novel. Emphasis is placed on the forms of explication of the road motif in McEwan’s Lessons, which involves the sub-motif of self-discovery, rethinking mistakes and self-improvement, etc. In this way, the thematic aspects of the novel reveal the meta-genre pattern of mystery, which opposes the carnivalization of reality in postmodern novels. The protagonist understands the crisis of political institutions and the danger of an ideology that seeks to conquer the individual at all costs. The policy of the USSR indirectly affects the formation of the worldview of the young British man, Roland, giving him the opportunity to accept for the first time his own finitude through the understanding of a hypothetically possible nuclear explosion. The second global problem discussed in the novel as a consequence of the Soviet ideology, is the Chernobyl disaster. The novel reveals the stages of formation of existentially significant categories and values in the life of the protagonist. The detective plot, which revolves around the key intrigue in the novel, intersects with social criticism of power, political discourse in general, environmental policy, etc., combining skepticism and irony with Roland’s attempt to find out the essence of human beings: both physical and metaphysical.

Recent Advances of the BIRALET System about Space Debris Detection

Space debris is internationally recognized as a planetary threat. Efforts to enhance the worldwide radar monitoring networks have been intensified in the last years. Among the new radars employed for the observations, one of the most promising is the Bistatic Radar for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Tracking (BIRALET), which employs the Sardinia Radio Telescope as a receiving segment. The Sardinia Radio Telescope (SRT) has recently been proven to be a reliable instrument for space debris monitoring and, for this purpose, over the years has undergone some substantial modifications in order to be able to rise to the status of a fully functional radar receiver. However, an extensive measurement campaign, in order to assess the real potential of the radar, has never been done before. In this paper, the authors present the first real space debris measurement campaign of the SRT, made between December 2018 and October 2019 using the new dedicated channel of the P-band receiver. A total of 27 objects were correctly detected during this campaign, characterized by a radar cross section (RCS) interval between 0.13 and 13.4 m2 and a range interval between 459 and 1224 km.

On Becoming Witnessing Professionals

I came to view my work with Hiroshima survivors in 1962 as not only a scientific study but a form of bearing witness to what the bomb did to human beings in that city. I tried to bring professional knowledge and experience to that effort, to become what I later called a witnessing professional. Nuclear and climate issues interacted in that early study, and have continued to be inseparable for all of us. I draw upon examples of witnessing professionals over the course of our struggles with these two planetary threats. In each case, they had to expose and combat the malignant normality, the dangerous prevailing assumptions and narratives, of their time. In that way, these professionals have contributed to important social movements. They have also deepened–as we too can–the ethical dimensions of professional work.

Public attitudes towards climate change: A cross-country analysis

Addressing climate change requires international effort from both governments and the public. Climate change concern is a crucial variable influencing public support for measures to address climate change. Combining country-level data with data from the Pew Research Center Spring 2015 Global Attitudes Survey, we test whether perceived threats from climate change influence climate change concern. We distinguish between personal threat and planetary threat and we find that both threats have substantive effects on climate change concern, with personal threat exerting a greater influence on climate change concern than planetary threat. The effects of both types of threats are also moderated by Gross Domestic Product per capita, such that threats have stronger effects on climate change concern in high-income countries than in low-income countries. Our findings contribute to the existing literature and open up new debates concerning the role of threats in climate change concern and have implications for climate change communication.

Indigenous Peoples Re-Membering Their Futures in Extraordinary Times

Political turmoil has become widespread in many regions of the world. Trends including right-wing populism, widening income inequality, and the planetary threats of climate change and biodiversity loss affect the rights and survival of Indigenous Peoples (IPs). This article will examine why some of these trends affect IPs in unique ways, and will suggest pathways toward supporting IPs’ right of self-determination for its own sake and for its value to all life.

Delta Temporalities: Choked and Tangled Futures in the Sundarbans

ABSTRACTThis paper offers an ethnographic engagement with the present and futures of Bangladesh’s southwest delta. The southwest – which houses the Sundarbans, the world’s largest remaining mangrove forest – is at once profoundly vulnerable to climate change and a site critical to Bangladesh’s economic development. It figures thus both as a space of optimistic industrial growth and planetary threat. I explore what I call delta temporalities – the dissonant and possibly incommensurate imaginations of the future, and more importantly the projects seeking to bring them about, that proliferate in and shape the delta’s fragile ecology in the present. Tracing tensions between conservation initiatives, dredging projects that attempt to keep rivers flowing for shipping and transportation, and new industrial and energy infrastructure projects, this paper reveals how and why the southwest – and deltas more broadly – have become key chokepoints of the Anthropocene, zones where the future itself becomes blocked and the present imperilled.

Offline: The necessity of the engaged scientist

Offline: The necessity of the engaged scientist

More Than a Soundtrack: Music Between Text and Image in Environmental Art

Music has rarely been the subject of analysis in environmental art forms, from film to post-apocalyptic fiction. This article seeks to fill that gap and shows how music functions between word and image, using three case studies: The Crossroads Project, a lecture-performance series on climate crisis; Trinity, a short documentary video on the history of nuclear testing; and Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Book of Joan, a dystopian novel with music at its core. In all three examples, music does not work as atmospheric background but rather as an active mediator in its own right. Entering the spaces between text or spoken word and image with unexpected material presence, it can help to open the audience toward greater urgency or inquiry about climate disruption; it can accumulate intensity as viewers watch and hear data on nuclear testing; it can even incite violence within a narrative, both thematically and in the text itself, as Sybille Krämer has noted in her work on performativity. Though activist art can easily become baldly manipulative, music can “expose” its hearers (to use Stacy Alaimo’s and Jean-Luc Nancy’s term) to planetary threats in a way that fosters critical, not just sentimental or fearful, response.