The new planetary condition summarized as the 'Anthropocene’ is very much NOT limited only to the (still undeniably crucial) issue of climate. But how can science offer of more definitive characterisation? One of the most high-profile answers today to this key question is the emergent framework of the ‘planetary boundaries’, which clearly enumerate 9 (or 11, depending on how you count them) specific planetary-scale processes that are crucial to maintaining the extraordinarily stable conditions on Earth that have enabled the take-off of human civilisation over the last ten thousand years or so – hence the only conditions we have known as a species as hospitable to such human flourishing. First devised and published in 2009, and with several highly-cited updates since then, the good news that we have some level of understanding of these key processes is quickly matched by the bad news regarding the current state of the majority of them due to (ongoing, even accelerating) human impacts. To discuss this crucial framework, how it is illuminating our current predicament and how it is changing science itself, in Episode 19 we are joined by the one of the trio of world-leading scholars who conceived it, Katherine Richardson. Drawing on Katherine’s expertise on the crucial issue of the oceans regarding a number of these planetary boundaries, including especially phytoplankton’s impact on both ocean acidification/climate control and marine biodiversity, we also discuss the mind-bending challenges of understanding across scales as divergent as these vast watery worlds and the microscopic lifeforms that shape their planetary impacts.
