Seven of nine crossed, two to go.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Distressing and revealing that Apple's WWDC gets thousands of comments, and this - which is just a little more important - gets four.

The planetary boundaries framework is not a very useful way to think about climate change.

The variables are linked. Ocean acidification is a direct result of CO2 release. Plus, everyone knows we are not a trajectory for a stable system anyway even in the best case scenario. Apart from the pleasure of publishing gloomy articles when we cross the next one, it’s entirely pointless as a tool.

It’s far better to view the issue as being about how to reach net zero as fast as possible. That puts people in the right frame of mind.

We're already seeing plenty of real impacts on ecosystems (skeletal dissolution, slower coral growth). On top of that, acidification has "momentum" - even if we stopped emitting carbon today (hah) the oceans would continue dropping pH for decades.

Given those two facts, I assumed we'd crossed that boundary already.

This is the major plot reveal of Soylent Green (that the oceans are/were toast, unfishable for decades). I only eat a minimal amount of ocean fish because the open sea is the world's toilet of last resort.