GuelphToday received the following letter about the state of our planet as we enter 2025.
In 2009, the research of Rockstrom and colleagues indicated that two of nine planetary boundaries (PB) had been crossed. We were beyond the safe operating space for the PBs, i) biodiversity loss and ii) excess biochemical flows, especially nitrogen. By 2015, Steffan and many of the same colleagues warned that humans were close to other PBs.
Then in 2023, Richardson and others shared updated modeling, clarifying that four more PBs had been breached i.e. i) land use change, ii) climate change iii) excess novel entities, and iv) freshwater change. Transgressing six of nine PBs inordinately taxes Earth Systems. In 2024, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research noted that the seventh PB, ocean acidification, is almost crossed.
In his comprehensive 2023 literature review of the prospects for societal collapse, Brozović said “earlier collapses were societal, local, regional, and civilizational in nature, but the possible future collapse—or decline—is global, presenting an existential threat to humanity and the planet.”
A stark question was asked by Gwynne Dyer in his first 2025 article. “Can we voluntarily shift from growing our global emissions by about one per cent a year to slashing them by seven per cent a year in the next five years, which is the minimum change needed to avoid a catastrophe?” Delaying until solar geoengineering is required, may exacerbate rather than solve impacts of high emissions.
How can we understand today’s existential threats and live with faith, hope and love? Brian McLaren, a former English professor and pastor, offers insights in “Life After Doom,” a well-written, probing book, published in 2024. He accepts the possibility of collapse, given how much humans have indulged in ecological overshoot but doesn’t stop there.
Accepting uncertainty, McLaren suggests four scenarios. “The first is Collapse Avoidance, whereby destabilizing Earth’s support systems leads to transforming our civilization and living within ecological limits. The second is Collapse/Rebirth as global civilization declines towards collapse in specific regions, sometimes suddenly and sometimes gradually. Surviving communities would rebuild with a new consciousness. The third is Collapse/Survival, indicating the collapse of civilization with a tenuous future for pockets of survivors. The fourth is Collapse/Extinction with near or total extinction of humans and other living species.”
Rasmussen in his 2022 book, “The Planet You Inherit,” writes “Faith isn’t about living with certainty; it’s about being confident, even joyous, about living with intractable uncertainty and profound mystery.” McLaren notes that “good people promoting hope and good people critiquing hope are both against the same thing: complacency. And both are for the same thing: wise action.”
Later, McLaren says, “We can commit to work for justice, peace and compassion wherever we are in this world, as long as we live.” “It is not too late to love and it never will be. Love will count, no matter what. Even on the last day of the world.”
There are and will be ecological consequences, as Homo sapiens exceed PBs with excess consumption, resource extraction, pollution and waste. Individuals and groups with more power and money, are most damaging to Earth and her creatures, including poorest people. The less humans cooperate with nature, the less we will influence outcomes of our human endeavours. The human project of economic growth and ecological gutting will end.
We can have faith that humans are gifted beings in an interconnected universe of wonder and mystery, with a right to be here. We can hope that some of us will develop deepening insights about our authentic selves and act accordingly, as individuals, and in communities and keep acting, whatever the outcomes. Love sustained our ancestors so that they could survive with meaning and offer potential for our lives. Love, exercised one day at a time, reveals our capacity to hold other people and all of creation, with open palms, for as long as we exist. Our efforts may persist for surviving species.
In a different context than facing the worst scenario of collapse/extinction, Paul’s comments in the Bible, 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, still apply. “Three things remain – faith, hope and love – and the greatest of these is love.” It’s a helpful call for emotional and psychological health and subsequent action, regardless of outcomes and one’s specific spiritual journey.
Ralph C. Martin, Ph.D., Professor (retired), University of Guelph
