Articles by Owen Gaffney

We found 2 results.


Climate Tipping Points — Too Risky to Bet Against
Timothy M. Lenton, Johan Rockström, Owen Gaffney, Stefan Rahmstorf, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber - Nature Magazine, 9 Dec 2019

27 Nov 2019 – Politicians, economists and natural scientists have tended to assume that tipping points in the Earth system — such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet — are of low probability and little understood. Yet evidence is mounting that these events could be more likely than was thought, have high impacts and are interconnected across different biophysical systems, potentially committing the world to long-term irreversible changes.

→ read full article

Simple Equation Shows How Human Activity Is Trashing the Planet
Owen Gaffney | New Scientist – TRANSCEND Media Service, 17 Apr 2017

Following the maxim of keeping everything as simple as possible, but not simpler, Will Steffen from the Australian National University and I drew up an Anthropocene equation by homing in on the rate of change of Earth’s life support system: the atmosphere, oceans, forests and wetlands, waterways and ice sheets and fabulous diversity of life.

→ read full article