Earth Systems

Peter M. Weiske, Stephen Dovers, William J. Durch and John Handmer

Chapter 3 in Re-imagining Risk and Disruption, 2026, pp 24-50 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter explores degradation of the Earth System as a complex unbounded problem (CUP). Until humankind learned how to mine the past to industrialise the future, the Earth's biogeochemical processes evolved in cycles ranging from thousands to billions of years, with periodic mass disruptions. But humanity's enthusiastic, two-century use of coal, petroleum and methane – the long-buried by-products of those ancient disasters – has already generated highly entropic downsides with their own extinction potentials. This chapter explores these potentials as emerging features of the Earth System (ES), focusing on the atmosphere, hydrosphere and cryosphere – Earth's air, water and ice. It examines the impacts of greenhouse gases on air temperature, storm formation and mega-fires; the growing desiccation of some global ecologies and the flooding of others; and the rapid loss of ice packs and glaciers, which accelerates sea level rise and undermines the ocean's critical ability to absorb and redistribute global heat. The chapter compares the anticipated costs of essential damage prevention efforts with the costs of doing too little to avoid that damage. It explores the political, economic and social factors hindering more urgent and effective remedial and preventive action on climate change, but also highlights some promising solubility initiatives. It shows how the ES ‘problemic’ reflects both the key attributes and dangers of CUPs and the requirements for coping with them that will play out in subsequent chapters as well.

Keywords: Earth System; Climate Change; Global Warming; Cyclones; Fire (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035375264
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