Over a time span of just a century and a half, humanity has become a formidable
geological force of change in its own right, altering the Earth’s
atmosphere and natural landscape in ways that are unprecedented. For the
fi rst time, the outer limits of Nature’s capacities to adapt to the destruction
of its natural cycles of carbon, phosphorous, and nitrogen are in sight
(see Rockstr?m et al. 2009 ). The overall rate of temperature increase has
nearly doubled (NASA Earth Observatory 2015 ) in the last 50 years.
Global average surface temperatures have risen to 0.9 degrees Celsius
while in the oceans, warming has occurred from the surface to a depth of
roughly 2300 feet where most marine life dwells (National Geographic
2016 ), causing sea levels to rise. On land, global net yields of stable food
crops are declining steadily in direct proportion to temperature increases
(see International Scientifi c Congress on Climate Change, March 2009 ).
According to the fi ndings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) AR5 Working Group II Report on Food Security and
Food Production Systems ( 2014b ), there is a critical climatic threshold
beyond which point essential food crops will not grow. If the current
pace in global warming is not decelerated, the likelihood is that climate
change will eventually overpower our capacities to adapt and large-scale
humanitarian disaster will ensue. 1 So grave are these dangers that many
scientists believe humanity has entered a new geological age known as
the Anthropocene (Oldfi eld 2015 ).