The nearest approach to my own understanding of the present and future threats to the integrity of life upon earth, that I have recently come across has been developed by members of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. This group  have been monitoring what they classify as; ‘functional biosphere integrity” for a considerable period of time. In doing so they have created computer models of nine characteristics of the global geo-biological system, which they consider are general indicators of systemic problems. They recently published an Environmental Studies  research paper entitled ‘Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries’ This research was issued by Katherine Richardson and 28 other international researchers, who provided considerable evidence to back up its findings. It suggests that six of the nine identified categories (listed below) have been taken beyond the limits (boundaries) of natural/sustainable reproductive recovery and beyond the capacity of some species of life on earth to continue their supportive role in maintaining the biosphere of the planet. The nine problematic characteristics they suggest are the following;

1. Stratospheric Ozone depletion. 2. Atmospheric Aerosol absorption. 3. Ocean Acidification. 4. Bio-Geo-chemical flows. 5. Fresh water contamination. 6. Land system depletion. 7. Biosphere integrity.  8. Climate Change. 9. Non-evolved entities. 

In identifying that the excesses in these nine areas are caused by what they identify as anthropogenic activities, this research team have clearly pushed the contemporary debate beyond the climate and weather pattern concerns of the mainstream media and beyond the limits that industry and commerce have been prepared to admit have become seriously problematic. As far as it goes, this nine symptom categorisation is to be welcomed, but I suggest it does not go far enough and misses the essential problems caused by modern production by a very long way. We shall read that this research project is still predominantly limited to and focussed upon inorganic planetary material as these criteria predominantly effect elite human concerns.

Consequently, the essence of this approach presents a complex dialectical biosphere relationship of species from within a rigidly dualistic framework of thinking. It has also reduced the complex multi-species matrix of life on earth, into an ahistoric framework of thinking linking humanity on one side of a dualistic relationship with the natural world being on the other. If this is one of the most serious and detailed research projects on the effect of the current mode of production upon the earth’s biosphere so far, and it is still lacking a biological and sociological dimension, then the rest of the suggestions and remedies being put forward by left, right and centre governments and influencers, are exponentially inadequate. For example, this report paper in its introduction describes it in the following;

“The nine boundaries all represent components of Earth system critically affected by anthropogenic activities and relevant to Earth’s overall state. For each of the boundaries, control variables are chosen to capture the most important anthropogenic influence at the planetary level of the boundary in focus. For example, land system change arises from myriad human activities, ultimately aggregating to alteration of biomes.” (Introduction)

The above extract makes clear that this is an abstract systems approach to the problems the planet and its multifarious life forms now face. The biosphere and the millions of active and interactive species within it are abstractly and mechanistically characterised as “components of Earth’s system”. The effects of elite directed human activity upon soil and its complex living community of organic life existing upon it, in it and under it, from microorganisms, plants, insects, birds, animals and species or fungi is abstractly characterised as land system change. That characterisation misses out the detailed content which is essential for any study of the biosphere. In general, it is necessary to have a detailed understanding of how something complex functions before considering what has gone wrong with it and in this particular case it applies to both the human social system and the biological system upon which it rests. Yet this Potsdam approach has abstracted away both the biological complexity of life on earth (nature) and the social complexity of the hierarchical mass society structure which has historically evolved upon the pre-existing biological structure.

The fact is that these millions of biological, life forms, clustered in the biosphere, by their life cycle processes, have created the oxygen life needs to breathe, and the plant based nutrients which land based species need to digest. These life-forms are not simply passive components of an ‘earth land system’, but active, creative and dynamic biological entities sharing common parts of DNA and other biological cellular elements (similar or almost  identical) with the rest of life on earth – including us! It is also a fact that the social history of the hierarchical mass society system has demonstrated that small oligarchic cliques positioned at the pinnacle of governments, institutions and now firms, have had and still do wield enormous power to start, stop, reward, or punish ideas and actions they prefer or reject. Just consider the glaringly obvious fact that the bulk of their respective citizens are incapable of directly (and also indirectly) seriously altering or halting the policies and actions that these oligarchal elites are implementing. For example, global Stop the War demonstrations of millions were ineffective against the Bush and Blair orchestrated and elite-supported invasion of Iraq.

Just consider how few elite individuals (a dozen or so out of millions of citizens) in the UK that it took during the Covid Pandemic to lock-down most human activity and to enrich themselves by manipulating the purchasing of certain resources. Just think of how few in the Trump controlled White House it took to send troops into States whose citizens did not support Trumps vision of Making America Great Again. Or how the half-dozen or so in the oligarchic Musk-led sub-clique it took to begin firing people on salaried jobs under the pretext of ‘draining the swamp’. and no one in the USA could or would prevent it.

Just consider how few in the Israeli cabinet oligarchy it took to unleash total war and genocide on all Palestinians in retaliation for the Hamas orchestrated armed breakout of Gaza. And remind yourself that no one in the rest of the worlds elite oligarchies could or would even censor the two year crimes against humanity there, let alone stop them. This Potsdam type of abstract systems analysis approach ignores or marginalises all this social and biological reality in the evolution of life in general and in the history of humanity in particular which stands in the way of change. It continues the same trend by adding the following;

“There is an enormous need for civilisation to utilise the biosphere – for food, raw materials and, in future, also for climate protection,” says Fabian Stenzel, lead author of the study and member of the PIK research group Terrestrial Safe Operating Space. “After all, human demand for biomass continues to grow – and on top of that, the cultivation of fast-growing grasses or trees for producing bioenergy with carbon capture and storage is considered by many to be an important supporting strategy for stabilising climate. It is therefore becoming even more important to quantify the strain we’re already putting on the biosphere.” (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.)

And;

“The ocean is becoming more acidic, oxygen levels are dropping, and marine heatwaves are increasing.” (Levke Caesar, co-lead of the Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.)

Note that this perspective on the biosphere, whilst not directly co-opting an Abrahamic spiritual anthropocentric creation myth, nevertheless indicates an entirely anthropomorphic and anthropocentric focussed one. It clearly takes for granted a continuation of the ancient ‘god-given’ primacy of the human species to Lord it over (“have dominion over” Gen. 2 v 28) all other species. It also becomes clear that this perspective is not premised upon a fully scientific approach of looking at life on earth, and human history critically or self-critically. Its authors remain content to keep regurgitating a handed down anthropocentric, ideological based approach, to the erosion and destruction of a complex biological system that humanity as a species was only an extremely late evolutionary development from within and has as yet a long way to go before it fully understands its complexity.

Like all the other less systematic dabblers in so-called ‘climate science‘, the Potsdam Initiative is merely using some extra methods borrowed from science – not to understand those social and biological complexities – but to confirm its deeply entrenched Anthropocentric ideology and its commitment to the current capitalist mode of production. In their own words, the Potsdam Initiative is primarily concerned with “human demand for biomass” which is in fact a demand by a certain class within humanity (based in industry, finance and commerce) who are the ones promoting the elites who actually control what is extracted and produced, when it is produced and how much is produced. Consequently the Potsdam team take for granted that the hierarchical mass society system will need to “grow“, at the same time as admitting that the systems existing productive ‘growth’ output has already exceeded six of the nine inorganic boundaries identified by them.

Despite any individual good intentions by its members, the Potsdam Research Institute are effectively becoming a more sophisticated schizophrenia part of a massive science and industry collaboration confidence trick perpetrated by the global economic and political elite. This elite, spread across politics, finance, commerce and industry, have no intention of gelding the golden goose that makes them into billionaires and trillionaire by removing the obstacles to ‘growing the economy’. They have even been persuaded into making suggestions that some selected organic growth will be needed – but only as a supporting strategy – not for the biosphere sake – but for stabilising climate – so that elite humanity can continue to produce for the purpose of continuing to accumulate wealth. The rest of the occupants of the multi-millions of years old, inter-connected and interdependent species created biosphere, are only of limited value to the functioning of the current mode of production based upon capital and extracting surplus-value for the elite. From this narrow hierarchical mass society perspective, based around profit making, ‘life on earth’ has no intrinsic value either to the rest of humanity or to the life-cycles of all the other species inhabiting the biosphere. And the situation is getting worse from month to month as they go on to report Thus;

“The seventh boundary: The latest boundary to be surpassed is ocean acidification, which is closely linked to climate change. The ocean absorbs some of the excess CO 2 in Earth’s atmosphere, which in turn lowers the water’s pH and depletes seawater of certain carbon compounds that corals and other shell-building animals need to construct their protective homes. If the pH gets low enough, those shells and skeletons can dissolve.” (Potsdam Institute. Quoted in ‘Scientific American. 8/10/25.)

Despite, some scientific sounding vocabulary and methodology, the complete lack of an integrated biological understanding of life on earth, as well as the history of the various hierarchical mass society modes of production and the interconnected and inter-dependent links between the two, the members of this research project are destined to be part of the problem facing the future of ‘life on earth’ and are not part of the solution they think they are. The problem is the past and current socio-economic system of humanities relationship to nature and the class-based purpose of its functioning.  In effect these and other reformist efforts are merely attempting to extend the life-span of this unnatural ‘system’ by a few more decades.

It has often been said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and this road of ever increasing organic and inorganic extraction, production, consumption, waste accumulation and pollution is interspersed on the one hand, with a mixture of high return interest, profits and salaries for some among the elite. On the other hand for the poor and displaced that ‘road’ is increasingly littered with hardship, bad health, devastated communities, depleted environments, polluted air, seas, rivers, lakes, soil, along with extinctions of species essential to maintaining a biosphere suitable for all life, not just the lives of the elite.

The entire history of the hierarchical mass society form of obtaining and managing the necessary cyclical biological processes of Nutrition, cell Metaboloism, Growth, Reproduction, Ageing and Death (N-M-G-R + A-D) for life in general and humanity in particular, weighs heavily upon the modern generations. The division of our species into ancient hierarchical mass society formations competing with each other for the local, then regional, then international resources of nature has also layered other diversions and divisions upon those original socio-economic divisions. Divisions of class, gender, culture, and religions have become further social manifestations which serve to gloss over the fundamental biological unity of our entire species. These and other socially created and socially reinforced distinctions such as ‘nationality‘ are now being deliberately used to obscure and overlook the long evolutionary history of the Homo sapien species, which whilst mass killing each other nevertheless still shares the same DNA, the same morphological form of body and limb shape, the same blood types and the same higher cortical brain functions.

These undoubted shared biological characteristics and abilities along with common skills and knowledge have been utilised by the elites in these ‘social’ systems to create and promote unnatural social values such as; superiority over equality, violence over nurture, warfare over cooperation, hatred over compassion, genocide over liberation and overproduction over conservation. The hierarchical mass society system has twisted and distorted all the actual and potentially positive attributes of the human species into self-destructive, self-deforming and self-denying tendencies, until even obscene levels of wealth do not bring individual peace and contentment or social acceptance and collective support to the members of them. Despite vast differences in wealth accumulation, loneliness, anxiety, and numerous forms of deprivation are shared universal experiences among young, middle aged and old people of all classes whilst in actual fact they live amid societies of vast numbers and huge wealth accumulations.

Humanity, by its successive hierarchical modes of production has created and progressively locked itself into a social dystopia for itself and at the same time has created the scientific and technical means for achieving a current and future disintegration of significant parts of the earths essential biosphere – not just its climate. Yet the biosphere, which in its fully evolved, species-rich form, is the only system which supports life on earth in general as well all the other species including the human species. How self-destructive is that for a species congratulating itself as being wise? We need to wake up from the soporific lullabies of the elites. Humanity can never support nature or replicate its complex functions. Indeed, it is nature which supports humanity and has done so for millions of years. However, nature can no longer sustain itself and humanity at the levels of extraction and consumption now demanded by the modern hierarchical mass society forms of human aggregation.

Unlike all previous generations of those who have lived within one or other of the successive hierarchical mass societies during the last six or seven thousand years, those born in the 21st century are the first humans who have had access to enough information concerning the biology of life on earth and the socio-economic structure of these hierarchical societies to understand that the hierarchical form of human aggregation and its purpose, elite wealth accumulation, is ultimately incompatible with maintaining a dynamically balanced ecology and biosphere. Previous generations as a whole, took for granted that the earth’s organic material would always renew itself in sufficient quantities and sufficiently rapidly to always be available in whatever amounts humanity wished to extract from it. That is no longer the case.

Sadly, it is the case that only a tiny minority of the worlds citizens are aware of the full extent of the problems facing ‘life on earth’ now and in the future. In fact the vast majority are made up of those who have a) not been able to seriously consider biology, sociology, economics, and the insoluble contradictions inserted between these processes by the hierarchical mass society form; b) those who have dabbled with economics and think all the problems of mass production can be solved once the governance of hierarchical mass societies has been humanely and democratically reformed; c) those with a vested interest in denying that there is an unsolvable problem and that the science and technology of mass production can learn to solve the problems that the science and technology of production has already created. This huge difference in the levels of global understanding means that the combined inertia of a, b, and c, citizen categories is unlikely to support the adoption of any radical measures, to slow down or stop the continuous extraction, production, consumption, and destruction of organic species and inorganic materials before all of the above noted nine boundaries have been irretrievably crossed.

However, if the reader on examination and reflection of this article and the recent articles on this blog and in my forthcoming book ‘Life on Earth’ (Past, Present and Future), accept in part or whole, the diagnosis and prognosis presented within them, there is no need to despair or abandon hope and do nothing. The fact of life on earth existing, in any of its initial bacterial forms getting started and becoming Eukaryotic and multi-cellular in the wake of the post-primal volcanic, gaseous, condition of the cooling planet we call earth, was far more unlikely of success than a tiny minority of those of us with a Giaia-centric perspective eventually influencing the rest of the planets citizens. Yet life, faced with those hot-house and turbulent impediments, did get started and after billions of years of existence and evolution now clings on whilst self-replicating and evolving in practically every available hot, cold, wet or dry, light or dark nook and cranny possible.

If that is insufficiently convincing for you, the reader, to remain actively supportive, of changing humanities over extraction and over-production, over-poluting way of living, then how about reminding yourself that you (like all mammals, etc.) in all your wonderful complexity and amazing skill levels started off as just one almost invisible biological cell (ovum) which had been impregnated by a microscopically tiny sperm cell and then; against all the internal challenges facing your undiferentiated and differentiated form in the womb of your mother and later through the ups and downs of childhood and adulthood, until there you are now at this moment reading these words. The biology of life on earth, across all species from the tiniest to the largest, of which you are an example, is amazing and persistent; isnt it?

And is it not time that the idea of life on earth – as a reflection of the whole biosphere reality – is also promoted by members of the only fully conscious species – us? So no matter how few of us keep persistently reminding others of the need to change our relationship to nature and why we should do so, we do know that persistence can eventually prevail. Improving the chances that humans can once again become ecologically compatible with the rest of the millions of amazing species existing within the earth’s biosphere cannot be written off just because the vast majority of those around us have not fully understood the biology of nature or the existential dangers to it that some economic systems of humanity have created and are therefore currently motivated differently than ourselves.

Roy Ratcliffe (October 2025)