An Underestimation of Planetary Boundaries
The Earth's climate history through various proxy records such as ice cores, tree rings, and sediment layers, can provide valuable insights into how the Earth's climate system may respond to future carbon emissions. For example, studies of the carbon cycle during the last glacial maximum have shown that changes in ocean circulation played a significant role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. This information can be used to refine our understanding of the present-day carbon cycle and to improve our ability to model future carbon fluxes. Paleoclimate research plays an essential role in understanding the complex interplay between carbon emissions, the carbon cycle, and the Earth's climate system, and in informing policies and strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change.
Planetary boundaries are a framework developed by a group of international researchers to identify and quantify the nine critical Earth system processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the planet's biosphere. These boundaries represent a safe operating space for humanity to avoid catastrophic and irreversible environmental changes. The nine planetary boundaries include climate change, biodiversity loss, land-use change, freshwater use, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, chemical pollution, and the phosphorus and nitrogen cycles. The framework provides a science-based approach to assess and monitor the state of the Earth's systems and to guide sustainable development. By staying within the planetary boundaries, we can ensure the long-term health and well-being of both human societies and the planet's ecosystems. The visualisation of the planetary boundaries helps people conceptualise how carbon emissions are contributing to an unstable planet.
There is no known carbon threshold in which researchers can pin point exactly how much carbon the planet can withstand in its atmosphere. The carbon threshold is the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) beyond which we risk crossing a tipping point, triggering irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes to the Earth's climate system. The threshold is generally considered to be 350 parts per million (ppm) of CO2, which is the level that the world's leading climate scientists have identified as necessary to avoid the worst effects of climate change. However we are already well past that limit.
Tax on Carbon Emissions
There is no amount of published research that determined the carrying capacity (K) of the human population. The difference between large inputs of carbon emissions of the ancient climate compared to today, is that the emissions stop, and the faucet was turned off. The rate at which humans are producing emissions could be represented by a fire hose, spewing gasoline, next to an open flame. Researchers can estimate how much humanitarian resources the planet can provide in order to support the population, and then determine the rate at which our population will exceed its maximum resources. However, in a way we have already reached our carrying capacity. This is known as the logistic growth with time lag, when a populations per capita growth rate shoots past its carrying capacity, but the effect of time lag does not effect population growth until it reaches a sudden and rapid crash.
Carbon taxes are a type of Pigovian tax that aims to internalize the external costs of carbon emissions. Carbon emissions impose costs on society through climate change, health problems, and other environmental damage, which are not currently reflected in market prices. By imposing a tax, the price of goods and services that rely on carbon emissions would increase, providing an economic incentive to reduce carbon emissions. Global carbon taxes would ensure that all countries, and internal industries are equally monitored.
In the face of climate change, paleoclimate models show disturbing evidence that climate forcing has the ability to contribute to extreme amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Carbon sinks and storage resides within glaciers, peat, forest, and deep ocean. As humans contribute large quantities of greenhouse emissions, these models are releasing ancient level of it too. The carbon tax is not only a physical policy that needs to be enacted, it is a metaphorical statement on the tax humans will pay, which is our existence. The scale of the Carbon threshold can not be conceptualised because it is so immense that amount of destruction that will happen when and if not already planetary boundaries are surpassed.