A systemic issue

The climate crisis isn’t happening in isolation. It’s one piece in an even broader ecological crisis that humanity is causing. The environmental challenges we face are interconnected and systemic, meaning they are driven not just by a certain technology but by the fundamental behaviour of the current economic system.

Breaching planetary boundaries

The planetary boundaries framework indicates thresholds of resource use, pollution and other human-made pressures on the environment, beyond which we risk destabilising vital Earth systems that we and millions of other species depend on to survive and thrive. These thresholds or ‘planetary boundaries’ help us understand the ‘safe operating space’ within which human civilisation can safely operate (Rockström et al., 2009).

Before the industrial revolution, all Earth system components were within the safe operating space. But human impact on Earth systems has rapidly increased since, pushing more and more Earth systems beyond their boundaries and deeper and deeper into the zone of high risk (as shown in the animation above, based on Globaia (2024) and Richardson et al. (2023)).

As of 2020, we’ve transgressed the safe boundaries in six out of nine key Earth systems – not just for climate change but also for:

• biodiversity loss,
• deforestation (land-use change),
• over-fertilisation (nitrogen and phosphorus pollution),
• freshwater change,
• new chemical substances.

The climate and ecological crisis as a systemic issue

The climate crisis is closely linked to other environmental issues because they all stem from the same underlying issue. At the heart of these crises is our economic system, which drives continuous economic growth and thus resource use and pollution. This is because the system is oriented towards maximising profits for a wealthy minority rather than the wellbeing of the majority and safe living conditions for all.

What’s more, the different environmental issues reinforce each other. For instance, burning fossil fuels drives climate change while also causing air pollution and ocean acidification. Ocean acidification threatens marine life, while also exacerbating climate change (UCSUSA, 2019). And climate change exacerbates biodiversity loss, soil erosion and ecosystem degradation. This creates a web of crises that demand a systemic approach to solving them.

How to Save the Planet with Professor Jason Hickel

Photo of Professor Jason Hickel courtesy of subject.

In this talk, economic anthropologist and ecological economist Professor Jason Hickel explains how the economic system drives the climate and ecological crisis, and what could be done to address these systemic issues and create a better world at the same time.

Select the ‘Play’ button to listen to Professor Hickel. Credit: Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford.

View transcript.

Have your say

These are big and thought-provoking topics. Do you think the climate and ecological crisis can be solved within our current economic and social systems, or do we need a deeper transformation to address these interconnected crises?

Share your reflections and discuss with other learners in the Comments section.