Life Gives Life

What if Leonardo DeCaprio’s character in Don’t Look Up found a simple way to avert the meteor?

One that made it quick and uncomplicated for world governments and people to respond with inspired action?

One that solved the problem at warp speed and led to a harmonious global family, far safer from future meteors?

Humanity is living our “Don’t Look Up” moment as we continue to hurtle past planetary boundaries, destabilizing the only living conditions civilization has ever known.

But new and emerging science points us down a clear and exciting path away from this catastrophic dead end. Instead, we stand on the threshold of a planetary shift to a stabilized and thriving global Eden that people have only dared to dream of.

That dream is now awakening in real time and the Life Gives Life project is set to propel this extraordinary global paradigm shift at moonshot speed; interrupting, halting, and reversing our collective dead end and instead setting us on a trajectory of unprecedented healing, resilience, creativity and equilibrium.

  • Origins deep history of Life
  • The stable Holocene vs the dead-end Anthropocene
  • Our great acceleration towards tipping Points
  • The sixth mass extinction, the human asteroid
  • The role of life for livability on Earth
  • Gaia feedback Dynamics | We can foster the Holocene’s corridor of Life
  • A field guide to Earth’s boundaries
  • Extraordinary examples of diverse life forms, on land, in ocean | Impacts of breaking boundaries
  • Images of the 20 most important biological systems on Earth
  • How biodiversity builds resilience and planetary stability
  • Solutions and handling overshoot
  • What does a planetary Eden look like? How do we know it’s only a few steps away?
  • Life as a global commons | A new Earth Charter

Aim of this book

Science shows today how nature and climate are intertwined, regulating the health and life-support on Earth. Recent science shows that in this complex system there are 16 large biological and physical “planetary boundary” systems, which together regulate the overall livability on Earth. Everything we know depends on these tipping elements, and we are currently at risk of crossing numerous tipping points, that would irreversibly shift into states threatening life as we know it.

In this book we’ll zoom in on these 16 life-saving systems and the new science of their planetary boundaries, telling the story that so far is rarely told: What role does life (i.e., biodiversity and the richness of species and ecological functions) play in keeping the global commons on which we all depend, in a safe and healthy state?

Like Carl Sagan did in Cosmos, we’ll take a new kind of journey. One across the planet, covering life in all its forms and how we now understand that Life Gives Life. Tipping elements include our large ice sheets, the big marine ecosystems, movement of heat in the ocean, stability of permafrost systems in the Boreal zone, water towers in our mountain glaciers, and majestic tropical forest biomes.

So far, nobody has provided a scientific, yet easy to grasp story of what role life plays in keeping these tipping systems in a state that continues to
support life as we know it.

With this book and project, we’ll fill this gap, helping guide the human family towards securing a livable, harmonious future.

Figure. Red embers (uncertainty range with risk range from low to high) assessment of temperature levels at which climate tipping elements may cross tipping points. Likely temperatures are shows with the yellow dots. We will map the role of life to keep these 16 Earth regulating tipping point systems intact.

Table of Contents

I. Forward: Proposed w Leonardo DiCaprio.

II. Introduction: A global dead end versus Life Gives Life.

Part one

      1. Gaia theory: A stable planet gives life; life gives a stable planet.
      2. Deep history of life on Earth: Ancient genetic diversity leads to the special context of the Holocene.
      3. The uniqueness of the Holocene for life: What makes it remarkable for human civilization.
      4. A dead-end Anthropocene? Our wake-up call and the science of what is happening.
      5. Are we accelerating (towards a dead-end)? The mechanics of acceleration.
      6. Great acceleration, Tipping points, Planetary boundaries: The science of achieving a Safe Operating Space for humanity on Earth.

Part Two

      7. Stability and resilience on Earth – the role of life: How our planet “mother’s” civilization.
      8. The role of life: An explainer: Genetic diversity, ecological diversity, ecological integrity, ecological functions, ecosystem services, how nature connects to human wellbeing.
      9. A field guide to Earth’s boundaries: Life determines the stability of Earth; Live Gives Life.
          9.1 The Arctic system (6 tipping elements clustered in one system)
          9.2 Permafrost systems (the frozen life that is melting fast)
          9.3 Antarctica (3 tipping points in one system)
          9.4 The Forest Biomes (Rainforests, Boreal forests, Temperate forests)
          9.5 West African Monsoon
          9.6 Coral Reef systems (nurseries for life, regulators of ocean function)
          9.7 Ocean Physics (heat), Chemistry (Carbon, Nitrogen, Phosphorus) and Biology (Life): AMOC example
          9.8 Cascades: (all tipping point systems are inter-connected, GIS-AMOC-Amazon-WAIS)
          9.9 Other Big systems on Earth: (Soils / Hydrological cycle / Oxygen in ocean and atmosphere / Aerosols)

Part Three

      10. Food / Energy / Economy: We can make immediate science-based changes to avert the dead end.
      11. Life as global commons: The Planetary Commons and why it affects us all.
      12. Reconnecting world development to life on Earth: Managing the planet given what we now know.
      13. A new Earth Charter for a stabilized, thriving world: A Charter to inspire the Life Gives Life global paradigm shift informed by cutting-edge science.