Paul J. Crutzen

TL;DR: Identifying and quantifying planetary boundaries that must not be transgressed could help prevent human activities from causing unacceptable environmental change, argue Johan Rockstrom and colleagues.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a new approach to global sustainability in which they define planetary boundaries within which they expect that humanity can operate safely. But the proposed concept of "planetary boundaries" lays the groundwork for shifting our approach to governance and management, away from the essentially sectoral analyses of limits to growth aimed at minimizing negative externalities, toward the estimation of the safe space for human development.

TL;DR: Human activities are releasing tiny particles (aerosols) into the atmosphere that enhance scattering and absorption of solar radiation, which can lead to a weaker hydrological cycle, which connects directly to availability and quality of fresh water, a major environmental issue of the 21st century.

TL;DR: It seems appropriate to assign the term ‘Anthropocene’ to the present, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the Holocene—the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia.

TL;DR: This work uses atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration as a single, simple indicator to track the progression of the Anthropocene, the current epoch in which humans and the authors' societies have become a global geophysical force.