Oceans    |    Land Conversion    |    Topsoil 

Biodiversity    |    Invasive Species    |    Global Warming

Ozone Hole    |    Toxic Chemicals    |   Air Pollution    |    Fresh Water

A hard copy publication of Ten Stresses on the Planet is available for $10 (includes shipping).  Please contact Emily at 503.227.2315 or emily@earthleaders.org for ordering instructions.

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Ten Stresses on the Planet was prepared by the Center for Earth Leadership as a resource for citizens who wish to be informed on ecological degradation—a primary context of our time.  In our work at the Center, an understanding of the current state of our ecosystems allows us to make better choices in our program development and outreach work.

Needless to say, knowledge about what is happening to the earth can be distressing.  Therefore the Center has written a companion piece, "Personal Practices to Save Ecosystems," which presents individual actions that can ameliorate the stresses.  The Center has used its knowledge to prioritize the practices, recognizing that most of us seek to take incremental steps on the journey to a sustainable future.

According to the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, human activity has damaged two-thirds of nature’s systems that support life.  It concluded, “Human activity is putting such a strain on the natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.”[i]  In fact, humans began consuming beyond the natural regenerative capacity of the earth around 1980 and are now exceeding that capacity by about 20 percent.[ii]

Jane Lubchenco, a pre-eminent scientist at Oregon State University, puts it this way:

The point here is not “oh, we’re terrible” but simply that we need to wake up, be aware of the inadvertent consequences of our activities, and modify our individual and collective actions if we don’t like the current trajectory.  Humanity is now changing the planet at faster rates, over broader scales, and in fundamentally new ways than ever before.  Now is a very different time than any other time in the history of humans on earth.[iii]

In our everyday lives we constantly make decisions that affect the planet—personal lifestyle choices, decisions about spending money, the content of our conversations, and political actions.  Information about the consequences of our actions on the planet allows us to make better decisions.

For this reason the Center for Earth Leadership has prepared a series of fact sheets, which together portray the major stresses on the planet.  Jeanne Roy, Education Director of the Center, conducted the research in 2006.  Some of the fact sheets were revised again in 2008. 

The Center for Earth Leadership was founded in 2006 by Jeanne and Dick Roy.  The goal of the Center is to encourage concerned citizens to be leaders to a sustainable future.  It offers classes and workshops, creates projects managed by teams of volunteers, and organizes events.

[i] Guardian Weekly, April 2005

[ii] Hayes, Denis presentation (study by Mathis Wackernagel in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, 2002)

[iii] Lubchenco, Jane, “Earth’s Unruly Tenant,” Open Spaces, 1998

Oceans    |    Land Conversion    |    Topsoil 

Biodiversity    |    Invasive Species    |    Global Warming

Ozone Hole    |    Toxic Chemicals    |   Air Pollution    |    Fresh Water