Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Some climate change impacts rise fast with little warming, and then taper off. To avoid diminishing incentives to reduce emissions and inadvertently slipping into a lower-welfare world, mitigation policy needs to be ambitious early on.
As the world's leaders are negotiating climate change mitigation in Paris, a strong El Niño brings the warmest year on record. After a decade and a half of slow warming and slow policy progress, 2015 may bring an acceleration of both.
In the absence of an enforceable set of commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, concerned citizens may want to supplement international agreements on climate change. We suggest that litigation could have an important role to play.
The International Year of Soils draws attention to our vital dependence on the fertile crumb beneath our feet. Soil is renewable, but it takes careful stewardship to keep it healthy and plentiful.
Multi-actor integrated assessment models based on well-being concepts beyond GDP could support policymakers by highlighting the interrelation of climate change mitigation and other important societal problems.
The restrictions and protocols surrounding the collection and storage of field samples in the Earth sciences are not always complied with. Offences must not be taken lightly.
Despite legislation to protect natural sites, rock outcrops are being damaged in the name of science. Scientists, funders and publishers must push forward a stronger code of ethics.
Delivery of palatable 2 °C mitigation scenarios depends on speculative negative emissions or changing the past. Scientists must make their assumptions transparent and defensible, however politically uncomfortable the conclusions.
The world has agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals, to be adopted this week. This is great progress towards acknowledging that the planet's finite resources need to be managed carefully in the face of humanity's unlimited aspirations.
The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals emphasize the importance of evidence-based decision-making. This is a clarion call for Earth scientists to contribute directly to the health, prosperity and well-being of all people.
A truly global science community for the next generation of researchers will be essential if we are to tackle Earth system sustainability. Top-down support from funders should meet bottom-up initiatives — at a pace fast enough to meet that of early-career progress.
Since 1999, China's Grain for Green project has greatly increased the vegetation cover on the Loess Plateau. Now that erosion levels have returned to historic values, vegetation should be maintained but not expanded further as planned.
During several intervals in Earth's history, ice sheets expanded to cover the globe. These glaciations may be intricately linked to the evolution of life.
The Earth underwent two snowball glaciation events between 720 and 635 million years ago. The preceding expansion of eukaryotic algae and a consequent rise in emissions of organic cloud condensation nuclei may have contributed to the dramatic cooling.
Increased efforts in recruiting minority students have not proven to be enough to address the lack of diversity in the geosciences. A collaborative mentoring culture is needed to permanently change the make-up of our field.
The geosciences benefit from diverse student perspectives and backgrounds, but the field-based learning requirements pose barriers to students with disabilities. If carefully designed, fieldwork can be made accessible while still meeting expectations of academic rigour.
