Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet

A challenging documentary but a must-watch for anyone who yearns to know what we can do to save our home planet....

2020 to 2030 “will be the decisive decade for humanity’s future on Earth”, says Dr. Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. We are now halfway through the decade. Is there still time to respect our planet’s boundaries and prevent ecological catastrophe?

In this motivating nature documentary, naturalist David Attenborough and Rockström — a Professor in Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam — explore the perils of pushing past the Earth’s boundaries.

The Earth has a range of systems that regulate the planet, including climate, biomes (land configurations, such as rainforests), biodiversity, freshwater, and nutrients (for example, the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles).

“As we increase our pressures on Earth, there’s a danger those systems will start to break down, that we will break through Earth’s boundaries, causing the stability that we depend on to collapse”, says Attenborough.

Ten thousand years ago, the temperature of our planet stabilised, only varying “between plus or minus one degree Celsius throughout the entire period,” says Rockström. 

This period, called the Holocene — when levels of planet-heating carbon dioxide (CO₂) were steady — gave us seasons and weather we could rely upon, vital for farming and socio-cultural development.

Yet we have breached our planet’s boundaries and disrupted the natural balance of its systems since the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century.

“In a single lifetime,” says Attenborough, “We have warmed the Earth by more than one degree.”  This may not sound a lot, but when we consider the climate was stable for ten thousand years, we realise it is earth-shattering — and we see the tragedies of skyrocketing CO₂ in the form of forest fires, droughts, and floods. 

Now, however, we find ourselves in a new era — the Anthropocene. This is the age of humans and the negative impact our actions have on the planet — and ourselves. 

Rockström likens this era of planetary destabilisation to the dangers of driving on a twisting clifftop road at night without our headlights on. He is angry scientists’ warnings have been ignored for three decades, yet the dire facts can no longer be dismissed. 

The polar ice caps, which cool the planet by reflecting sunlight, are melting. Professor Jason Box of the Geologic Survey of Denmark and Greenland tells us Greenland’s ice sheet is “losing ten thousand cubic metres of ice per second” —  and it may be too late to save it.

According to Professor Carlos Nobre, of the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Advanced Studies, large-scale deforestation of the Amazon — to make space for livestock and soya farming — could release two hundred billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere over the next thirty years.

We have eradicated, Attenborough says, almost seventy percent of the world’s wildlife in half a century, and are polluting our water, poisoning fish with the overuse of nitrogen- and phosphate-containing fertilisers that leach into our rivers. 

There is hope, though tinged with urgency. Rockström believes we must “frame the entire growth model around sustainability.” 

But as an individual, what can we do? Make simple changes, he suggests: reduce emissions, waste less, use renewable energy, eat more plant-based protein and less red meat, and plant trees. 

Breaking Boundaries is a challenging watch but a must-watch for policy makers, and anyone who yearns to know what we can do to save our home — planet Earth.

Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet (Director: Jonathan Clay), 2021; Reviewed by R.B.L. Robinson. Now available to view on Netflix.

In case you missed it

Receive the Digital Digest

Food, Farming, Fairness, every Friday.

Learn more

About us

Find out more about Wicked Leeks and our publisher, organic veg box company Riverford.

Learn more