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1. In fact, the social dimension is much more related to the environmental dimension (and also to the governance dimension) than what people generally believe. For instance, the shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) are scenarios of projected socio-economic global changes up to 2100. They are derived from climate change scenarios (Riahi et al., 2017). Another example is the permafrost, which contains 1.700 billion tons of carbon, almost double the amount of carbon that is currently in the atmosphere. Arctic permafrost holds roughly 15 million gallons of mercury – at least twice the amount contained in the oceans, atmosphere and all other land combined. In addition to the global warming risk, the thawing of the permafrost also threatens to unlock disease-causing viruses and bacteria long trapped in the ice. Pandemic risk is not excluded if giant viruses are revived. The consequences of the disappearance of the permafrost are unknown and may have extreme consequences on social concerns. |