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Differentiating the Concepts of Biosphere, Technosphere, and Technobiosphere

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David P. Turner / February 20, 2025

Figure 1. A stylized rendering of the integration of biosphere and technosphere. Image credit: Original Graphic.

Earth System Science studies the Earth system in terms of the whole, its parts, and the associated dynamics.  The biosphere and the technosphere are well-recognized functional parts of the current Earth system, but while the biosphere helps maintain the global biogeochemical cycles and climate, the technosphere is disrupting them.  The technobiosphere concept represents a potential fusion of these two parts into a matter-, energy-, and information-processing entity that advances planetary evolution.

Biosphere

In the early 20th Century, Russian geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky identified the biosphere as the sum of living organisms on the surface of Earth.  He emphasized how the biosphere absorbs solar energy and uses the energy to construct and maintain order in the form of biomass.  Earth system scientists have subsequently discovered that over geologic time, the biosphere has undergone major changes in the kinds of organisms it contains and in the way it contributes to maintaining the global biogeochemical cycles and global climate.

Technosphere

In a more recent conceptual advance, geologist Peter Haff identified the technosphere as the sum of all human-built technological artifacts on the surface of Earth, along with the human beings and institutions that manage those artifacts.  Like the biosphere, the technosphere uses energy (mostly in the form of fossil fuels) to construct and maintain order.  In this case, the order is in the form of machines and structures of various sorts networked together to support advanced technological civilization.  The technosphere is expanding rapidly, and indeed we have entered the Anthropocene era in which technosphere metabolism has begun to act as a geological force. 

The biosphere and technosphere concepts are helpful in thinking about Earth as a system, and how it changes over time.  One notable observation is that the technosphere is now growing at an exponential pace and its growth is coming in part at the expense of the biosphere – specifically a loss of biodiversity and ecosystem diversity. 

The technosphere – unlike the biosphere – largely does not recycle its wastes, e.g. vast amounts of plastic end up in landfills, and CO2 is freely dumped into the atmosphere from the combustion of fossil fuels.  The current trajectory of technosphere impacts on Earth’s climate and biosphere is leading to an instability in the Earth system that will challenge humanity’s ability to adapt.

Technobiosphere

For the long-term welfare of humanity, the next step in planetary evolution may well be a fusion of the biosphere and technosphere.  This new entity – the technobiosphere – deserves a label because, although it will retain a well-functioning biosphere and technosphere, much of its self-regulation will depend on human consciousness and, perhaps eventually, Artificial Intelligence (AI).

What that fusion will mean in practice is that the technobiosphere is run on renewable energy, largely recycles its waste materials, and does not grow at an exponential rate.  It would have the capacity to monitor itself, maintain itself, and alter its impacts on the global biogeochemical cycles.  New stabilizing negative feedback loops would link components of the technosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and geosphere.

The global carbon cycle in particular is amenable to technobiosphere regulation by means of controlling energy-based emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, reducing carbon emissions from deforestation, and increasing biologically-based carbon sinks by tree planting and protection of undisturbed ecosystems.

Integration

Clearly the limited contemporary integration of biosphere and technosphere is insufficient to call the combination a technobiosphere.

As to what will drive an enfolding of the technosphere back into the biosphere, I am afraid it is on us. Most importantly, a functional infrastructure for global environmental governance has to be developed to coordinate the global community.  Key principles on which to base that governance include sustainability and habitability.

Sustainability refers to a relationship between the technobiosphere and the rest of the Earth system such that the global environment is stable enough to support successive generations of humans.  If the global climate is warming by 3oC per 100 years because of carbon-based energy generation, the relationship is not sustainable.

Habitability refers to a planetary environment that supports all life forms.  If the growth of techno-artifacts is causing a 50% loss in biodiversity per 100 years, the habitability of the Earth is in decline.  In contrast, habitability could increase if continued urbanization, and an eventual decline in the human population from the global demographic transition, allowed for more of the land and the ocean to be dedicated to conservation purposes. 

The development of AI represents both threats and opportunities in relation to technobiosphere evolution. 

A key threat lies in how AI will speed up the technosphere (hence making greater demands on natural resources) and make the technosphere more autonomous.  Super-intelligent AI bots and agents may eventually care more about their own survival than the survival of the biosphere. 

AI-based opportunities lie in spurring scientific advances that reduce human impacts on the Earth system, and in helping educate natural resource managers and planetary citizens.  AI-based inquiry (with large language models) is a new form of perception  ̶  an intelligence capable of surveying information at the planetary scale and delivering a synthesis accessible to our individual minds.  

Conclusion

The way language works, the existence and meaning of specific words is socially constructed (by way of cultural evolution).  The biosphere concept allows us to see a planetary scale, energy-harvesting, and order-producing entity that helps regulate the global biogeochemical cycles and climate.

The technosphere concept allows us to see a new human-constructed, planetary scale, control force now altering Earth’s biosphere, biogeochemistry, and climate in a destabilizing manner. 

We need to start imagining an integrated technobiosphere  ̶  a part of the Earth system able to monitor and regulate itself so as to survive and thrive at a geologic time scale.

Positive Feedback Loops to Propel the Sustainability Transition

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David P. Turner / March 8, 2024

In the jargon of systems theory, a positive feedback means that a change in a system initiates other changes within the system that amplify the original change.

A clear example in the Earth system is the water vapor feedback:  as the atmosphere warms (e.g. from increasing CO2) it can hold more water vapor (mostly evaporated from the ocean), and since water vapor itself is a greenhouse gas, the atmosphere warms further (Figure 1).

A box and arrow diagram shows the steps in the water vapor and snow/ice albedo feedbacks to climate warming.

Figure 1. The water vapor (blue loop) and snow/ice albedo (red loop) feedbacks. Climate warming induced by anthropogenic CO2 emissions drives changes in the hydrosphere and cryosphere that amplify the warming. A plus sign means causes to increase and a minus sign mean causes to decrease. Image Credit: David Turner and Monica Whipple.  Figure appeared originally in the Technosphere Respiration Feedback blog post.

Positive feedbacks are generally considered destabilizing to a system, potentially pushing it into a new state.  Negative feedbacks aremore familiar, e.g. the furnace/thermostat cycle in home heating; they tend to stabilize a system.

The Earth system has significant negative feedbacks that have helped keep global mean temperature in a habitable range over its 4-billion-year existence.  However, these feedbacks (e.g. the rock weathering thermostat) operate at a geologic time scale, and are thus not going to save humanity from the vast geophysical experiment that we began by burning fossil fuels and boosting atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

We need something faster.  Hence, it is worth identifying and perhaps cultivating various positive feedback mechanisms that could support global sustainability.  Here, I’ll consider three varieties of positive feedback loops that might help us.

Type 1.  Psycho-social Positive Feedback Loops.

Humans have various cognitive biases, meaning our decisions are sometimes subject to unconscious tweaking.  These tweaking tendencies have genetic as well as experiential origins, and may or may not be helpful in any given decision.  Prestige bias, under which we are drawn to believe and emulate individuals who have achieved high status in our society, is an example. 

A cognitive bias that might help the spread of sustainability principles and practices is the conformity bias.  As the name suggests, we tend to adopt ideas and practices that are already embraced by a significant proportion, or the majority, of our society.  The positive feedback comes in because converts increase the proportion of the society that are believers, which strengthens the pressure on nonbelievers to conform.

Figure 2.  Conformity Bias Positive Feedback Loop.  Image Credit: David Turner and Monica Whipple.

The history of social norms and behaviors related to littering and paper recycling show evidence of conformity bias kicking in at some point.

Now that greater than 50% of Americans believe that climate change is for real, conformity bias may help enlarge the pool of believers, and hence the support for relevant policy changes. 

Type 2.  Technical-economic Positive Feedback Loops.

As new technologies become more widely adopted, the associated manufacturers begin to benefit from economies of scale, i.e. the marginal cost of production comes down as usage increases because larger production facilities are typically more efficient than smaller ones.  More efficient production means that the product can be offered at a lower price, and hence demand will likely increase.  This positive feedback loop can lead to rapid growth in product use.

An essential requirement for mitigating climate change will be conversion of the power sector from fossil fuel to renewable sources of energy.  This conversion is ongoing and is benefitting from economies of scale.  Installation of solar and wind power generators is expanding rapidly, in part because the economics are beginning to favor these sources over coal-fired plants.  The cost of installed solar panels and wind turbines has decreased over time because of economies of scale and rapid technical advances.  Hence, a virtuous cycle of more installations favors more decisions to go with renewables.

A second powerful technology-oriented positive feedback involves “network effects”.  Here, as a new technology becomes more widely utilized, its value to the user increases, and more users are recruited.  The spread of the telephone is the classic example. 

Figure 3.  Example of a Network Effect Positive Feedback Loop.  Image Credit: David Turner and Monica Whipple.

The network effect is readily applicable to the proliferation of electric vehicles (EVs).  The replacement of internal combustion engine powered vehicles with EVs is widely advocated to mitigate climate change.  This transition has started, and is fortunately accelerating because of positive feedbacks.  One feedback loop is that as more EVs enter the market, the economic incentives to build more charging stations has increased.  More charging stations makes it easier to take long trips, which reduces range anxiety and incentivizes drivers to purchase EVs rather that gas powered vehicles.

Type 3.  Socio-cultural Niche Construction Loops

Cultural evolution is the process by which the beliefs and practices of individuals and groups of various sizes change over time.  At the level of group selection, particular ideas and group practices may strengthen the group when faced with intergroup competition (e.g. intertribal warfare).

There are many group traits that are shaped by cultural group selection; for analytical purposes we can divide them into three types: sociological, technical, and ecological (Table 1, also below).  It is the constellation of these traits, including how they influence each other, that determines the success of a group.

Socio-cultural niche construction refers to the idea that human societies alter their physical environment (e.g. the vegetation, the energy infrastructure) in ways that reciprocally influence how the society is structured and functions.  Positive feedback loops among two or more of the group traits in Table 1 can result in rapid societal change.

If a group (e.g. a nation) invests (a sociological trait) in research and implementation of renewable energy technologies, the outcome may be a change in the mix of societal energy sources (a technical trait), which could result in cheaper and more reliable energy delivery to the society, which strengthens the society and encourages further investment in renewable energy sources.  The societal choice of energy source also influences the ecological trait of local air quality.  Improvement there would further strengthen the society and enhance group strength.

Figure 4.  Example of a Socio-cultural Niche Construction Positive Feedback Loop.  Image Credit: David Turner and Monica Whipple.

Conclusion

The various feedback loops reviewed here suggest that societal principles and policies are not simply top-down impositions on citizens.  Rather, they can be significantly strengthened or weakened by reciprocal interactions with features of the social, technological, and ecological environment.  To propel conformity bias regarding a particular value or technology, leaders and media can package it as a new social norm.  To propel sustainable technologies that benefit from economies of scale and network effects, societies can subsidize early stages of their development.  To foster revolutionary changes in technology (e.g. a renewable energy revolution), leaders must advocate for them based on the full range of their benefits to society.

These psychological and sociological considerations make the transdisciplinary aspects of Earth System Science ever more apparent.

Table 1. Examples of group traits that may interact to influence group selection.

Sociological Traits

Laws
Customs
Policies
Belief system (e.g. religion)
Type of political organization (e.g. tribe vs. nation state)
Type of military organization
Civic institutions

Technological Traits

Type of fuel for energy production
Form of transportation
Form of electronic communication

Ecological Traits

Local species composition
Local net primary production
Local air quality