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Authors and Affiliations

1. Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, Kräftriket 2B, Stockholm, 10691, Sweden

   Johan Rockström, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, Carl Folke, Björn Nykvist, Sverker Sörlin, Robert Costanza, Uno Svedin, Malin Falkenmark, Louise Karlberg & Brian Walker

2. Stockholm Environment Institute, Kräftriket 2B, Stockholm, 10691, Sweden

   Johan Rockström, Åsa Persson, Björn Nykvist & Louise Karlberg

3. ANU Climate Change Institute, Australian National University, Canberra ACT, 0200, Australia

   Will Steffen

4. Department of Applied Environmental Science, Stockholm University, Stockholm, 10691, Sweden

   Kevin Noone & Cynthia A. de Wit

5. Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, 99775, Alaska, USA

   F. Stuart Chapin III

6. Department of Geography, Université Catholique de Louvainé, 3 place Pasteur, Louvain-la-Neuve, B-1348, Belgium

   Eric F. Lambin

7. School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, NorwichNorwich, NR4 7TJ, UK

   Timothy M. Lenton

8. Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group, Wageningen University, PO Box 9101, HB Wageningen, 6700, the Netherlands

   Marten Scheffer

9. The Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, PO Box 50005, Stockholm, 10405, Sweden

   Carl Folke

10. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, PO Box 60 12 03, Potsdam, 14412, Germany

    Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

11. Environmental Change Institute and Tyndall Centre, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK

    Hans Joachim Schellnhuber

12. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, 4811, Queensland, Australia

    Terry Hughes

13. School of Human Evolution & Social Change, Arizona State University, PO Box 872402, Tempe, 85287-2402, Arizona, USA

    Sander van der Leeuw

14. Department of Meteorology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, 10691, Sweden

    Henning Rodhe

15. Division of History of Science and Technology, Royal Institute of Technology, Teknikringen 76, Stockholm, 10044, Sweden

    Sverker Sörlin

16. Department of Soil, Water, and Climate, University of Minnesota, 439 Borlaug Hall, 1991 Upper Buford Circle, St. Paul, 55108-6028, MN, USA

    Peter K. Snyder

17. Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Vermont, Burlington, 05405, VT, USA

    Robert Costanza

18. Stockholm International Water Institute, Drottninggatan 33, Stockholm, 11151, Sweden

    Malin Falkenmark

19. The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, 900 17th Street, NW, Suite 700, 20006, Washington DC, USA

    Robert W. Corell

20. Department of Biological Sciences, California State University San Marcos, 333 S Twin Oaks Valley Rd, San Marcos, 92096-0001, CA, USA

    Victoria J. Fabry

21. NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, 2880 Broadway, New York, 10025, NY, USA

    James Hansen

22. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Organization, Sustainable Ecosystems, Canberra, 2601, ACT, Australia

    Brian Walker

23. Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK

    Diana Liverman

24. Institute of the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721, AZ, USA

    Diana Liverman

25. The Faculty for Natural Sciences, Tagensvej 16, Copenhagen N, 2200, Denmark

    Katherine Richardson

26. Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, PO Box 30 60, Mainz, 55020, Germany

    Paul Crutzen

27. Institute on the Environment, University of Minnesota, 325 VoTech Building, 1954 Buford Avenue, St Paul, 55108, MN, USA

    Jonathan A. Foley

See Editorial, page 447 . Join the debate. Visit http://tinyurl.com/boundariesblog to discuss this article. For more on the climate, see http://www.nature.com/climatecrunch .

Cite this article

Rockström, J., Steffen, W., Noone, K. et al. A safe operating space for humanity. Nature 461, 472–475 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a

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• Published: 23 September 2009

• Issue date: 24 September 2009

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/461472a