Increasing evidence-synthesized in this paper-shows that economic growth contributes to biodiversity loss via greater resource consumption and higher emissions.Nonetheless, a review of international biodiversity and sustainability policies shows that the majority advocate economic growth. Since improvements in resource use efficiency have so far not allowed for absolute global reductions in resource use and pollution, we question the support for economic growth in these policies, where inadequate attention is paid to the question of how growth can be decoupled from biodiversity loss. Drawing on the literature about alternatives to economic growth, we explore this contradiction and suggest ways forward to halt global biodiversity decline. These include policy proposals to move beyond the growth paradigm while enhancing overall prosperity, which can be implemented by combining top-down and bottom-up governance across scales. Finally, we call the attention of researchers and policy makers to two immediate steps: acknowledge the conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation in future policies; and explore socioeconomic trajectories beyond economic growth in the next generation of biodiversity scenarios.

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Land use change is influenced by a complexity of drivers that transcend spatial, institutional and temporal scales. The analytical framework of telecoupling has recently been proposed in land system science to address this complexity, particularly the increasing importance of distal connections, flows and feedbacks characterising change in land systems. This framework holds important potential for advancing the analysis of land system change. In this article, we review the state of the art of the telecoupling framework in the land system science literature. The article traces the development of the framework from teleconnection to telecoupling and presents two approaches to telecoupling analysis currently proposed in the literature. Subsequently, we discuss a number of analytical challenges related to categorisation of systems, system boundaries, hierarchy and scale. Finally, we propose approaches to address these challenges by looking beyond land system science to theoretical perspectives from economic geography, social metabolism studies, political ecology and cultural anthropology.

After doing several miscibility essays with eight ionic liquids (ILs) and four base oils, the ILs tri(butyl)ethylphosphonium diethylphosphate [P4,4,4,2][C2C2PO4] and trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium tris(pentafluoroethyl)trifluorophosphate [P6,6,6,14][(C2F5)3PF3] were selected to be studied as lubricant additives. The neat IL [P4,4,4,2][C2C2PO4], the base oils, and several blends were characterized in terms of density, viscosity, and thermal stability. The tribological performance of the miscible base oil/IL blends (1 wt %) and the neat [P4,4,4,2][C2C2PO4] were evaluated for the lubrication of an AISI 420 steel-100Cr6 steel contact pair. The friction coefficients and wear volumes obtained are also compared with those corresponding to the pure base oils and their mixtures with conventional additive zinc dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP). As neat lubricants, [P4,4,4,2][C2C2PO4] showed the best antifriction ability, whereas in terms of wear, better results were obtained with [P6,6,6,14][(C2F5)3PF3]. However, higher improvements in both friction and wear were found for blends containing [P4,4,4,2][C2C2PO4]. XPS analyses of the worn surfaces lubricated with these mixtures indicated the presence of phosphorus in the tribofilm formed on the wear track. However, this compound was slightly detected on tribosamples lubricated with blends containing [P6,6,6,14][(C2F5)3PF3].