Is the Earth really sick?

“Planet Earth is sick. It has a fever,” former United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon told US actor Leonardo DiCaprio during the UN Climate Change Conference COP21 in Paris in 2015. Ban was probably referring to the rising temperature of the planet Earth, which was at its hottest in the previous decade due to climate change.

The international scientist group Earth Commission published its report last week using Ban’s personification of the planet, but the image is more complex.

Indeed, the Earth’s illness is multi-faceted and is also affecting its inhabitants, the study says.

The study looked at climate, air pollution, phosphorus and nitrogen contamination of water from fertiliser overuse, groundwater supplies, fresh surface water, the natural environment hitherto untouched by human intervention, and the overall natural and urban environment. Only air pollution was not quite at danger point globally.

The team of 40 scientists defined quantifiable boundaries for each environment category, both for what is safe for the planet and for the point at which it becomes harmful for groups of people, which the researchers term a ‘justice issue’. This justice aspect is mostly about preventing harm to countries, ethnicities and genders.

Researchers found ‘hotspot’ areas throughout Eastern Europe, South Asia, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, parts of Africa, and much of Brazil, Mexico, China, and some of the US West — much of them due to climate change.

Two-thirds of the Earth does not meet the criteria for freshwater safety, scientists say.

The study by the Swedish group was not the grimmest last week. Another suggested that the Arctic could see ice-free summers as early as the 2030s — a decade earlier than previous studies have predicted.

The research team, led by Yeon-Hee Kim of Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea found that the Arctic is currently warming as much as four times faster than the global average, and sea ice has been rapidly declining for decades. The team warned that even aggressive global climate action may not be enough to stop it.

However, the study about the sick earth, which uses a holistic approach to examine various interlocking ecosystems, was more optimistic, indicates that the planet can recover if fossil fuels are phased out and treatment of land and water an water resources are treated with a view to conservation, not solely for exploitation. All biophysical systems and processes on Earth determine the livability of the planet.

Another big difference introduced by this study is looking at local and regional levels and adding the element of justice, i.e. fairness between young and old generations, different nations and different species. Frequently, it applies to conditions that harm people more than the planet. An example of that is climate change.

“Overwhelming evidence shows that a just and equitable approach is essential to planetary stability. We cannot have a biophysically safe planet without justice. This includes setting just targets to prevent significant harm and guarantee access to resources to people and for as well as just transformations to achieve those targets” said co-author Prof. Joyeeta Gupta.