Earth Is ‘Really Quite Sick Now’ and in Danger Zone in Nearly All Ecological Ways, Study Says

Dead fish drift in the Oder River near Brieskow-Finkenheerd, eastern Germany, on Aug. 11, 2022. (AP)
Dead fish drift in the Oder River near Brieskow-Finkenheerd, eastern Germany, on Aug. 11, 2022. (AP)
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Earth Is ‘Really Quite Sick Now’ and in Danger Zone in Nearly All Ecological Ways, Study Says

Dead fish drift in the Oder River near Brieskow-Finkenheerd, eastern Germany, on Aug. 11, 2022. (AP)
Dead fish drift in the Oder River near Brieskow-Finkenheerd, eastern Germany, on Aug. 11, 2022. (AP)

Earth has pushed past seven out of eight scientifically established safety limits and into “the danger zone,” not just for an overheating planet that's losing its natural areas, but for well-being of people living on it, according to a new study.

The study looks not just at guardrails for the planetary ecosystem but for the first time it includes measures of “justice,” which is mostly about preventing harm for countries, ethnicities and genders.

The study by the international scientist group Earth Commission published in Wednesday’s journal Nature looks at climate, air pollution, phosphorus and nitrogen contamination of water from fertilizer overuse, groundwater supplies, fresh surface water, the unbuilt natural environment and the overall natural and human-built environment. Only air pollution wasn’t quite at the danger point globally.

Air pollution is dangerous at local and regional levels, while climate was beyond the harmful levels for humans in groups but not quite past the safety guideline for the planet as a system, the study from the Swedish group said.

The study found “hotspots” of problem 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 it from climate change. About two-thirds of Earth don’t meet the criteria for freshwater safety, scientists said as an example.

“We are in a danger zone for most of the Earth system boundaries,” said study co-author Kristie Ebi, a professor of climate and public health at the University of Washington.

If planet Earth just got an annual check-up, similar to a person's physical, “our doctor would say that the Earth is really quite sick right now and it is sick in terms of many different areas or systems and this sickness is also affecting the people living on Earth,” Earth Commission co-chair Joyeeta Gupta, a professor of environment at the University of Amsterdam, said at a press conference.

It’s not a terminal diagnosis. The planet can recover if it changes, including its use of coal, oil and natural gas and the way it treats the land and water, the scientists said.

But “we are moving in the wrong direction on basically all of these,” said study lead author Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.

“This is a compelling and provocative paper – scientifically sound in methodology and important for identifying the dimensions in which the planet is nearing the edge of boundaries that would launch us into irreversible states,” Indy Burke, dean of the Yale School of the Environment said in an email. She wasn’t part of the study.

The team of about 40 scientists created quantifiable boundaries for each environmental category, both for what’s safe for the planet and for the point at which it becomes harmful for groups of people, which the researchers termed a justice issue.

Rockstrom said he thinks of those points as setting up “a safety fence” outside of which the risks become higher, but not necessarily fatal.

Rockstrom and other scientists have attempted in the past this type of holistic measuring of Earth’s various interlocking ecosystems. The big difference in this attempt is that scientists also looked at local and regional levels and they added the element of justice.

The justice part includes fairness between young and old generations, different nations and even different species. Frequently, it applies to conditions that harm people more than the planet.

An example of that is climate change.

The report uses the same boundary of 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since pre-industrial times that international leaders agreed upon in the 2015 Paris climate agreement. The world has so far warmed about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit), so it hasn’t crossed that safety fence, Rockstrom and Gupta said, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t being hurt.

“What we are trying to show through our paper is that event at 1 degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) there is a huge amount of damage taking place,” Gupta said, pointing to tens of millions of people exposed to extreme hot temperatures.

The planetary safety guardrail of 1.5 degrees hasn’t been breached, but the “just” boundary where people are hurt of 1 degree has been.

“Sustainability and justice are inseparable,” said Stanford environmental studies chief Chris Field, who wasn’t part of the research. He said he would want even more stringent boundaries. “Unsafe conditions do not need to cover a large fraction of Earth’s area to be unacceptable, especially if the unsafe conditions are concentrated in and near poor and vulnerable communities.”

Another outside expert, Dr. Lynn Goldman, an environment health professor and dean of George Washington University’s public health school, said the study was “kind of bold,” but she wasn’t optimistic that it would result in much action.



Cars, Chlamydia Threaten Australian Koalas

This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
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Cars, Chlamydia Threaten Australian Koalas

This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
This picture taken on October 4, 2024 shows an orphaned koala joey named Ajooni clinging to a fluffy toy during feeding time in Sydney. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)

Clinging to a fluffy toy twice her size, orphaned koala joey Ajooni made a snuffling noise as she drank milk from a tiny syringe.

Weighing about the same as a mango, she was found by the side of a Sydney road where her mother was hit by a car and died.

It is a familiar tale for wildlife carer Emma Meadows, AFP reported.

Over the past two years, Meadows and other volunteers have recovered 40 koalas hit by cars in their neighborhood. The number left for dead is likely much higher.

Koalas are shy and notoriously difficult to count.

There are anywhere between 95,000 and 524,000 left in Australia, possibly down from millions before European settlement.

There is little doubt that expanding cities, land clearance and the spread of chlamydia are devastating the populations of one of Australia's most iconic animals.

East Coast koalas were officially listed as "endangered" by the Australian government in 2022.

"I actually, truly, believe we're heading towards extinction," said Meadows, a volunteer with WIRES.

"I don't know if there is any coming back from this. I'm scared it's too late."

Chlamydia was first observed in koalas about 50 years ago. In the decades since, it has wiped out entire local populations.

The bacteria leads to blindness, bladder infections, infertility, and death.

Although some chlamydia-free koala populations exist -- such as the area where Ajooni was found -- scientists fear these pockets may soon disappear.

- World's 'extinction capital' -

Annabelle Olsson, director of the University of Sydney Wildlife Health and Conservation Hospital, has regularly examined rescued koalas -- including seven-month-old Ajooni.

On the day AFP visited the center, a sedated three-year-old koala lay on an operation table, while Olsson and her team took the marsupial's blood, did X-rays and examined the koala's face.

The koala was chlamydia-free but had a head injury that impacted her reflexes and would require further attention.

Olsson said without better koala protections "our grandchildren, or at least their grandchildren, are going to see maybe koalas in a zoo if they're lucky.”

"Australia is an island nation with an incredibly high biodiversity and incredibly unique wildlife species and floral species that need to be preserved," she said.

Scientists believe Australia has the highest rate of mammal extinction in the world, with about 100 of the country's unique flora and fauna species wiped out in the last 123 years.

Environment minister Tanya Plibersek has said Australia is "the mammal extinction capital of the world. "

While there are some rules and guidelines to protect koala habitats, koala bushland continues to be cleared.

- Vaccine hopes -

Some have instead focused their conservation efforts on quelling the spread of koala chlamydia.

University of the Sunshine Coast researcher Samuel Phillips is part of a team working on a potential vaccine.

They have vaccinated and monitored 165 koalas over 10 years and found inoculated marsupials developed chlamydia later in life and their mortality was reduced by 64 percent.

A Queensland trial of the vaccination, used in conjunction with traffic and predator controls, was so successful that a local koala population doomed for extinction within 10 years rebounded.

Some marsupials will even need to be translocated to stop overpopulation, Phillips said.

"It's been a really positive story," he said.

However, Phillips warns that more needs to be done to address the other key drivers of koala decline, particularly the deforestation of their habitats.

"We can keep protecting these small populations, but without increasing the habitat and protecting it, then they won't be living."

- 'Make a difference' -

Ajooni will remain in Meadow's care until she is big enough to be released back into the wild.

It will be a "bittersweet" moment for Meadow, but she says seeing any koala successfully released is the best feeling.

That feeling is what keeps her going through the awful parts of her volunteer role: scraping dead koala bodies off the road in the middle of the night, or finding animals that are so severely injured that they need to be put down.

"I continue to do what I do because somebody needs to make a difference, and I feel that this is one way in the world that I can make a difference," Meadows said.