As COP31 opens this week in Antalya, Türkiye, it's worth pausing on what the science is telling us, and what it isn't.
The latest Planetary Health Check from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), led by Johan Rockström's team, finds that 7 of Earth's 9 planetary boundaries have now been crossed: climate change, biodiversity loss, land-system change, freshwater change, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, novel entities such as plastics and chemicals, and, for the first time, ocean acidification.
That is serious. Global temperatures and ocean heat are at record highs, sea levels keep rising, the great ice sheets are losing mass, and fossil-fuel emissions remain near all-time highs. Every step raises the risk of tipping points that are hard to undo.
But the report's central message is not that collapse is inevitable. It is that this decade matters, and that we still have the tools to turn things around.
We have proof it can be done. The ozone layer is recovering because the world acted together under the Montreal Protocol. It remains one of only two boundaries still within safe limits.
The path back is clear:
- Rapid cuts in carbon emissions
- Protecting and restoring forests, wetlands, soils and oceans
- Sustainable food systems
- Less pollution
- Real cooperation across nations, communities and sectors
Regeneration isn't a cost. It's an investment in the living systems that keep us fed, watered and safe.
That is why we are building the Group One West Institute for Climate Research and Cultural Stewardship, a BC registered non-profit working toward a Living Discovery Campus on Vancouver Island, where renewable energy, food security and land and ocean regeneration can be studied and shown in real life.
The harm is real. So is our ability to reverse it, if we invest now.