Planet Earth is diagnosed with burnout

This Earth Day (April 22), and just before the implementation of new rules that require companies to care for their associates’ mental health (May 25), the Global Compact Country Network Brazil, a United Nations initiative, is launching Earth’s Burnout to warn about the dire consequences of climate change and encourage companies to adopt sustainable practices. 

According to a 2024 study by ecologist William Ripple, 25 of the planet’s so-called vital signs have reached record levels of deterioration. Now, just imagine if the Earth were a human being. Surely the data, scientific research, and extreme weather events happening across the world would be enough to show, just like a medical report, that the planet is ill and needs to rest. Drawing on eight symptoms of burnout, stress, insomnia, arrhythmia, weakened immunity, hair loss, high blood pressure, reflux and fibromyalgia, the initiative draws parallels between exhaustion in humans and the critical state of the planet, using illustrations of medical exams and culminating in a request for “medical leave.” 

Developed alongside leading Brazilian specialists Carlos Nobre, a globally renowned climatologist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Paulo Saldiva, the head of the University of São Paulo Medical School’s Pathology department, this document stands as a symbolic recognition of the fact that the Earth is sick. The illustrations provide a creative comparison between the sickened planet’s “medical exams” and comparable exams of healthy humans, underscoring just how urgent it is to mount a global response to this crisis. 

“Just as overwork leads to burnout in humans, the planet is experiencing an equally intense form of environmental burnout, caused by human action,” says Nobre. “Extreme climate change provides clear signs of this ongoing collapse. Restoring balance is an urgent task, for us, and for planet Earth.”

“The Earth is like a living organism, where the countries are the organs and their residents are its cells,” adds Saldiva. “When you compare burnout symptoms to environmental imbalances, the analogy is both simple and distressing, since the overuse of natural resources is all too similar to the systemic collapse of a person experiencing burnout. A human body’s compromised vital signs can be restored with medical help and plenty of rest, and the planet is no different. By stopping our reckless use of natural resources, we can give the planet the rest it needs.”

The movement is designed to get the attention of the business world and encourage private firms to sign on to the Global Compact Country Network Brazil, in which companies commit to corporate sustainability and to following the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By signing the Earth’s medical leave request, companies can formalise that commitment and begin to support concrete action against global warming.