Johan Rockström tells Dr. Raven Baxter the planet has started sending invoices

I interviewed Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in New York on Sept. 21, 2026. We spoke at the Planetary Health Club, a pop-up on East 40th Street, as the Planetary Health Check 2026 launched at Climate Week NYC.

We stood beside an exhibit panel on fossil fuels, and I held a copy of the new report. I asked how everyday people can see themselves as superheroes "in a world where the villains are so strong."

The interview came as the new report found seven of the nine planetary boundaries breached, all seven at their highest recorded levels, according to the launch announcement. Ocean acidification became the latest to cross its boundary, in 2025. "The diagnosis is unambiguous," said lead author Boris Sakschewski of the Potsdam Institute. Three days later, Mongabay reported that Earth's life support systems were "flashing red."

Baxter questions Rockström beside an exhibit panel on fossil fuels, holding the 2026 report. Image: Dr. Raven Baxter video

Individuals and the laws around them

I opened by placing the climate in terms of my own field, molecular biology. "The climate space is new to me, but it feels like an extension of what molecular biology is," I said. I compared the planet to a system of small parts that shape a whole organism.

Rockström answered that individual choices add up. He pointed to Denmark and Norway, where electric vehicles and public transit spread from person to person until "the whole thing tips over." He added that people who live sustainably save money and get healthier. "It's not a sacrifice to be more sustainable. It's actually a path to success," he said.

I then asked whether the bigger goal was to move "the more powerful people." Rockström agreed. "One should not load all the responsibility on the shoulders of individuals," he said. "And we also know from science that even if individuals alone do everything right, we will still fail."

He called for laws, regulation and a price on carbon that make sustainable choices cheaper. He also pointed to the vote. In a democracy, he said, every person helps choose who holds office.

A price on nature

I asked why large companies pick options that are cheaper but damage the planet. Rockström said the world economy has spent more than 150 years creating wealth from nature at no cost. The damage became a planetary crisis only in the last 50 years, he said.

"So we've come to the end of the era when you can exploit for free without the planet itself sending invoices," Rockström said.

I told him the answer helped me see what to advocate for. Advocacy has to reach past recycling and electric cars, I said. "We need policies that actually hold companies accountable for how they're spending and what they're incentivizing and the resources that they're extracting."

Rockström said "the majority of companies actually want this." A small group tied to oil, coal and gas resists, he said, "in a big way."

From shame to opportunity

Later that morning, I interviewed Paul Polman, the former chief executive of Unilever and a member of the Planetary Guardians. Polman described his work on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. He said he tried to move the debate "from risk to opportunity."

I connected that idea to my own experience. "One of the things that stood out to me the most is the shifting of the narrative from shame to opportunity," I said. People are less likely to get vaccinated when they expect to be shamed, I noted.

Polman said climate messages have missed the public. "We have been talking over people, not to people, not with people, and we have to speak the people's language," he said. That language, he said, is health, opportunity, freedom and cost.

Baxter interviews Polman at the Planetary Health Club. Image: Dr. Raven Baxter video

The Planetary Health Check

The planetary boundaries framework was first set out in 2009 by 28 scientists led by Rockström, then at the Stockholm Resilience Centre. It names nine Earth system processes, from climate to freshwater, that must stay within safe limits. Major updates followed in 2015 and 2023, the first year all nine were fully assessed.

The Planetary Boundaries Science Lab at the Potsdam Institute now issues the check every year, with more than 60 scientists as authors. The 2026 report is its third edition. "We do not have the luxury of time, but we do have the knowledge, capacity and solutions to change course," Rockström said in the launch release.

Rockström presents the 2026 findings at the Planetary Health Club. Baxter is not pictured. Photo: David Rico for Planetary Guardians

Before the interviews, Rockström briefed a group of creators on the findings. The Planetary Guardians, formed in 2023, carry that science to world leaders. Members include chair Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, former Irish president Mary Robinson, former Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos, ocean explorer Sylvia Earle and Polman. The group asks the United Nations to hold an annual planetary science security briefing for the Security Council and General Assembly.

The club opened free to the public on Sept. 21 and 22, with a juice bar and exhibits on human and planetary health.

The full Planetary Health Check 2026 and the Planetary Guardians' launch page are online.