Europe is experiencing a deadly heat wave, with record temperatures of over 40°C. France alone has recorded over 40 related deaths since mid-June. Many of these were young people drowning in unsupervised lakes and canals. Small children have died in overheated cars. The US’s East Coast and Pacific Northwest are bracing for unaccustomed surges of heat. South Asia, too, is experiencing extreme heatwaves, with temperatures ranging between 45°C and 50°C in parts of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, soaring well above seasonal averages.
Climatic events are influencing weather patterns with increasing frequency. The European heat ordeal is due to the ‘Omega block’ wherein the jet stream buckles sharply from its west-to-east course to a north-south course, creating a block in the natural systems. This year, a super El Niño will heat oceans and release that heat into the atmosphere to amplify the summer heat.
This June, climate scientists from the world over grimly warned us that the 1.5°C limit—aspirationally set for our planet’s temperature rise from pre-industrial times—will be ‘irreversibly crossed’ by 2030. This is well before the 2100 timeline set in 2015 at the Conference of Parties in Paris. While the US has exited the treaty, the commitment of other countries has been dimmed by the Covid-19 pandemic and widespread global conflicts.
The capacity for planetary resilience is also receding. Earth overshoot day (EOD) represents the date in any year’s calendar when the planet has exhausted its capacity to regenerate natural resources that have been depleted that year by the actions of humans and other living forms. When that date arrives before yearend, the planet is forced to consume its reserves, thereby generating greenhouse gases that lead to further global warming. In 1970, the EOD was recorded as December 30. In 2025, EOD was estimated to be July 24. This means that Earth had to live for over 160 days last year in a period of ‘ecological overdraft’, burning up its reserves. The EOD showed a favourable trend only during the Covid-19 pandemic, when human activity was greatly limited.
A divided world is still squabbling over owning responsibility for this crisis and fails to make earnest commitments for mitigation. As the planet boils, attention has shifted to adaptation. Both mitigation and adaptation require financial and technical resources. High-income countries, which have been the main culprits for causing this crisis, are not generous in providing support to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) which will bear the brunt of climate change consequences in the foreseeable future.
When LMICs seek to accelerate renewable energy production, they are impeded by low grid capacity for uptake and distribution. While solar panels and wind turbines run entirely on renewable sources, fossil fuels are heavily involved in their manufacturing, transportation and grid backup. Hence, transition to a non-fossil-fuel dependent energy economy will take some time. The planet cannot wait till then.
Amidst all these debates and discords, a key problem solver has been overlooked. It is the planet itself. It is a veteran of survival, having survived five mass extinctions to create and sustain life in its myriad forms. Left to its resources, without destructive human interference, the planet can create enough green cover to cool human habitat and make life tolerable.
Earth was a ‘cool’ place with its natural forestry, rivers and streams till humans turned from foraging for food in the wild to agriculture. This led to deforestation, cultivation of water- and pesticide-intensive cash crops, abundant use of chemical fertilisers and large scale livestock breeding. Trees that could absorb carbon dioxide and provide shade were sacrificed to promote commercial farming. As aspirational lifestyles fuelled high levels of meat consumption, methane producing ruminants proliferated in factory farms.
Even if it is difficult to reverse these trends in agriculture in this age of Anthropocene, we must aim to increase the green cover. Heedless deforestation must cease. It has been estimated that from 2001 to 2024, the country lost about 23,000 square km of tree cover (about 7 percent of its tree cover area in 2000). Trees must be planted and horticultural gardens must be cultivated. Green roofs will help to cool buildings while tree shaded sidewalks will offer protection to urban pedestrians and cyclists. Many cities in the world, including in India, have provided evidence of thermal protection offered by green environments.
‘Natural farming’ offers an environmentally-friendly alternative to modern commercial farming. Recently, the Rythu Sadhikara Samstha (RySS) of Andhra Pradesh won the prestigious Food Planet Prize of 2026. Awarded by the Curt Bergfors Foundation in Sweden, the $1.5-million environmental prize recognised their work in transforming the food system through the Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming initiative. The grand prize recognised RySS for driving one of the world’s largest, community-led agro-ecological transitions which enabled roughly 1.8 million farmers across 8,000 villages to veer away from chemical pesticides and fertilisers.
This programme mobilised ‘farmer scientists’ and trained women nutrition educators to transform rural beliefs, behaviours with respect to both food production and consumption. It demonstrated improvement in nutrition indicators. Furthermore, a cooling environmental impact was observed with the poly-culture of cropping which provided sustained green cover to the land around the rural homes, unlike the monoculture of commercial farming. The ambient air temperature was observed to be around 4-5°C cooler in the villages which practised natural farming, compared to those which practiced commercial farming. Urban agriculture, including community gardens, can promote cooler urban environments.
It is time we tap into the wisdom of nature and benefit from Earth’s ability to repair and rejuvenate itself. After all, nature is the greatest scientist of all, continually experimenting in the crucible of evolution to craft survival kits for all living forms that inhabit this planet.
K Srinath Reddy | Chancellor, PHFI University of Public Health Sciences; and Chair, Centre for Universal Health Assurance, Indian School of Public Policy
(Views are personal)
(ksrinath.reddy@phfi.org)