The Triple Planetary Crisis is a shorthand term that is used to describe three major threats to Earth’s ecological health—climate change, Nature loss, and pollution. The term is also used to reference the many ways in which the ripple effects of these interacting crises undermine human health, security, and opportunity.

As with any environmental concern, it is common for people to treat planetary health as a remote problem, not specifically affecting them in their everyday lives, something other people can take care of. The environment is what surrounds us, and we are part of it. We are the environment, and it works through us.

Climate change, Nature loss, and pollution, are all affecting human health and wellbeing, everywhere. The costs of those impacts are rising, spreading, interacting, and compounding. Most consumer goods and services now carry embedded planetary crisis costs. We ignore the Triple Planetary Crisis at our peril.

Some examples:

1. Disrupted and dislocated climate patterns can make it impossible for critical crops to grow optimally—not only in their historic landscapes, but anywhere.
2. Scarcity of food and water are becoming more common and are leading to increased prices, in all regions.
3. Nature loss not only degrades ecosystems and depletes biodiversity; all of these undermine the integrity of watersheds, the ability of soils and forested landscapes to keep air and water clean, and the productive capacity of agricultural landscapes.
4. Degraded biodiversity and dislocated ecosystems create new opportunities for zoonotic pathogen spillover—new diseases migrating from animals to humans.
5. The most widely accepted explanation for the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it spilled over from wild animals to people—resulting in more than 7.1 million deaths globally and more than 1.2 million in the U.S. alone.
6. Climate pattern disruption and ecological dislocation are resulting in new disease-carrying pests (vectors) moving into regions where no one has immunity for the diseases those unfamiliar pests transmit.
7. Plastic pollution is now so rampant, microplastics are being found in the tissue of newborn sea life in the remote Arctic and in plants and animals far inland. The mass of plastic in the ocean is expected to surpass the total mass of all life in the ocean by 2050.
8. Microplastics and forever chemicals are now being found in human blood and tissue in all regions of the world.
9. Neurotoxins, endocrine disrupting chemicals, carcinogens, and other dangerous toxins are being found in food products and in clouds.
10. Rampant environmental pollution and contamination of food products are two of the suspected causes for a decrease in life expectancy in the United States, including the role they might play in behaviors that lead to more deaths from accidental harm or violence.

Each of these localizing experiences of Planetary Crisis comes with serious costs. Not only are health and safety undermined, but public budgets are stressed by a multilayered demand for new spending:

• The cost of responding to shock events;
• The cost of responding to public health crises;
• The cost of litigation—both against polluters and when the public sues to hold government accountable for inaction;
• The cost of new infrastructure and transformational investments, which can pay off over time, but carry up-front risks and often lead to more borrowing;
• The cost of fiscal stability pressures, including new and unsustainable borrowing;
• The cost of depleted revenues as circumstances undermine revenue flows from the everyday economy.

In a situation where everyday activities carry more risk, and where shock events and slow-onset crises are more common and compounding, insurance costs quickly rise. As a result, insurers either increase fees by far more than the rate of inflation, or they greatly limit or even eliminate coverage altogether. In regions already affected by repeated wildfires, storms, or floods, homeowners often cannot qualify for insurance—even with significant upgrades to reduce risk.

Progress is often measured by the degree to which a society successfully reduces both immediate and macro-scale danger, which in turn reduces the incidence of lost time and degraded returns on investment. This leads to greater capital being available for constructive investment in new products and services, improved health, and better quality of life.

If reducing danger is no longer possible, and costs are rising for everyone, everywhere, progress of that kind becomes less attainable. When societies cannot deliver progress to most people, trust breaks down, and the divestment of real and social capital from everyday civic institutions accelerates.

The Triple Planetary Crisis is reaching communities large and small, in the wealthiest countries and in the most vulnerable. Entire industries are being disrupted, as the need for lightning-speed innovation takes over and long-held assumptions cease to provide meaningful guidance for routine decisions.

To understand the degree to which Planetary Crisis is affecting life in your community—whether you come to the question as a local official or as a citizen stakeholder—look at the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and try to identify where conditions are improving around you, on any one of these, without pulling the others backward. For instance:

• Are decent work (well paid, with safe conditions and purpose) and economic growth becoming more available, without polluting or undermining ecosystems on land or in the marine environment?
• Are incomes rising without exacerbating inequalities or leading to unsustainable consumption?
• If investment is going into new infrastructure and technological innovation, are public institutions strong, steady, reliable, and operating in good faith to deliver real justice to the vulnerable?
• Is the story one of mixed progress, while costs keep going up for everyone?

We also recommend assessing the balance of hidden costs and co-benefits for new investments at the local and regional levels. In our present age of pervasive and compounding risk, rapid change, and systemic disruption, BHC metrics can provide decision-makers with clear insights into where to find, incentivize, and expand new everyday value-creation.