Nairobi, KenyaMother Earth got a bad health report from the United Nations this week, and the scientific team that conducted the exam didn’t shirk from delivering the bad news. The word “dire” comes to mind.

The assessment is contained in the sixth Global Environmental Outlook, a 708-page compendium of the planet’s ailments that was released at a U.N. environmental conference here this week. The Earth’s condition has continued to deteriorate since the first global outlook was prepared in 1997 and “urgent action at an unprecedented scale necessary to arrest and reverse this situation,” the team warned.

“The science is clear,” Joyce Msuya, acting executive director of U.N. Environment, said in a briefing. “The health and prosperity of humanity is directly tied