More than a century later, the Earth seems to be literally falling to pieces – recent environmental setbacks include billions of tonnes of ice shelves breaking off in the Antarctic and unusually warm temperatures in different parts of the world. Panic reactions range from predictions of sinking islands to lamenting the ill-effects of global warming induced by release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The trouble is that we are too obsessed with the climate change problem to even acknowledge the fact that the state of the planet hinges on much more. Climate change is at best a symptom of a far more complex malaise, just as a fever is most often only an indicator of something that’s gone awry in our body. It’s time for a complete and comprehensive planetary health check, that will examine the impacts of change in land use, loss of biodiversity, use of fertilizers and pesticides and consistent pollution of water bodies. This would overcome the limitations of evaluating how ecosystems work by reacting to just, one major environmental concern as is happening in the case of global warming. These considerations have been responsible for the setting up of an international panel, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Financed by four major international bodies, including the UN and the World Bank, the eco-panel was set up without much fuss last June, and is expected to determine, over a period of four years, and at a cost of $21 million, the state of the Earth’s ecosystems. The eco-panel will source inputs from more than 2000 natural and social scientists the world over. Put simply, the Earth will go through the equivalent of a thorough physical, so that biological, economic and social information can be collated to help scientists arrive at a final diagnosis. The newly-constituted eco-panel will have to ensure that data collection is more representative of the regions of the world. Today, we have the advantage of sourcing data from remote sensing satellites as well. The information thus gathered would have to be sorted out and analyzed by specialists, and also by generalists.