Archive for October, 2024

“It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.” 
– William Shatner, reflecting on his trip aboard the Blue Origin space shuttle in 2021

“Peace with Nature” is the theme of the UN COP16 biodiversity summit, which began in Colombia this week. https://www.cop16colombia.com/es/en/ 

To understand better what is taking place at the summit, and what is at stake, read about the history of the UN biodiversity conferences and take a look at what is at its heart: the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which includes the summit’s goals and 23 targets. https://tinyurl.com/COP16-biodiversity

And here is Canada’s plan to achieve its biodiversity goals: https://tinyurl.com/Canada-commitment

WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) has reviewed the world’s National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans and has revealed that the majority of countries are not fully honouring their commitments to halt and reverse Nature loss by 2030. In fact, only 10% of countries have submitted their updated plans for Nature. WWF has put out a tracker to show the current tangible action plans of individual nations to protect Nature. Which countries are doing best? Find out at https://tinyurl.com/WWF-Nature-tracker

Unlike the annual UN climate change conference, the biodiversity summit only takes place every two years. Few heads of government attend it, and many thousand fewer people come than to the extravaganzas that are the climate change COPs, with all their slick negotiating groups and lobbyists (who often outnumber individual nation states’ delegates). It is utterly disgraceful that the United States hasn’t even ratified the GBF and essentially remains silent throughout the two weeks.

There have never been binding resolutions to lower carbon emissions, and nor have the biodiversity conferences conjured up real wins for Nature, although the December 2022 Montreal summit broke through some of the entrenched anti-Nature propaganda to move forward on giving Indigenous and global south voices a more powerful presence and voice. However, the lion’s share of financial benefits, including the possession and monetizing of digital sequence information (DSI) on genetic resources, still goes to the global north, when it is all too obvious that the southern hemisphere’s intact biosphere is what props up and feeds the massive extractive and consumeristic way of life of Canadians and Americans.

The goals of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity include DSI justice, halting human-induced extinction of threatened species and reducing the rate of extinction of all species tenfold by 2050, the sustainable use and management of biodiversity to ensure that Nature’s contributions to humans are valued, maintained and enhanced, and that adequate means of implementing the GBF be accessible to all parties, particularly least developed countries and small island developing states.

Not very long ago it was thought that plutocracies in the global north could pontificate with impunity on matters of carbon, fossil fuels, energy and economic success stories, and at the same time eke out some sort of ceasefire and even placate climate/biodiversity scientists and activists with false promises, without mentioning the real-in-your-face collapse of Nature, while the entreaties of the global south were barely noticeable. This greenwashing on the part of the fossil fuel industries is hardly in practice now because a new no-holds-barred acceleration of the oil/gas agenda has taken over. Empowered and emboldened by right-wing governments, they just don’t care what the scientific evidence presents.

This attitude reflects the Cartesian mind/body split that has caused over the centuries such suffering throughout the ecological world and beyond. The health of the Earth’s living body can’t be a separate issue from any other activity we might pursue. If governments truly wanted the biodiversity crisis to disappear, the biodiversity conference would have had equal status almost 30 years ago to the climate one, instead of being its poor cousin. 

For many governments, including the general public, climate is a problem that until recently could be endlessly put off and therefore appeared more theoretical in nature. The climate summit has always had conflicting information showcased, and in many instances belligerent actors have torn down the case for immediate fossil fuel reductions that would give way to an overwhelming push for renewable energy and a lowering of carbon emissions. Now we know that an expanded and massive renewable infrastructure only enhances oil/gas production and gives more electricity to a spiralling artificial intelligence industry expansion, and at the same time emissions still rise to accommodate the insatiable greed of the global economy and technology.

The crucial matter of biosphere integrity is what any rational discussion should start with. There ain’t anything hypothetical about it. We either protect (and hopefully love) the Earth, or we destroy ourselves. That sentiment is hard to inculcate into classrooms when universities like Bishop’s are practically moribund when it comes to giving the general student population, and not just an elite few, the skills and the passion that would change the present curriculum apathy and turn around the overwhelming grief expressed by many students that accompanies the planetary crisis. The University of California at San Diego has made the right decision. Beginning in autumn 2024, all incoming students are required to take a class on climate change in order to graduate. https://tinyurl.com/courses-on-climate

Susana Muhamad, the president of COP16 Colombia, who quit working for Shell years ago, had this to say about the goals of the conference: “The added value of holding COP16 in Colombia lies in our vision of ‘Peace with Nature’ and in recognizing that the real struggle of the 21st century is for life. If we succeed in transforming our relationship with Nature, as well as our production and consumption practices, and get collective actions to promote life instead of destroying it, we will be addressing the most important challenges of our time.”

As you will see, several world gatherings are taking place over the next two months. I will be writing about each of them. The first is COP16 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, Colombia fromOctober 21 to November 1 (also referred to as the Nature COP). This will be followed by COP29 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan from November 11 to 22 (also referred to as the climate COP), and COP16 of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), hosted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from

December 2 to 13 (also referred to as the desertification COP).

If you find these large UN conferences daunting, you might be heartened by the existence of groups such as the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network International (WECAN), who will be present at COP16 in Colombia to champion the Rights of Nature. https://www.wecaninternational.org

Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is a masterpiece that brings out all the interwoven magical world of Nature, but—even better—the oldest all-star band in existence is hitting the airwaves and raising millions to be spent on rejuvenating our biosphere. The name of the band is Nature. Nature is officially an artist! Listen to her music! https://www.soundsright.earth

“We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world.”
-Robin Wall Kimmerer 

Confession: I’ve always had a huge problem with the word “sustainability.” Last week I attended the inspirational Resurgence online Festival of Wellbeing, featuring, among other fine speakers, Robin Wall Kimmerer, scientist, professor, founder of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment and author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Robin spoke about that problematic word, and she quoted what an Indigenous elder had to say about it: “That sounds to me like they’re trying to find a way to just keep on taking. It’s not our right to keep taking. When your feet hit the ground in the morning, we should be thinking, what can we give?” https://www.resurgence.org/

The 27 September climate protest march starting from the Université de Sherbrooke (see photo) was supported by barely 200 people, with a smattering of elders and primary school students. The Université de Sherbrooke has a student population of tens of thousands, but where were they? Bishop’s University students were in short supply too. Despite the daily alarms sounded by climate scientists, who declare that with the ever-increasing rise in carbon emissions will come more and more catastrophes, what is going on with such a disengaged group?

Why won’t Canadian students do anything to help their own future?

Well, of course some students are rising up to challenge and change the narrative away from submission to a broken political agenda that only cares about more accumulation as opposed to one of inclusivity with Nature. All young adults need to embrace a new economic model and have a policy centred on degrowth. Survival depends on it.

If you are still not convinced, this talk is of critical importance for you: https://tinyurl.com/Earth-health-summary 

In an article titled “La marche pour le climat a-t-elle encore un sens?” (“Does marching for the climate still make sense?”, Le Devoir, 1 October 2024) Juliette Husson confirms what so many of us feel: that in the midst of unprecedented Earth disasters, ecological matters are no longer being taken seriously by the governments, corporations or citizens of the global north. Husson concludes that it is vital to continue to protest, even though many people do not believe that protest is relevant or the priority while they are concerned about solving their perceived economic woes. Climate protests renew our commitment to Nature, Husson asserts. https://tinyurl.com/march-for-climate 

Even the success of the Canadian carbon tax, which has helped reduce Canada’s carbon emissions and has put more money back in the pockets of lower-income families, is now being threatened by both the Conservatives and, bizarrely, the New Democratic Party. https://tinyurl.com/carbon-tax-faces-axe 

Misinformation has contributed to a dangerous retreat from confronting climate risks, even though most people have seen how climate breakdown is showing up in their own vicinity; take last year’s Québec wildfires as our local example. 

Truly wanting less, and even ultimately knowing that we have enough, is not an easy task to internalize if so many in our western society want more. (By the way, this conversation is not motivated by some plot to get the poor to accept a more debilitating poverty. A policy of austerity has already accelerated poverty. No: it is the top 10% of households that are ransacking the planet.) 

There are so many questions as to why, how and when to create a rejuvenated society, but working against this realization is today’s corporate fetish-technology fundamentalism, which declares that all our ills will be solved by the future magic of technological innovation. In his article “Ironic and Tragic: Technological Fundamentalism and Our Fear of Limits,”Robert Jensen writes: “We lack strategies that we can implement tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t wrestle with the challenge today. It is ironic that technological fundamentalists believe we can do anything we set our minds to, except limit the voraciousness of the human enterprise.” https://tinyurl.com/jensen-ironic-tragic

Working contrary to the anti-Nature pie-in-the-sky techno-fix delirium are many great thinkers, including Indigenous people and artists. On a global trajectory to realize a humane response, the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration is in effect till 2030, alongside the Sustainable Development Goals. These endeavours cannot succeed too soon. Many people think this decade is humanity’s last chance to halt the climate and biodiversity crises. 

Sometimes it feels that it is impossible to keep up with all the latest scientific and cultural news, which is intensifying. My file named “Biodiversity” has so many subjects of interest that I am adding a new file about the upcoming UN Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16) taking place in Colombia from October 21, 2024, because news reports and media announcements are soaring. The UN Climate Change Conference in Azerbaijan (COP29) beginning on 11 November this year is a separate file. The information I have accumulated on subjects from conservation, activism and ecocide to a plastics treaty is enormous. The abundance of information coming to us daily and the red flags that are increasingly attached must make us not only stop and consider where we went wrong but also reflect urgently on a system of knowledge and education that left out what is most important: our place in Nature—not beside Nature or playing the puppeteer for our distant cousin Nature.

The safe carbon level of 350 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere 35 years ago has now reached 421.9 ppm, never before realized since the dawn of humanity. We’d better re-evaluate what is important to us, because we have arrived at a rapidly shrinking window of opportunity to turn towards a clear and safe planetary response and act decisively for our long-term survival. The victims of Hurricane Helene know viscerally what survival means, as do many others in the seemingly endless cycles of catastrophic paths of ruined lives around the world because the global north can’t get its act together. 

Could it be that the usual extreme-right demagogues’ mantra that sings about how down and out the economy is, or adding on to that, how immigrants are to blame for a undefined national malaise, has successfully permeated so deeply the public consciousness and is now a key reason that people refuse to pay attention to climate science? They feel perhaps that acting on climate/biodiversity issues should no longer be on the agenda, even though ecological health is the foundation for all economic wellbeing.

Trump’s “Make America Great Again” doesn’t include cleaning up air pollution or resolving how to reduce atmospheric carbon levels. Has all of his poisonous bluster finally infected the body politic to such a degree that most people really believe that the USA, or for that matter, Canada, is a failed nation because our pay cheques are not large enough to consume even more? Again, the notion of wanting less, for mainstream economists and not only would-be dictators, is a profoundly anti-capitalist concept and according to these people must be blotted out from any discussion that looks at our perceived ills.

In 1972 the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth. This seminal book is even more relevant now. Each of us needs to reflect on our own propensity to demand more from a finite planet.