“Close your eyes, prick up your ears, and from the softest sound to the wildest noise, from the simplest tone to the highest harmony, from the most violent, passionate scream to the gentlest words of sweet reason, it is Nature who speaks, revealing her being, her power, her life, and her relatedness.”

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Humanity now faces perhaps the biggest choice it will ever make: continue down the road to a future devastated by climate change, dwindling Nature, degraded land, and polluted air, land and water, or change direction to secure a healthy planet, healthy people, and prosperity for all.”

—Inger Anderson, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme 

“Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people. Wherever one notices them, they constitute a sign of ignorance and brutality.”

—Alexander von Humboldt

The recent launch of a major UN report on Nature assesses global crises and spells out how our urgent need to look for unconventional non-status-quo solutions translates into doable actions that then become a catalyst for a transformation Nature can then thrive on. By looking at such topics as climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and waste and land degradation, as well as desertification issues, we can find equitable responses. Over three years the UN’s Environment Programme brought together nearly 300 scientists to create the Global Environment Outlook (GEO).

This is the seventh edition under that endeavour—hence the name GEO-7. The report is 1242 pages long. There are multiple chapters covering food, oceans and coasts, freshwater, land and soil, Indigenous and local knowledge, and the social, ecological and economic goals of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but also financial systems solutions are explored to underscore solid successes.

https://tinyurl.com/unep-geo-7

After assessing present worldwide on-the-ground situations, the report delves deeper into the critical transformations needed for a resilient functioning global society. It even looks at how beneficial a circular economy (as opposed to an economy based on extractivism, like ours) can be by limiting everything from plastic waste to agricultural pollution. GEO-7 tells us: “A global shift to a circular economy is a leading solution to the interconnected environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation, and pollution and waste… A circular flow of resources in the economy will also contribute positively to socioeconomic development while safeguarding Nature and people.” 

A Future We Choose: Why investing in Earth now can lead to a trillion-dollar benefit for all is GEO-7’s title for remaking in many instances the global north’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples, the global south and the biosphere. Diversity and inclusiveness are necessary if the tapestry of society is to be equitable, and social and ecological justice to have a fair chance of success.

GEO-7’s raison d’être is based on detailing our largest human-created planetary problems and asking the difficult questions regarding the outlook for transformation towards a more just future. It “calls on all actors, governments, nongovernmental and multilateral organizations, the public, including Indigenous Peoples, civil society, academia and professional organizations, as well as the private sector to acknowledge the urgency of the global environmental crises and to collaborate in the co-design and implementation of integrated policies, strategies and actions. Such coordinated actions can initiate a process of change that transforms socio-ecological systems. Equitable and just transformations fundamentally require a shift away from the concentration of power and wealth, away from short-term decisions prioritizing individual and material gains, and away from the disconnection from and domination over Nature. This shift involves values moving away from extractivism and unsustainable patterns of consumption towards regenerative socio-ecological systems based on reciprocity and care.” 

In a way it is a peace plan with ourselves and Nature. By speaking about our planetary crises unflinchingly, GEO-7 is able to show governments, corporations and individuals ways to break out of dead-end failures towards a vibrant future, “the future we choose.”

My last article, written two weeks ago, “Factory Farms Feed Inequality and Violence,” focused on the huge harms industrial farming has visited on the rainforests of the Amazon. Of course it was in Belém, Brazil where the UN conference on climate change (COP30) took place this last month, and—rightfully so—emphasis was placed on protecting tropical forests. 

The deforestation of the Amazon is being perpetrated by multinational companies for their ill-gotten and unethical profits by primarily growing soybeans to feed chickens and cattle around the world, including in Québec. GEO-7’s answer: “Achieving a sustainable global food system requires moving away from pursuing the lowest-cost foods, which are often nutritionally poor and unsustainably produced… Yet, 700—800 million people remain undernourished and there are increasingly high rates of obesity in most countries, highlighting that delivering cheap food does not ensure equitable or healthy nutrition… The current global food system fails to provide food security for all or end malnourishment in all forms, while creating substantial negative ecological and societal impacts that affect the achievement of many sustainable development goals.”

It is well understood that Canada’s cheap fast-food options simply do nothing to help lessen the food crisis, including the obesity epidemic. GEO-7 mentions better education commitments to combat these issues.

The UN conferences try to engage and finally find consensus with all nations. Meanwhile, GEO-7 is a vital tool to demonstrate to all nations the avenues and pathways that provide clear guidance on how to get to the transformative policy decisions debated frequently at UN climate, UN biodiversity, UN desertification and CITES summits, which are attended by politicians and their countries’ delegates. In so doing, GEO-7 is the way to break through the status quo by giving straightforward solutions to seemingly intransigent problems. 

Vitally, GEO-7 also gives individual countries and regions the tools on how to create national pathways towards resilient solutions that do not have to rely on consensus as is found in UN conferences such as COP30. Countries with different income levels are given the opportunity to lead on such areas as resource consumption, while development can bypass older destructive technologies and is given targeted support.

Trillions of dollars and hundreds of millions of employment opportunities will come to nations that want to reestablish strong connections with Nature and end inequitable concentration of power and wealth. Again, Indigenous knowledge comes to the forefront to help the rest of us transform our food systems. GEO-7 emphasizes: “In the Amazon rainforest, Indigenous agroforestry systems incorporate diverse crops and trees that mimic the natural forest structure, supporting soil health [and] biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem functions.”

I think of Christiana Figueres, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, who brought countries together for the Paris Agreement in 2015 and said: “Impossible is not a fact. It’s an attitude… And I decided, right then and there, that I was going to change my attitude, and I was going to help the world change its attitude on climate change.” It is possible for individuals to make a huge difference in their communities.

The two inspiring videos below show how a passion for the rejuvenation of Nature can be wildly successful. In each case degraded land flourishes because of the unswerving dedication of one person. The first story takes place in New Zealand and the second in Sweden. Maria was called “naive” and Johannes one of the “fools and dreamers” when they started out on their quests to revitalize the Earth’s lands.

https://tinyurl.com/30-year-forest

https://tinyurl.com/Sweden-forest

Moving on to a new year and watching these two short videos can be a magical way to reenergize our commitments to the planet and to all species who live on it.