Archive for May, 2026

Ten thousand flowers in spring, 
the moon in autumn,
a cool breeze in summer, 
snow in winter. 

If your mind isn’t clouded 
by unnecessary things,
this is the best season of your life.

—Wumen Huikai (1183–1260), translated by Stephen Mitchell

“Our countryside is being drenched in pesticides, with devastating consequences for bees, birds, butterflies, rivers and the soil.” —Nina Schrank, campaigner with Greenpeace UK

Adam Weymouth’s Lone Wolf: Walking the Line between Civilization and Wildness takes us on the journey of a wolf’s travels 1,600 kilometres through Europe in search of a mate. Guided by an electronic tracking device, Weymouth follows the wolf’s path through mountains and forests and along rivers. But this is more than a simple travelogue. We are privy to a history of grotesque wolf mythologies and witness the conversations of mountain farmers who for the most part would be more than pleased to kill the last European wolf. Here in North America ranchers even use helicopters and snowmobiles to kill these majestic and socially involved animals if traps and poison don’t find them first.

Why, through many centuries, are we so obsessed with falsely believing wolves are Satan incarnate? Alaska’s bears are now sharing the same fate: no limits are placed on how many animals can be killed. There is no appreciation by Alaska’s government that the extermination of a local apex predator has catastrophic implications for a host of other species that rely on an intricate web of interactions. Well, of course they are well aware of the consequences, just as we are in our area when we witness deer populations rising due to a lack of predators. 

Scientists sometimes refer to the slow decline of a species to extinction as “death by 1,000 cuts.” This expression is more gruesome and graphic than you might expect. It links back to a centuries-old method of torture and execution in China that was practised until it was banned in 1905. The outcome of methodically cutting off portions of the body was a slow and excruciating death, but it was no particular cut that caused this. 

The expression as it is now used conveys just how difficult it is to know precisely the reasons for a species’ demise. The natural world is slowly being butchered at around 1.5 percent each year—and it is you and I who are doing the cutting. 

The planetary boundaries framework tells us what happens when humanity knowingly goes beyond what one analysis calls a “safe” threshold for “biotic intactness”—a measure of functional and genetic diversity (biodiversity). Biotic intactness has declined across at least 65% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface.
https://tinyurl.com/world-boundaries

Much has been written on this grim passage of the living to the dead. Insects in particular have been flagged as being on a life/death precipice. Because of their massive agricultural significance, bee species have come under immense scrutiny. Between pesticides and habitat destruction, bees are universally acknowledged as being endangered. https://tinyurl.com/1000-cuts-biodiversity

On May 15, the 21st Endangered Species Day provided a global conversation to end the drivers of ecological destruction across the world. As we see in 2026, fewer governments are committed to being stalwart defenders of the natural world.

As an example, let’s look at the plight of the Atlantic right whale, named “right” by whalers because they move slowly, live close to the surface and were easy to process because they would float after being harpooned. Today, the main killers of this whale are boat strikes. By simply lowering vessel speeds in those areas frequented by the right whale at certain times of the year, these critically endangered mammals would be spared as much as 90% of collisions and deaths. In fact, there is a US federal rule to do just that, but Donald Trump’s anti-Nature agenda will stop that life-saving procedure. To do this to the endangered right whale is an act of ecocide that will drive the few remaining Atlantic ones to extinction. 

The biologist Arthur Galton coined the word “ecocide” in 1970 to describe the deforestation caused by the use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. Knowing the legal definition of “ecocide” is imperative if society is to initiate long-overdue legal and political responses to those who would sabotage actions that protect the rights of Nature. According to Stop Ecocide International, “ecocide means unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.” 

The courageous activist and lawyer Polly Higgins expanded our sense of urgency by stating that the finality of ecocide is “the extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished.” Indeed, an accelerating rights of Nature movement is moving towards persuading the International Criminal Court to add the crime of ecocide to four other major established crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression. Including ecocide with these crimes makes absolute sense as ecocide leads to collapse and extinction. Put another way, ecocide is on a par with genocide and those who commit such an act are war criminals against Nature and must be prosecuted.

But the burgeoning incidences of ecocide and consequently extinction rates throughout the world, through war, deforestation, the spread of terrestrial factory farming, industrial fish farming—read Laura Lee Cascada’s damning appraisal at https://tinyurl.com/aqua-fish —and pesticides and nitrogen fertilizer created by fossil fuels, means that resistance and a painful reassessment of cultural values must start with each of us. 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word “extinction” as “a situation in which a plant, an animal, a way of life, etc. stops existing.” Most importantly, ecocide is an action that is “committed with knowledge.” Just as those condemned at the Nuremberg trials had knowledge of what their actions would lead to, many governments, corporations and often individuals are reluctantly aware that they are committing egregious green crimes. 

So is it a crime to go trophy hunting if the last animals are sacrificed for some narcissistic ego? Do the cumulative 1,000 actions of people taking cruises and flying, causing unstoppable climate breakdown for the sake of some travel bucket list of dreams that perversely decimate the very birds they take photos of, constitute ecocide? The prohibitively expensive small cruise ships that cater to the rich do nothing more than bloat egos and spew pollution in the polar regions, all in the name of photo opportunities with an endangered polar bear or penguin. Now the current ultimate giddy adventure seems to be floating as a tourist for ten minutes in space while heinously increasing fossil fuel emissions. 

One thousand seemingly small cuts lead to disaster, but historically the Chinese also speak of the number 10,000, and often this refers to fecundity, long life and exuberance as well as an extraordinary immensity that cannot be rivalled. The banality of ecocide is countered by 10,000 triumphs. 

Now is the time, if we are fortunate enough, to hear the spring frog peepers in our wetlands or spring vernal pools, but overall, amphibians are in greater danger of extinction than all other species groups. Protecting local habitats is a necessity. We know that the extinction of one species brings about the strong possibility of accompanying species following suit. Yes, birds, invertebrates, mammals, fish, plants and reptiles are all reaching high extinction rates as well. 

Eight simple but potent actions to help our insect friends (and ourselves) are suggested by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). The first is to convert as little as 10% of the lawn into minimally disturbed natural habitat. As we near the end of Now Mow May, now would be an excellent time to make that change.https://tinyurl.com/8-ways-to-change

“These are the moments which bind and bond. Nature’s pulsating, stamping imprints on memory, love, and fellowship. Connection to all living things enlivens spaces into ecosystems. Everyday places into wonderlands. When the aperture is expanded to panoramic or narrowed to proximate, everything becomes a living painting. Claude Monet painted his Water Lilies series: two hundred and fifty paintings of his beloved flower garden, from all angles, in all seasons.”
—from Thread of Belonging by acclaimed young naturalist Dara McAnulty
https://tinyurl.com/connected-to-nature

“There is a straight line of connection between the fossil fuel economy and armed conflicts at the global scale.” —Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s environment minister

“To robbery, butchery and rapine, they give the lying name of government; they create a desolation and call it peace…” —Tacitus, Roman historian AD 56 to c.120

“Somehow, I think, we need to find new kinds of imagining, new ways of being that will leave us less alone in this world, less the desolate lords of Tacitus’ victory field. Our aliveness, as well as all life that lies beyond the human, is at stake in this.” —Robert Macfarlane, Is a River Alive? 

For three decades Indigenous groups and the global south have been sidelined in favour of an industrial-based hegemony whereby the words “fossil fuels” never appeared (except at COP28 in 2023) in the final texts of UN COP summits, rendering the entire process farcical as well as profoundly flawed and tragic. The hopes of many at the COP30 in Brazil last November that fossil fuels would be vigorously exposed and repudiated for what they are were dashed.

The frustration and disappointment voiced created a concrete demand for viable solutions on climate warming, and the despair changed to positivity and optimism last month when the first historically important Transition Away from Fossil Fuels conference took place in the city of Santa Marta, Colombia. https://transitionawayconference.com/home

Jointly hosted with the Netherlands, it was attended by almost 60 countries as well as organizations such as the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative—which is a coalition of 18 countries, civil society organisations, 195 sub-national governments, 101 Nobel Laureates, 3,000 scientists and more than a million individuals. https://www.fossilfueltreaty.org/

The conference signals that the decades-long outrage about the disastrous effects of oil, gas and coal has finally borne fruit. Transition Away from Fossil Fuels actively aims to move us towards a renewable-energy-based future. 

Regarded as a breath of fresh air, the Santa Marta meeting focused on overcoming economic dependence on fossil fuels, transforming energy supply and demand, and advancing international cooperation and climate diplomacy. https://tinyurl.com/transition-away

The debilitating consensus process that enables countries like Saudi Arabia and the accompanying oil lobbyists to sabotage the UN summits—and means that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has monumentally failed to steer the world away from a fossil-fuel-induced collision with climate breakdown—was duly eschewed by the Colombia/Netherlands initiative in favour of a system of decision-making that enabled the conference to come up with a clean, just and equitable way forward.

There was no binding agreement on a specific time frame for action, but the attendees agreed to put into play climate frameworks that will bring the world closer to an end of fossil fuel dependency. The biggest immediate achievement at the conference was France’s commitment to implement a national roadmap to phase out its fossil fuels. 

Alongside the official programme, social movements and communities from across Latin America convened a two-day Conference for Fossil Fuel-Free Territories. This parallel process brought together Indigenous peoples, rural communities, Afro-descendant organizations, and environmental defenders to articulate a shared regional position grounded in territorial justice.

The outcome was a Declaration from the Territories, presented at the Peoples’ Summit Natalia Greene, director of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature. The declaration names and confronts the structural drivers of the crisis, including extractivism, fossil capitalism, and geopolitical competition over land and resources. It also highlights the daily reality of “silent wars” in affected territories, marked by pollution, displacement, and violence against defenders.
Rodrigo Estrada, senior climate advisor at Greenpeace International, enunciated the upcoming challenge clearly: “Santa Marta helped spark a feeling of renewed energy, but delegates must now follow through to deliver action, not just words.” The urgency of rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels was also voiced by the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro: “We are heading towards barbarism. And barbarism is the prelude to, or the very essence of, fascism.”

The conference in Colombia came at a time when oil and gas prices were soaring because of the current escalation of conflict in the Middle East, and it has become abundantly clear that solar power and wind energy allow countries to avoid the politics of a few dangerous and unpredictable politicians and enable them to assert energy independence while lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Selwin Hart, the UN’s envoy to the Santa Marta talks, said, “Renewables offer something fossil fuels never did: stability and sovereignty. There are no embargoes, price shocks or tariffs.”
https://tinyurl.com/colombia-fossils

Another Transition Away from Fossil Fuels conference has already been scheduled to take place in the Pacific island state of Tuvalu in 2027. 

The blocking of the Strait of Hormuz has finally demonstrated to even those least interested in breaking oil and gas dependency the extreme fragility of that same energy reliance for other critical needs besides transportation and heating, such as the manufacture of nitrogen fertilizer. Food is going to cost more and cause even greater hardship for those who can least afford the increases. 

Since fossil fuels are so evidently embedded in our daily lives, and extracting ourselves is deemed by many to be nearly impossible—particularly those addicted to the global north’s fetish of consumerism—is there enough overall momentum to turn away from catastrophic climate breakdown?

The Colombian summit must be celebrated as a bright star, but there are reasons for hope elsewhere.

Large cities like Amsterdam are taking a stand against fossil-fuel-heavy travel and meat consumption by banning their advertising on billboards, metro stations and tram shelters. Gone are the ads for climate-wrecking cruises, burgers, petrol cars and air travel, now replaced by the promotion of cultural events such as concerts and exhibitions.
https://tinyurl.com/ban-ads

Each year the international Goldman Environmental Prize celebrates and tells the stories of the work of six intrepid grassroots environmental activists who through extraordinary efforts have dedicated themselves to the protection and restoration of their local spaces through leading campaigns locally. 
https://www.goldmanprize.org/current-winners/

Canadian initiatives such as Sustainability Solutions Group (SSG) worker cooperative help municipalities, state and provincial governments to assess their country’s climate vulnerabilities and create climate action plans that give solid advice on how to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Advanced models are implemented to adapt to and prevent intensifying climate-charged situations such as wildfires and drought. SSG describes itself as aspiring to “a decarbonized world where thriving people, communities, and ecosystems collaborate through democratic participation to eliminate fossil fuels, regenerate natural systems, and analyze the impacts of choices for lasting change.” https://ssg.coop/

In Québec, Conseil régional de l’environnement de l’Estrie (CREE) is a major force for involving local citizens in the protection of Nature. The impact of CREE’s education programmes is vital if students are to appreciate and internalize a deep sense of connectivity to Nature.

The website explains: “Since 1992, CREE has been dedicated to addressing the climate emergency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, managing waste materials, and protecting Nature. It offers a range of services to municipalities, schools and businesses, while also leading thematic projects that respond to environmental needs.

“CREE’s mission is to protect and improve the state of the environment to ensure quality of life in the Eastern Townships through collaborative solutions and expert advice to the public and decision-makers.” https://creestrie.ca/a-propos/

Even closer to home, Action Saint-François brings into sharp focus how we can be inspired to protect our waterways. “Action Saint-François strives to bring together people interested in the management, restoration and remediation of waterways, riverbanks and flood plains within the St. Francis River watershed.Action Saint-François also wishes to educate and empower Eastern Townships citizens to better respect the environment through participation in its field activities (watercourse cleanups and planting) and educational activities (Salon de la Nature show, conferences, and workshops).” https://asf-estrie.org/

From global actions to local community initiatives, the tide can turn towards a more democratic and ecologically respected Earth.