Archive for the ‘Nature Articles’ Category

“Oh human misery, how many things you must serve for money.” —Leonardo da Vinci 

It is an incredible sketch that Leonardo da Vinci drew between 1506 and 1512: bottles, rakes, lanterns, bagpipes, shears as well as other discarded goods have rained down on the Earth. He called it A cloudburst of material possessions. https://tinyurl.com/vinci-consumption

Perhaps it is the first artistic rendering of wasteful consumption. Of course, overconsumption has vastly accelerated since the 16th century, and now oil-derived plastics are found in our bodies and in the ocean. Plastics in the ocean will soon outweigh all the fish. 

The first thing that can be accomplished to put an end to this carnage is to find and prosecute the largest petrochemical companies responsible for the enormous destruction they have negligently inflicted upon the world. Later this month an entire article will be dedicated to the bane of plastics, but for now let’s meet some of the people and organizations that are making a difference around the world, often in small towns or in the countryside. Many individuals have been hugely successful in tenaciously confronting local corruption in corporations and governments large and small. Issues pertaining to wildlife, climate breakdown and energy, mining pollution and disenfranchisement of local populations, ocean and freshwater zones as well as environmental justice have long been focal points for campaigns.

Of course people like naturalist David Attenborough https://tinyurl.com/naturalist-attenborough Ecologist and Indigenous rights campaigner from India, S. Faizi https://tinyurl.com/ecologist-Faiziand Canada’s David Suzuki have long inspired actions that go on to galvanize whole communities to successfully demand legislation or litigation to protect ecologically pristine areas and support communities’ pollution-free rights against rampant greed. 

A classic example of how the public finds the courage to act was epitomized in the film Erin Brockovich. The film portrays a woman who stops a gas and electric company from continuing to flout regulations that were meant to stop groundwater contamination in Hinkley, California 30-plus years ago. 

The Goldman Environmental Prize was established in 1989 by Richard and Rhoda Goldman, who felt the strong need to give a public voice to and thus multiply the viability for “ordinary” people to take action to confront groups that desecrate Nature.

“The Prize recognizes individuals for sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment, often at great personal risk. The Goldman Prize views ‘grassroots’ leaders as those involved in local efforts, where positive change is created through community or citizen participation. Through recognizing these individual leaders, the Prize seeks to inspire other ordinary people to take extraordinary actions to protect the natural world.” https://www.goldmanprize.org/

The 2025 prizes were awarded this Earth Week to winners from six corners of the planet. These remarkable people through years of painstaking work defied the largest companies in order to achieve justice. Laurene Allen from New Hampshire spearheaded the closure of the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant that had caused “20 years of rampant air, soil, and water pollution.” Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika of Albania received the prize for stopping the building of a hydroelectric dam on one of Europe’s last wild rivers. Vjosa Wild River National Park is the result of their community effort. Since 1989 226 environmental defenders from 95 different countries have been honoured with the Goldman Prize. It’s inspiring to read about the ongoing endeavours of these people. Read about these valiant campaigners at https://tinyurl.com/goldman-winners

In addition to these prizewinners, a thousand or more champions throughout the world are striving to restore their community lands and waters in 2025. Melinda Janki is an international lawyer who is opposed to dangerous deep-sea oil and gas exploitation offshore Guyana. She says: “Stopping these projects is non-negotiable for the ocean, the atmosphere, and life on Earth—the stakes couldn’t be higher.” https://www.melindajanki.org

 Xiye Bastida is a 22-year-old climate justice activist and storyteller. She is Executive Director of Re-Earth Initiative, a global youth-led organization that aims to make the climate movement more accessible. She is of Otomi-Toltec heritage, and she “integrates Indigenous worldviews of reciprocity, interdependence, and intergenerational responsibility into global climate advocacy.” Her activism began after her hometown of San Pedro Tultepec, Mexico experienced flooding and water contamination, thus learning firsthand about climate upheaval. https://www.xiyebeara.com/about

These Earth defenders are subject to violence from governments, corporations and gangs. This is why groups like the Goldman Prize are dedicated to giving vital security support to many fearless individuals. 

It is no secret that many governments are passing laws that make it dangerous, if not impossible, to investigate crimes against Nature. Many times, corrupt corporations will actually write the laws and give them to government legislators! These corporations and their lobbyists have greater legal expertise than legislative bodies. https://tinyurl.com/corporate-legislation

In Canada lobbyists have undue influence on public officials. https://tinyurl.com/canadian-lobbying

People are being imprisoned or even murdered for protecting Earth and their right to prosper. So-called democracies such as India are being whittled away by the repression of journalists. Indigenous people know this all too well.

There is so much more we could be doing to organize in our communities and demand more from local, provincial and federal elected authorities. We need to follow the lead of the courageous advocates for justice and protect our rights and those of the Earth.

“Somewhere between action and reaction there is an interaction, and that’s where all the magic and fun lie.” —Tyson Yunkaporta, Indigenous Elder, author and scholar

When studies are made of human impact on almost 100,000 ecological sites across the globe and all give similar results showing that humans directly and deleteriously affect the viability of those sites, we know that human populations are completely out of balance with other forms of life—and ultimately with their own interests. This is the sobering conclusion of an article in Naturemagazine titled “The Global Human Impact on Biodiversity,” which compiled 2,133 publications covering 3,667 independent comparisons of biodiversity impacts. https://tinyurl.com/activity-and-biodiversity

Monarch butterflies are frequently spoken of as being a source of wonderment. These extraordinary insects migrate 4,800 kilometres from the sacred fir trees of central Mexico up to eastern Canada and northeast USA, and then back again. They achieve this journey by propagating a few generations of butterflies along the way. It is an amazing story.

Yet the fate of these charismatic creatures is a well-documented example of humans’ overreach into Nature, witnessed in the catastrophic effects of human activity on the endangered habitats along the insects’ migration routes and in their final destinations. 

As we know, monarch butterflies are in trouble in eastern North America, but they are even more so in the west. But we can help to reverse their tragic decline. We can do so much more to support them when they arrive by making sure the right milkweed plants are available for the caterpillars to eat. 

This month Oliver Milman wrote in The Guardian: “Last year, the US government proposed the species be listed as endangered for the first time, its numbers winnowed away by habitat loss, pesticide use and the onward relentless march of the climate crisis.” https://tinyurl.com/butterfly-migration

Publications like The Guardian are committed to making it transparent that the world’s ecological integrity is being put in danger by humans’ propensity to tear down an astonishingly crafted evolutionary system. The newspaper has dedicated much work to educating western readers and alert them to the huge crises the planet is facing now, but a large, long-term sustained effort is also being made to engage people in acting because they love Nature. By creating a pathway for wonder and contemplation of Nature much has been achieved.

The Guardian even has a contest for invertebrate of the year and encourages people to vote for their favourite. “We backboned beasts are a tiny minority, barely 5% of the planet’s species,” writes Patrick Barkham. “Most life on Earth has chosen a spineless path, and they are animals of amazing diversity: beetles, bivalves, bees; corals, crabs, cephalopods; snails, spiders and sponges… Many of these animals perform vital functions for our habitable planet. Invertebrates supply the vast majority of pollination that enables us to grow food, and enjoy flowers. Invertebrates make soil, and keep it fertile. They clean water and tidy land, devouring poo or decomposing animals, repelling everything from bad smells to deadly diseases.” For more on this and a range of other engaging articles about insects and other invertebrates, see https://www.theguardian.com/environment/invertebrates

Whether we notice the critically important earthworm when we are gardening, or pass by a flowering apple tree in May and hear bees pollinating, any celebration on the 55th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22 puts Nature at the forefront. This seems obvious. EARTHDAY.ORG tries to engage us in its corporate way by reaching out through its 2025 theme Our Power, Our Planet. The plea is to vigorously embrace alternatives to fossil fuel energy so that we can reverse the climate crisis that threatens Earth’s biodiversity. The website asks individuals along with local and national governments to conscientiously strive to accelerate commitments for renewable energy. www.earthday.org

This sounds valid enough, but Earth Day is a once-a-year popup event that we are told a billion people participate in. It is also a non-profit trade mark organization that makes a lot of money. The website has a greenish activist tone to it: “The organization continues to build a historic movement as citizens of the world rise up in a united call for the creativity, innovation, ambition, and bravery that we need to meet our climate crisis and seize the enormous opportunities of a zero-carbon future.”

Earth Day Canada (www.earthday.ca), the Canadian version of earthday.org, talks up the same word salad and announces each year that Earth Day should be celebrated every day. Fair enough, but have these platitudes translated into meaningful actions? The website speaks about the need to protect biodiversity and stalwartly declares we are also a part of biodiversity. “Our interactions with the world around us need to be thought anew to lower our impact. Focusing on the preservation and restoration of biodiversity will do just that. And because ecosystems differ from one region to another, local actions need to be implemented. Municipalities operate on a local scale and as such, they are the first to see the changes in the ecosystems around them. It also means that they are the best positioned to implement impactful actions to preserve or restore biodiversity.” This strikes a true sensibility for our problems.

Bishop’s University’s guide to positive biodiversity involvement has some bright stories. The First Supper: A Food Conversation & Art Experience, a symposium held a month ago, gave us a taste of what will be continued in September. It enabled the university community and beyond to “bring together experts and practitioners in agriculture, sustainability, and food systems to explore hopeful initiatives that are reshaping the way we produce and engage with food.”

Unfortunately, contrary to this vision, the university’s rigid status quo system is more concerned with laying out expensive grass sod instead of planting perennials, and spending thousands of student dollars for one evening of high-carbon-emissions “skiing” that left two increasingly filthy mounds of blackened snow in the quadrangle for months. Equally, using highly noise- and air-polluting gasoline leaf blowers—electric ones need to be recharged too frequently, I was told—does not add credibility to the overall uncreative bureaucratic reach of that institution. 

Journalists who cover the climate/biodiversity crises have now banded together across the globe to share scientifically based climate news and expand local coverage around the world. The organization Covering Climate Cooperative (www.coveringclimate.org), launched on Earth Day 2021, has also launched the 89 Percent Project: “The overwhelming majority of the world’s people—between 80 and 89%, according to recent science—want governments to take stronger action. But that fact is not reflected in our news coverage, which helps explain why the 89% don’t know that they are the global majority.” https://89percent.org

April 21 marks the beginning of a year-long worldwide effort through Covering Climate Now to promote and report on what the 89% of the world’s population want to be done to address the urgent need to act on the climate crisis. 

When hubris gives way to humbleness and wonder, our interactions with Nature will benefit us all. 

“I don’t think you can have a really satisfactory life today without joining in the fight to save our planet…. We’re past the moment where inaction is acceptable.” 
—Kristine Tompkins

You may not know who Kristine Tompkins is, but her Patagonia outdoor clothing company’s products can be found around the world. She is also one of the world’s foremost conservationists. The millions of acres of pristine lands that she and her now late husband Doug bought in southern Chile and Argentina have been the basis for national parks there. With the indispensable aid of many local groups and the added expertise of other conservationists, a widely successful campaign to bring back the jaguar and other megafauna continues to accelerate.

Recently Tompkins spoke with Nate Hagens, the driving force behind The Great Simplification broadcasts, which, through conversations with inspiring individuals, endeavour to make sense of the climate and biodiversity crises and the possible solutions available to our world. In an interview titled “Rewilding 15 Million Acres: Why True Wealth Means More Than Money,” listeners learned that Tompkins’ approach to helping solve the world’s problems is to go at them relentlessly with all the power she can muster—and not look back. She speaks forcefully about how otherwise educated and well-off people abdicate their ethical responsibilities for a blinded consciousness. We usually think of the word ‘abdicate’ as in giving up, voluntarily or not, one’s kingdom or position as head of government, but Tompkins is clearly making this personal. Sure, increasingly governments, educational institutions and corporate executives have brazenly relinquished their social and Nature leadership roles, but so have most individuals, and particularly so in the rich west. This powerfully wrought interview points directly at us. https://tinyurl.com/tompkins-true-wealth

So let’s talk cruise ships and the decision to take them as an abdication of our responsibility to be informed citizens. Most people have bought into the fake narrative given by the largest cruise companies that those ocean or river voyages are, or are on the way to being, a non-polluting way to have a vacation. Bluntly put, this is pure rubbish: food waste, specifically. Some liners are burning it for energy, while others are considering serving up smaller meals, but it seems that many privileged holidaymakers think that huge portions of food go with a cultural experience, and that abundance of food is an entitlement. We all know that food waste is at epidemic levels in our society, but cruise ships are famous for it.

The sulphur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from the heavy oil used in cruise ships have a massive impact on human health, but although there has been a push by cities affected by this pollution to electrify cruise ships while at port in order to allay local outrage, a minuscule number of ships have taken advantage of this objective. 

Although the cruise industry is embracing ‘natural’ gas energy to power its ships away from very dirty oil, methane gas (euphemistically called natural gas) contains its own turbocharged climate baggage, so it is not a viable solution.

Cruise ships are now being banned or told to leave areas where there are large concentrations of people. The air in Venice improved by 80% after monster ships were no longer permitted to dock there. Amsterdam is taking another approach. Hester van Buren, the city’s deputy mayor, stated: “Sea cruising is a polluting form of tourism and contributes to crowds and emissions in the city. By limiting sea cruises, requiring [them to use] shore power and aiming for the cruise terminal to move from its current location in 2035, the council is responsibly implementing the council’s proposal to stop sea cruises.” https://tinyurl.com/amsterdam-cruise-ships

Barcelona’s citizens are also resisting the menace, and the proposal for a cruise port near Rome has equally experienced local opposition. Overtourism is the reason Nice, France will stop cruise ships docking, and in Belfast, Maine any ship with more then 50 passengers will be prohibited.

Remember that air pollution is only one of many different kinds of pollution. It is still not uncommon to discover all sorts of trash and oil slicks jettisoned from these floating cities. Many times it is the poorest people’s communities that are chosen for and plagued by the development of infrastructure for cruise ships. 

For two decades there has been a campaign by the cruise industry to encourage professional medical organizations, as well as others, to hold conferences on its ships. These conferences are often billed as “continuing education” cruises, so they are written off as professional events. https://tinyurl.com/cruise-education

On top of this, many delegates will be travelling by plane to get to the ship, so these presumed educated elites are drastically intensifying their carbon impact.

Obviously it is not only medical conferences that fill these ships, but our neighbours take them too, and perhaps you do as well. We are, furthermore, given the green light to take these “voyages of a lifetime” when we learn that the World Wildlife Fund gives advice on how cruise companies can lessen their impact on wildlife. Millions of dollars are given for such advice. “Training or awareness materials for cruise line staff on wildlife products and laws can help prevent problems onboard. Cruise lines and tour operators can invest in awareness programs that are positive and empower passengers to make informed decisions.” In other words, on your trip around the Galápagos don’t put a tortoise in your pocket. https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/our-solution

The hype of exploration-type cruises feeds rich westerners the WWF-type collaboration and “we care about the wellbeing of the planet” mantra. As an example, after flying to southern Chile from North America and Europe, rich customers board polar ships to wander around and see icebergs and penguins off the coast of Antarctica. In some cases National Geographic wildlife photographers are embedded in these $75,000-a-pop extravaganzas. This makes these luxurious guzzling trips look official and even promotes a serious educational goal. People readily buy into this misinformation because they wish to abdicate any ethical concerns for the prestige these opulent excursions afford. 

If we all committed to making informed decisions, no one would ever take a cruise ship. The legacy of such holidays is obvious: more intensified climate and biodiversity chaos affecting your children, grandchildren and probably you. Abdicating responsibility is what the global north excels at. Colonialism continues in many forms; billionaires are the latest manifestation of a take-all society best expressed in 2025 with the rise of oligarchs’ take-over of governments. 

But still people flock to the deals for cruise vacations that can be as low as $600 for six nights. These next few months will have all sorts of bonanza for the undereducated and “couldn’t care less” cruiser. The butcher, the school teacher, the yoga instructor and the philosophy professor are equally culpable in answering the cruise call. 

Naturally, cruise ships die, and when they are about to, they land in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or Turkey to be dismantled at a heart-rending price for local communities and ocean ecology. In Pakistan, workers earn US$4 a day for shifts as long as 16 hours. Accidents are frequent and corruption is rampant, making it difficult or impossible for relatives to receive compensation. See: https://tinyurl.com/cruise-ships-die

Global south citizens don’t take cruise ships, but a portion of 10% of the world’s population found in the global north often do. Ecocide and social justice issues have long been a part of industrial society. This entitled folly must end if there is to be anything left to sustain all forms of life.

Let us return to the words of Kristine Tompkins: “To abdicate your own heart, lungs, mind… That is the most crushing, fatal lack of a decision you will ever make. You are abdicating your own future, hands down.”

“What’s important is that children have an opportunity to bond with the natural world, to learn to love it, before being asked to heal its wounds.”
—David Sobel, Beyond Ecophobia

Nurturing young people to internalize a deep sense of wonder and connection with Nature is paramount if future generations are to thrive. Jessica Adams takes up this joyful quest with great enthusiasm. I asked her about her educational work and her commitment to make a difference for many Nature-deprived children.

Jessica, can you tell our readers how your childhood influenced your present work?

I was fortunate to grow up with family members who shared their curiosity and appreciation for the natural world. My parents kept close watch on the visitors to our bird feeder, monitored and recorded when migrant species returned, and would marvel at the chorus of frogs that erupted each spring and the curious winnowing of the Wilson’s Snipe as it performed its aerial display over the field in front of our house. Appreciating Nature for its beauty and brilliance was a part of life.

I also had an incredible natural setting to my childhood. We moved to the Eastern Townships from Brossard when I was five. I had almost 20 acres of forest to explore behind the house, and neighbours who didn’t mind if I wandered onto their property to investigate different ecosystems or scout out some good climbing trees.

When my parents shared about Nature, I wasn’t always listening with rapt attention and I wasn’t always keen to head outside when my parents told me to. Sometimes I just wanted to do the easy thing—watch TV, for example. But most of the time they’d insist, so out I’d go (little brother usually in tow). Sometimes we would complain that there was “nothing to do” or that we were bored, but eventually we’d find something to do and get completely engrossed in it. As an adult, I’m incredibly grateful for these moments. Learning how to be in and curious about Nature happens very organically when given the opportunity. 

All of this meant that, when I was presented with the option to pursue university studies in either veterinary medicine or wildlife biology, the choice was obvious.

You write about Nature Nerding. What does it mean to be a Nature Nerd?

Completing my bachelor’s in Wildlife Biology brought me to the next level of nerdiness. I’d learnt so much and also gained a humbling appreciation for how much there was that I didn’t (and might never) know. I found this incredibly exciting. It meant that the opportunities for discovery were endless, and it also got me thinking that the wonder, awe and joy I experienced when learning about Nature were something I just had to share.

Working with Parc d’environnement naturel de Sutton enabled me to hone my identification and animation skills, but most importantly I found my voice as an educator and communicator. In developing and leading programs for various audiences, I found that I favoured an enquiry-based approach that involved using as many of the senses as possible as well as discussion with those who accompanied me. I realized that listing the names of the species I had learnt about in university wasn’t the most valuable thing I could impart to others. Most impactful of all was sharing my passion, piquing people’s curiosity, and teaching how to look and learn.

I view Nature Nerding as a lens that allows us to see the natural world from a different perspective, founded in insatiable curiosity and fervent enthusiasm for all life forms. I always say that going for a walk is never “just a walk.” It’s a process of expanding your awareness and opening yourself to the joy and wonder of noticing the world around you.

This noticing isn’t purely for the sake of interest, but is a way of cultivating a sense of connection and belonging. As we take more notice, suddenly Nature is no longer separate from us and it’s no longer an inanimate backdrop to our human existence, but rather a thriving, animated context where our life and the lives of so many other beings are taking place simultaneously and are inextricably linked.

Tell us about your current work at the Massawippi Foundation.

I had the pleasure of meeting the Massawippi Foundation as they were looking to develop their educational mandate. We piloted our first edition of the education program in 2022 with two classes from local schools. We now have nine schools (four English, five French) and 18 classes from grades 3 and 4 participating. Several teachers have been with us since the inaugural year and I am now the Education Program Coordinator.

The program is built on the premise “We protect what we love. We love what we know.” Over 300 students come to Scowen Park through the program, each class visiting for a two-hour outing each season. Outing themes reflect the seasons, providing learning opportunities that allow students to situate themselves in the unique multi-seasonal context of our region. The aim is to cultivate curiosity and wonder, encouraging careful observation using all the senses, and fostering mindfulness in our interactions with the natural world.

Having established meaningful relationships with many of the schools in the Massawippi watershed, we wish to continue cultivating those ties and our hope is to have a program for each level up to grade 6.

Can you tell us how these gatherings foster a newfound awareness of the children’s role as ambassadors for bringing about a closeness with Nature? 

The majority of the work I’ve been involved in has been with primary school children. These children go home after an outing or activity with us and share about their experiences.

It’s important that we recognize the impact and influence young children can have on their parents as they convey their excitement and wonder after spending time outdoors learning with their peers.

You have chosen not to encumber the young people who come on your programs with details of climate breakdown or biodiversity loss. What do you hope students will come away with through this positive approach?

When you study and work in any environment-related field it is impossible not to become painfully aware of the dire predicament we are in. I was lucky because my exposure to and understanding of this came at a time when I was old enough to digest such complex and alarming information. Even so, I have moments where I feel completely defeated…

I’ve found that in order to gain an appreciation for the magnitude and complexity of this environmental ordeal, it’s imperative that we zoom out and view the puzzle as a whole composed of many interconnected parts. I’ve also found that if I’m to do something with that overwhelming information, I have to zoom right back in and focus on one small piece. My chosen piece is education. More precisely, Nature education and connection. Most importantly, instilling a deep love and appreciation for the natural world of which we are very much a part.

I’m not saying that’s enough on its own. But I firmly believe it’s the key place to start as we go about cultivating a relationship with Nature. It takes something that can be overwhelming and boils it down to something so simple, so fundamental: love and belonging. I can’t think of a more solid foundation on which to construct our understanding of the world around us.

Do you believe that by being close with Nature, children will naturally become guardians of Nature?

It’s by no means a given that young people who have these formative experiences learning in and about Nature will go on to dedicate their lives to conservation. But I like to think that the seeds sown can influence values formed and choices made in many different ways.

If I were to envision a future where we succeed in repairing our fractured relationship with the natural world, I’d think of conservation not as a field in and of itself, but rather as a universal mindset. Regardless of whether every child impacted by a Nature-education experience becomes an advocate for conservation, perhaps these experiences will be part of creating an important shift in adopting respect and awareness for the environment as a universal shared value.

Naive? Perhaps. But at the very least, they’ve been exposed to the healthiest and most fundamental/sustaining relationship—that with Nature.

Tell us what adventures you have planned for this summer. I hear there’s something to do with mud!

I’ll be running WonderMud in collaboration with Meagan Patch. For the second summer in a row, we’re inviting children aged 5—12 to spend time outdoors moving, exploring and connecting with the land. We want to combine our love for Nature, agriculture and education in a way that strips away overplanning and overanimating and brings young people back to the basics. https://tinyurl.com/wondermud

https://www.facebook.com/nature.nerding
https://massawippi.org/

“This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.” 
―Robin Wall Kimmerer

It might still be winter, but the seed catalogue has arrived, just as it has for the last 50 years, and the tradition to hunker down in a comfortable chair to see what’s being offered that I haven’t tried growing before is an exploration and a celebration. I’ve already sown some vegetable seeds in containers in my indoor mini-greenhouses to transfer at the appropriate times to the garden. Of course, the garlic and the tulips were planted in early November, and when the green tips push through the leaf mulch I’ll know that spring has arrived. Soon after I’ll test how some early spinach does before committing to a larger patch in the garden. When my hand feels some warmth resting on the soil, many cold-weather vegetables will be ready to be seeded or transplanted into the garden.

Last year’s garden did remarkably well: pea vines grew five feet tall in a fifty-foot row and a second sowing in late August yielded an autumn harvest. We were eating kale through to the end of December. The harvest of fifteen other vegetables was plentiful, and the yield of two bushels of squash enabled me to share them with others. The rains came at the right time,and summer’s heat was sufficient to get aubergine, enough hot peppers to make a year’s worth of hot sauce, and four generations of basil and beans. The tomatoes were happy too. The beautiful broad dark green squash leaves, some bursting out of the compost, were a joy to see.

Can we expect this year’s local gardens to measure up to last year’s? Perhaps the heat experienced in the summer of 2024 was a mirage. Around the world, many places experienced the tragedy of floods or severe drought. Are we playing a game of dumb luck now when we store seeds for the next year and expect a positive outcome? 

Stable weather has become a roll of the dice. More than likely scientists aren’t speaking about weather in 2025 but about climate breakdown. And yet, and yet, corrupted politicians and grotesquely indulged westerners keep up the pretence that a cruise or a flight doesn’t contribute to more CO2 in the air, and in any case everyone is doing the same thing. This is an example of green criminality. 

In 2023 the garden produced hardly anytomatoes, and only the lettuce varieties did really well. It rained too much and too hard, making for a cold summer. The problem was the reverse in other parts of the world. Parched soil and sudden floods caused havoc, leading to the poorest people wondering if they were to survive. 

In Canada and elsewhere, market gardeners wouldn’t dream of not having large greenhouses, which are their insurance against unpredictable weather, and many backyard gardens have them as well. 

When all those joyous seeds arrive in a box by post, or when you first see those racks of seeds at the local hardware store proclaiming the cycle of life, a newfound doubt lingers upon opening those seed packets. This year is already on course to become a scorcher—think Los Angeles. And with good reason: the last 25 years of accelerating climate upheaval have brought a litany of uncertainties to plague farmers and home gardeners alike.

But growing an organic garden is more than starry-eyed hope for stable weather and luck in 2025. It’s an action that confirms our commitment to the planet’s fecundity, its beauty and biodiversity, as well as to ourselves. It is a sweet statement of trust and gratitude that rebels against the thoughtless consumerism that blankets many of the decisions that have led to the climate crisis. It can be also a visceral protest against the industrial farming that tries to pass as nurturing food.

The decision to garden, Margaret Atwood says, “is not a rational act.” Planning a garden, envisioning its success and finally realizing a cornucopia of healthy plants is an act of agency accomplished by dedicated work. Picking up a hoe or a spade becomes an act of defiance.

If this is the year when you consider digging up that lawn to plant a flower garden to encourage pollinators to visit, or dream of going out in the morning to pick a cucumber or bite into a tomato, you couldn’t have chosen a better time to stand up for besieged Nature, for we are on the cusp of losing it all. After all, for decades the science has detailed how lawns are basically dead zones, so why not vote for life?   https://tinyurl.com/lawns-climate-change  Even after one season, life comes back to a garden’s soil.  When you add even a small pool of water, insects and birds flourish that much more easily.

Here are some seed catalogues to choose from: https://www.thegardenwebsite.com/plant-seed-catalogues.html

Bonne chance!

“’Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.” 
—William Shakespeare, Othello 

“A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”
—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

“Consider your origin: you were not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.”

—Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno (ca 1321)

“Our food system is undermining our ability to feed humanity now and into the future… It is no exaggeration to say that what happens in the next five years will determine the future of life on Earth.”

—WWF, Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril

“The low retail cost of industrialized food can obscure its very high environmental price tag.”

—United Nations Environment Programme

 “We depend on land for our survival. Yet we treat it like dirt.”

—UN Secretary-General António Guterres

The UN biodiversity summit, the UN climate summit, the UN desertification summit and the Global Plastics Treaty negotiations this autumn all ended in disappointing and far fewer positive negotiations than life on Earth can tolerate. 

But are individuals doing any better than governments to protect Nature? The over-50s have failed to live up to their potential to facilitate meaningful positive change for life on Earth. Younger generations, if they are to survive, urgently need to forge on past those global north entitled generations and get on with making Earth an equitable place. 

The following scenario is a microcosm of how we are failing as older adults: a festive group of enthusiasts go out into the “great outdoors” around Christmas with the aim of socializing and communing with wildlife—observing and recording the migratory birds passing over, and others that overwinter in the area. A good feeling of solidarity permeates the tribe, proud that they can be thought of as participating citizen scientists. In this time of increasing ecological uncertainty this group of acquaintances will probably be passing on their data from this outing to help scientists who study birds. Good work from dedicated conservationists! 

A celebration is called for. How about a delicious organic vegan meal that honours the group and the rest of Nature, and recognizes the connection and continuum of all life on the planet? 

But no, the opposite happens. Favouring cheap food packaged to be easy to hand out, the group choose instead the flesh of tortured birds who have spent their short lives crammed into the factory farms that contaminate the rivers, air and soil with their effluent and accelerate wildlife extinction. (Besides the harm they perpetrate on the planet, these establishments pay terrible wages. No rural community wants them nearby because of the odours and air pollution and the negative effect on house prices.)

It would be fair to ask whether these Christmas revellers are oblivious to the impact their choice has on wildlife, human health and even Indigenous justice issues related to deforestation and climate when buying this celebratory supper. But, as in so many instances, this is far from being the case. Despite knowing full well about the misery and devastation caused by the demand for factory farms, they go ahead and decide to eat antibiotic-laden birds—and even declare that after the meal they will be “doing their bit” by taking the toxic bones to compost!

Some of them might try to justify their choice by pointing out that there are codes of practice in the agri-food industry that afford protection to chickens. But adhering to the Codes of Practice proposed by the National Farm Animal Care Council is voluntary and is not enforced by the Québec government. Unbelievably, the industry is policing itself. And animal welfare is not a priority. Profits are. People hoping to assuage their guilt for contributing to the suffering at these factory farms by mentioning these mercurial ‘Codes of Practice’ cannot disregard their own culpability. 

Anyone who really cares protecting birds would not wish to indulge in a meal consisting of factory-farmed chickens. 

Does this ignorance come down to a great psychological barrier reinforced over the last several hundred years by capitalist cultures that humans are not part of Nature, and that although we may profess some empathy for non-human species, they are there principally to be consumed?

Ecocide and Indigenous genocide go hand and hand with that global north mindset. 

In a paper titled ‘The Ordinary Acts that Contribute to Ecocide,” criminologist Robert Agnew endeavours to explain “why individuals and small groups engage in a range of ‘ordinary’ acts that contribute to the destruction of the natural environment.” Agnew explains that leading crime theories have much to say about why individuals engage in ordinary harms that contribute to ecocide, even though these harms represent conformist behaviour, and concludes by reminding readers why the application of leading crime theories to ordinary harms is important. The discussion on “crimes of denial” is spoken of but also how capitalism sets the stage to give free rein to these ordinary and local crimes. In our above story, what influences this conformist group is the dirt-cheap price for the unethical meal as well as a notion of individual entitlement inculcated by capitalism and exceptionalism. See https://tinyurl.com/green-criminality

Chicken factory farms are always problematic for communities to accept because they impinge on the right of citizens to clean air and water. What looks like a regionally raised chicken is often being made possible by the existence of a vast network of cheap industrially grown feedstock located in deforested tropical areas, which in turn has direct consequences for Indigenous people’s ability to live in those places. “Local” becomes just a dimension of international ecocide. Indigenous environmental victimization is suddenly played out over a well-meaning group’s contaminating chicken meal.

The Center for Biological Diversity has this to say in a fact sheet about the environmental costs of eating poultry:“Factory farms often have multiple industrial-scale sheds, each as large as 36,000 square feet, containing hundreds of thousands of birds in total. Manure application and feed production further expand the footprint of chicken production. Throughout the ‘Broiler Belt’ region, chicken production has destroyed natural habitat for native wildlife.” https://tinyurl.com/chicken-facts

In 2018, 71% of all bird biomass globally consisted of poultry, while wild birds made up just 21%. That gap is increasing. https://tinyurl.com/bird-biomass

WWF’s 2024 Living Planet Report details an average 73% decline in wildlife populations since 1970. The report warns that, as the Earth approaches dangerous tipping points posing grave threats to humanity, a huge collective effort will be required to tackle the dual climate and Nature crises.

Our mindset can change. If some of those people who decided on a supper menu were young and had read the Living Planet Report 2024 Youth Edition, there is no way they would have chosen to eat factory-farmed birds. https://tinyurl.com/report-youth-edition

Adults can revise their opinions by making an effort to gain scientific knowledge about wildlife and extinction through reading the Living Planet Report for adults. https://tinyurl.com/planet-adult-edition

The Center for Biological Diversity offers some tips for a wildlife-friendly diet: “Every meal is an opportunity to help protect wildlife by taking extinction off your plate. Replace chicken in traditional dishes by trying chicken-free veggie pot pies, fajitas, alfredo pasta, pad thai and burritos.” https://tinyurl.com/chicken-alternatives

“Anyone who develops deep knowledge of other species by living alongside them for years realizes something both obvious and essential: we are not the only lives that matter.”

—Melanie Challenger, ‘Animals in the Room’, Emergence Magazine, August 2023

“Governments have retreated from even their legally binding promises to decarbonize, trusting markets to deliver comparatively meager emissions reductions instead, and activists have been unable to generate meaningful public outrage at the walkback.”

—David Wallace-Wells, New York Times

Oil and gas are a “gift of god,” declares UN COP29 climate summit host Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev, as thousands attend the conference in Baku, the capital, which was built on oil revenues. It appears that Canada believes the same.

It has just been revealed by Canada’s environmental law charity Ecojustice and environmental advocacy organization Environmental Defence that the emissions from the oil, gas and coal Canada exports are increasing at such a rate that they now vastly exceed its own domestic energy emissions. This makes a mockery of Canada’s proclamation at COP28 that it is a climate leader.

More than 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists, including those pushing for controversial carbon capture and storage technology, swarmed COP29 as the Azerbaijan government welcomed the most powerful oil and gas CEOs. Joseph Sikulu, a member of the Pacific Climate Warriors and Pacific Director for climate campaign group 350.org, exclaimed, “How can we achieve the ambition that is needed to save our homes when these negotiations are continually flooded with fossil fuel lobbyists? There is a ban on tobacco lobbyists from attending the World Health Organization’s summit. Why is that not the case for the fossil fuel industry at COP? We demand that the upcoming COP presidencies set clear rules against the presence of fossil fuel interests at the negotiating table. Our lives depend on it.” https://tinyurl.com/cop-reform

An open letter on COP climate reforms, written by climate policy experts and climate scientists to the UN Secretary General and COP Executive Secretary, asks for a move away from endless negotiations to delivery of agreed-upon negotiations. Money allocated to compensate countries of the global south and aid them so that they can adapt and create a resilient response to ongoing climate catastrophes (loss and damage) must be honoured. Key reforms urged also include locking out fossil fuel lobbyists and countries that push for more fossil fuel expansion. https://www.clubofrome.org/cop-reform/

This is music to many people’s ears, as the present COP structure, which has never produced any transition away from fossil energies, has lost the confidence of so many people. No wonder the last three climate conferences have taken place in autocratic petrostates. The letter went on to say, “It is now clear that the COP is no longer fit for purpose… We need a shift from negotiation to implementation. We need strict eligibility criteria to exclude countries who do not support the phase-out/transition away from fossil energy. Host countries must demonstrate their high level of ambition to uphold the goals of the Paris agreement.” 

Since the level of atmospheric CO2 has increased 26% in the last 10 years, it would be reasonable to question whether the 29th UN climate talks—with more than 65,000 people registered— will make any difference. The presence of 1,700 fossil-fuel lobbyists doesn’t help!

The World Meteorological Organization declared recently that 2024 had shown a 1.5-degree Celsius (1.5C) temperature rise since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the intensive burning of fossil fuels. Although there are those who say that this increase in global temperature is not necessarily demonstrating that a 1.5C or more rise is here to stay, it is more than disconcerting that this spike in temperature came well before its predicted date. You may recall that the declarations pasted onto the Paris UN summit agreement in 2015 proclaimed a limit of 1.5C for this century as being the maximum acceptable. But the climate pledges already given would lead to a disastrous 2.1C rise. 

This is why the Open Letter to the UN is so important: it lays out a path away from endless negotiations and demands the keeping of the promises stated so jubilantly at the 2015 summit in Paris, which ranged from honouring pledges of financial support for countries in the global south to successfully keeping atmospheric temperatures well below 2 degrees Celsius. As every part of the planet has now experienced climate emergencies, there should be an easy-to-make argument that the UN conference must be broken up into smaller working groups focused on climate justice and a swift transition away from fossil-fuel energy. 

But climate action at the COP is also endangered by far-right governments. Argentina is a case in point: under the instructions of its president, Javier Milei, it has given up participating in the COP29 dialogue. Its delegation unceremoniously left the UN Summit for the Future in September this year. This disdain and contempt for climate/biodiversity solutions will probably be matched by the incoming US administration’s climate denial disinformation. It is widely predicted that the US will depart from future climate summits. 

Last weekend there was a day of protest demanding climate justice at COP29. The negotiations have been going so slowly that people fear there will not be an increase in the billions of dollars needed each year to help developing countries cope with climate breakdown. “Activists from countries spanning the globe have assembled in a long line at COP29 with artwork and signs from throughout the conference, to show the connectedness of the climate crisis worldwide and urge world leaders to commit to a strong climate finance deal this year,” wrote Oxfam International. 

Speaking in Baku ahead of the latest G20 summit in Brazil, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell called on wealthy countries to give climate funds and debt relief to the least prosperous and struggling countries, which need to adapt to a crisis that is not of their making. “The G20 was created to tackle problems that no one country, or group of countries, can tackle alone,” he stated. “On that basis, the global climate crisis should be order of business number one in Rio next week.” He also emphasised, “Bolder climate action is basic self-preservation for every G20 economy. Without rapid cuts in emissions, no G20 economy will be spared from climate-driven economic carnage… In turbulent times and a fracturing world, G20 leaders must signal loud and clear that international cooperation is still the best and only chance humanity must survive global heating. There is no other way.”

COP29 comes to an end on Friday November 22, the date this article is being published, so I will have more to report (hopefully some positive news) on the outcome of the conference in my next article, which also looks at the UN COP on desertification being held in Saudi Arabia from December 2 to 13.

“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. 

“I think calling it climate change is rather limiting. I would rather call it the everything change because when people think climate change, they think maybe it’s going to rain more or something like that. It’s much more extensive a change than that because when you change patterns of where it rains and how much and where it doesn’t rain, you’re also affecting just about everything. You’re affecting what you can grow in those places. You’re affecting whether you can live there. You’re affecting all of the species that are currently there.”

Margaret Atwood

There has been a flurry of activities at the United Nations this week. The Summit for the Future included a Pact for the Future with a Declaration for Future Generations. Following the summit, a day was set aside to address the existential threats posed by sea-level rise.

On September 26, the UN’s International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons again stressed a key goal of most UN members. At the same time, the UN Sustainability Development Goals are being heralded as key objectives even while they flounder before 2030, the date by which they are meant to be reached. World “leaders” debated all these issues.

These well-intentioned summits have brought into focus the enormous dangers that are now upon us. The following article lays out some of those climate realities. Let’s hope that governments wake up to their responsibilities while there is still time. https://www.un.org/en/high-level-week-2024

The polycrisis mentioned by Margaret Atwood is transforming every aspect of life on Earth. Health, world cultures, ecological integrity, political stability, social justice and Earth systems are fraying rapidly as a direct result of the burning of fossil fuels,

The acceleration of extreme temperatures in the 21st century was particularly intense in 2023. It’s hard to forget the massive air pollution and ecological devastation brought on by Québec’s wildfires, which caused 15 million hectares to burn, seven times the yearly rate in the last 40 years.

Recently the global flooding of 2024 hit Central Europe. Meanwhile in Brazil, the doubling in one year alone to 3.3 million hectares scorched in August’s wildfires resulted from the accompanying mega droughts. All this was caused by a 165-year rampage of unabated destructive fossil fuel carbon colonialism, which has brought mayhem to all parts of the world. 

The world is now experiencing flash droughts as well as flash floods. Scientists now speak of “climate whiplash,” when wild swings in weather have devastating consequences. Abrupt transitions from drought to flood and vice versa are intensifying. But this climate whiplash is becoming even more prevalent with our winter’s increasingly early transition to spring. A sudden heatwave at the beginning of March will cause trees to produce flowers that will die in the subsequent freeze. Maple syrup production has become more and more unpredictable. As usual these extreme events are impacting the global south’s ability to cope. And they exact an ever-increasing toll on animal health and are ultimately pushing forward extinctions. 

The new levels of heat are responsible for endless infernos/flooding/pollution, but these same scourges, self-inflicted by humans, have spawned the spread of unanticipated health risks. Phoenix, Arizona recently experienced 113 consecutive days on which the temperature reached at least 37.7C, causing massive health issues. And it is not only landmasses that are succumbing to these ever-intensifying heatwaves. In the Mediterranean region, which is warming 20% faster than the global average, water temperature is expected to rise by between 1.8C and 3.5C by 2100. https://tinyurl.com/Mediterranean-heatwaves

But to better take in how climate warming has infiltrated all aspects of life on Earth, here is one more astonishing example: heatwaves in Zimbabwe and Siberia have released previously dormant anthrax spores in the soil, killing thousands of animals and some humans.

The climate scientist Johan Rockström put humanity’s planetary crises into undeniable focus with his 2009 “planetary boundaries,” which show graphically the limits our Earth system will tolerate, riddled by human interference, before it is destabilized. Climate heating and biosphere integrity are just two boundaries in the framework that can tip all the others. Rockström has called the Holocene epoch the “corridor of life,” as these last 12,000 years of stability gave humans the ability to flourish. “The planetary boundary (PB) approach aims to define a safe operating space for human societies to develop and thrive, based on our evolving understanding of the functioning and resilience of the Earth system,” Rockström writes. https://tinyurl.com/boundaries-for-stability

In an important no-nonsense appraisal of where our Earth system is heading, Rockström’s recent TED Talk describes our grave situation as an “act now” emergency.

https://tinyurl.com/Earth-health-summary

Upending the Holocene’s climate predictability is also turning up the heat for democracies. Peaceful protest has always been regarded as a pillar of democracy. Now the right to assemble for climate demonstrations is being crushed by many so-called free states. Long prison sentences have been imposed to suppress and deter protests that highlight climate breakdown and the lack of political will to stop it. https://tinyurl.com/suppression-of-activists

A recent New York Times article, “How Extreme Heat Is Threatening Education Progress Worldwide,” explains how climate chaos has impacted children’s ability to go to school and concentrate in many of those countries that did not contribute to this heatwave crisis. Yes, heatwaves caused by accelerating climate breakdown are a social justice issue. What child can learn when the temperature is 38C? Unlike their grandparents, millions of students are missing weeks of school. https://tinyurl.com/education-and-heatwaves

However, it is not only disadvantaged children who are suffering during these unprecedented heatwaves. Many construction workers have died recently because they are not being allowed to take extra breaks in conditions of extreme heat. “Even as extreme heat raged across the southern United States this summer, the governors of Florida and Texas struck down heat protections for outdoor workers. Construction companies and agricultural firms lobbied against the rights of workers to water, shade and rest breaks when temperatures soar,” writes George Monbiot in The Guardian.

And let’s clearly understand that escalating wars multiply the risks for an already fragile Earth balance both ecologically and socially, and push otherwise commendable and positive Earth solutions off the priority lists of war-zone embattled governments. Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and at least ten other countries are affected by wars that kill, contaminate, and produce even more carbon pollution. 

On top of this, “democratic” governments are sanctioning and enabling international arms trading. In a webinar I attended recently, hosted by Campaign Against Arms Trade, an extremely knowledgeable panel discussed the unparalleled access that large arms manufacturers have to the highest levels of government, even though those companies do not bring large economic benefits.

Bluntly said, the blowing up of oil refineries and dams using bombs provided by western countries causes untold environmental destruction, thereby accelerating even more intense heatwaves. https://tinyurl.com/arms-trade-destruction

Often not associated with planetary concerns is “ecotourism,” of which I will write more in a forthcoming article. Building hotels and boutique resorts in or beside nationally and internationally recognized parks and ecologically sensitive zones that are often protected by Indigenous people and farmers is a major source of strife. Degrading areas so that rich tourists can view sanitized landscapes that then suffer landslides and other whiplash climate eventualities must be a priority for governments to prohibit instead of promoting. One such assault that is currently occurring is in the UNESCO World Heritage Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve in southern India, where multinational hotel franchises are swaying local officials to wreak havoc.

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist and policy expert who has just published What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures, a book of essays, poetry and conversations from many of the world’s most engaged voices, who write passionately and embrace a pathway away from heatwaves, climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. The question, “What If…?” is one we must not leave to others. Rather, we must act as if a better climate future is possible. There are solutions. https://tinyurl.com/getting-solutions