Archive for the ‘Nature Articles’ Category

“As societies grow more unequal and extractive, decision making becomes worse… Warlordism, statehood, and organized crime all have similar ingredients: a hierarchy that coercively extracts resources from a territory and population.”

—Luke Kemp, Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse 

The 2009 film The Age of Stupid examines, from the not-so-distant vantage point of 2055, a wrenching question: if humans were able to see the devastation caused by human-induced climate change in the beginning years of the 21st century, why did they do nothing to stop it?

The answer can perhaps be found in the ways oligarchs, plutocrats, psychopaths and autocrats nourish inequality. If rich societies since 1850 could extract and then dump their carbon, plastic and pesticide waste around the world, why not continue and basically refuse to help others adapt to their created mess?

While climate justice is all about stopping societal collapse by not being ransomed by deliberate under-education and abject greed, an extractive patriarchal and hierarchical society will always collapse, historians and archaeologists tell us. Profit-driven groups can’t possibly contemplate a degrowth template for turning away from the precipice. 

One way in which we can address the inequities of human-induced climate breakdown is by considering the food on our plates. Long-standing campaign group Compassion in World Farming states: “Over the last half a century, factory farming has risen to become one of the major issues affecting the future of our planet. It is the world’s biggest cause of animal cruelty and a primary driver of wildlife declines. At the same time, it is a serious pollutant, contributing to climate change and marine dead zones, and a potent source of disease that risks future pandemics. In a world of growing climate, Nature collapse, and pandemic emergencies, ending factory farming has never been more urgent.” https://tinyurl.com/factory-industrial-animals

When speaking about the enormous concerns regarding industrial farming, individuals, companies and governments are often both afraid to act to bring about the urgent change needed and unwilling to be the first to enact that change. Industrial agriculture’s megalithic status quo will eventually fail, but until then what is left to spring the Earth’s biosphere back to health?

Last month’s climate summit (COP30) in Belém, Brazil should have been a place to start this conversation. The ecologically destabilizing deforestation taking place in Brazil has forged Indigenous alliances. They have been shut out of past climate conferences, but at COP30 they were easily heard, even if it meant breaking down the barriers.

And encouragingly, just prior to the summit, the Brazilian government launched a vital new project, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which aims to reverse tropical deforestation, with a US$1 billion seed fund. The fund rose to 5.5 billion dollars during the conference and will hopefully reach 125 billion. https://tinyurl.com/TFFF-seed-fund 

However, pressed by agriculture conglomerates, Brazil has permitted more Amazon and Cerrado clearance, primarily for soybean cultivation and animal farming, and there are also plenty of illegal operations. All this is playing havoc with the country’s water reserves, and on top of this Brazil’s jaguars, half of the world population, are being forced out of the Amazon to make way for plantations of soya for the global production of industrially raised chickens. See this short video to learn some of what is at stake: https://tinyurl.com/cerrado-destruction

Speciesism (prejudice and discrimination against other species) is alive and well in many Canadians’ hearts. Soybean meal and grains from Brazil, the US and Canada feed North America’s growing and seemingly unquenchable lust for eating intensively reared chickens and cows. (Tens of billions of factory-produced chickens are killed each year.) Why feed perfectly nutritious foods such as soybeans and grains to caged animals when humans can have far better and more efficient access by eating these foods direct? 

It should be obvious to anyone living in 2025 that what is happening to Brazil’s forests will eventually impact the widespread disregard for the planet shown by people in the global north, including Canadian citizens. The building of roads and the burning down of tropical forests for soybeans to fatten factory chickens accelerate climate breakdown and will affect us all, just as the recent wildfires caused by human climate malfeasance in Canada affect the rest of the world well after those fires stop smouldering. 

Starvation shouldn’t be a policy of governments. Study after study shows that wildlife is directly in the crosshairs of intensive farms, whether that be in Africa, Asia, South America or North America. If we love wildlife, one answer to protect it is to stop eating intensively raised animals.

The Humane League points out that chickens “are subjected to some of the most inhumane treatments of any factory-farmed animal. Extreme confinement, surgical procedures performed without painkillers, and the denial of normal socialization opportunities are among the many factors that make these chickens’ lives difficult and at times unbearable.”https://tinyurl.com/farm-cruelty

On top of the cruelty of these hapless animals’ short lives, and the enormous wastage of clean water by industrial farms, the manure produced impacts lands, rivers and lakes and pollutes our air. Ellen K. Silbergeld in her timely book Chickenizing Farms and Food: How Industrial Meat Production Endangers Workers, Animals and Consumers, explains: 

“Ecologically, overloading soils with waste-borne nutrients results in overloading surface waters with these nutrients. With rains and runoff, as much as 50 percent of the applied nutrients are lost before they can be absorbed into soils. This results in enriching surface waters, which is a major contributor to the degradation of these systems. In many regions, food animal production is the major source of adverse impacts on the health of surface waters and coastal waters… The impacts can be chronic, impairing the habitability of waterways for aquatic life and their utility for human recreation, or acute, resulting in massive fish kills and harmful algal blooms…” 

Unbridled extreme extractive growth is not only being served up at the tables of billionaires. The recent frenzy of Black Friday’s month-long extravaganza of super-consumerism, together with its green-washing spin-offs, permeates many Canadians’ dreams to join the oligarchs’ clubs. Cheap goods and nutritionally poor food hyper-drive us towards a depleted Earth and a wasting democracy. Enter populist demagogues who are more than pleased to rip off an addicted population in the name of promises of security and low food prices: the industrial mega-farm is a dream come true.

A comprehensive report by the Center for Biological Diversity explains that “the industry also contributes to food insecurity, poor public health, antibiotic resistance, environmental injustice, dangerous worker conditions, inequality and the inhumane treatment of other animals.” https://tinyurl.com/extinction-plate

Food waste contributes to hunger and the despoiling of land that produces that same food. Food justice enables the poorest people to move away from the often toxic contaminated menus originating in factory farms. 

How can we transition to a kinder, more equitable food system? Here we might turn again to Silbergeld:

“Reform—feasible and sustainable reform for an agriculture that feeds the world — needs the participation and stamina of all of us to achieve the changes necessary for health, nutrition, animal welfare, social dignity, and sustainability. The power of ordinary people eventually becomes the power of change. The food industry is remarkably responsive when it comes to consumer disfavor.”

Even those of us who don’t want to protest on the streets can play their part. Earth-friendly diets are a way out from supporting, perhaps inadvertently, the horrors of feeding oligarchs’ love for wildlife extinction and climate chaos. https://tinyurl.com/extinction-off-table

Right now, as well as in good time for the end-of-year holidays, you can find some fabulous recipes that don’t cost the Earth at https://tinyurl.com/earth-friendly-recipes

“The climate crisis is tied to the ways fossil fuels are baked into our lives, belongings, and occupations. It thrives on how our fractured societies justify the mistreatment of ourselves and our resources.” —Extinction Rebellion

Scientists are raising the alarm that the global impact of humanity’s relentless push against Nature’s integrity will drive our species over the precipice as is already happening for many of the other life forms. The famed biologist E.O. Wilson put it succinctly: “The human impact on biodiversity…is an attack on ourselves.” He expressed doubt that humans would survive for more than a few months if we continue to eradicate our insect populations. We are afraid of insects and unwarrantedly pesticide them to death, but love the honey that bees provide us with.

Although Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring became the launchpad for action against the destruction of Nature through the use of pesticides 60-plus years ago, her book is not considered mandatory reading in schools and might even be part of the ritual of book prohibitions that festers throughout many US school systems. At the same time, herbicides and pesticides are an ever-increasing multi-billion-dollar ecocidal industry.

Is it any wonder that the well-known word “Anthropocene,” which denotes the predatory ascent of humans over all ecological systems as well as our climate through industrial society’s commodification of Nature, is now joined by other words that describe humanity’s destructive preoccupation since the Holocene?

Increasingly Wilson’s term “Eremocene” (the age of loneliness) fits our predicament, as humankind over this century sends thousands of species to their extinction, leaving us with far fewer fellow Earthly creatures and ultimately leading to our doom.

The Plantationocene speaks of the runaway colonization of the planet’s forests, such as in the Amazon for industrial cattle farming or expanding agribusinesses for soya bean production, in Indonesia for palm oil monoculture, or in Canada’s boreal forests, which have been converted into the enormous polluter that is the Alberta tar sands. In fact, for many historians the word “civilization” can no longer characterize or be the narrator of a shift away from mindless obsessed capitalism, as civilization and colonialism have been inextricably linked for too long and there are too many negative consequences associated with both.

Then there is the Pyrocene: the age of unstoppable wildfires unquestionably caused by fossil fuels.

The list goes on.

Our epoch has created the age of solastalgia, which is a homesickness that permeates societies without our leaving our homes: the memories of a better place where we have lived. “Solastalgia” describes a dread for where our beloved local spaces will eventually rupture to, or, even more encompassing, for the slow untangling fate of the Earth’s biosphere. Glenn Albrecht, writing in The Conversation, warned: “Either we face a pandemic of solastalgia and related negative psychoterratic syndromes as a result of the havoc created by unsustainable development and climate change, or we use our intelligence and creativity to give rise to a world where our positive psychoterratic emotions can thrive.” https://tinyurl.com/home-anxiety

The word “psychoterratic” joins two ideas: “psyche,” for the mind and soul, and “terra,” for the Earth. The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh defines psychoterratic syndromes as “mental health conditions caused by the impact of environmental change and disasters on individuals. Examples include eco-anxiety, ecological grief (eco-grief), solastalgia, and climate trauma.” https://tinyurl.com/earth-with-mental-health The younger generations in particular feel trapped in a spiral of ecological unraveling.

However, positive Earth emotions and feelings expressed as biophilia, topophilia, ecophilia and eutierria can be embraced and be a beacon to balance and overcome seemingly insurmountable crises. The geographer Yi-Fu Tuan described topophilia as the love of place and landscape. Wilson used the term “biophilia” to describe humankind’s innate love for Nature and other species, such that emotion counters the exploitative relationship with Nature, as does ecophilia, which can cure ecophobia.

The word ”eutierria” builds on biophilia, as it describes a deep connection and a dismantling of barriers with Nature in one’s consciousness, thereby creating a good and positive feeling of oneness with the Earth and its life forces. This feeling is one where the separation between self and the rest of Nature disappears and peace and connectedness pervade our consciousness. When the human—Nature relationship is immediate and mutually engaging (symbiotic), we experience an emotional state of eutierria, which contrasts with dread and eco-anxiety.

The late Joanna Macy proposed The Great Turning as a positive pathway through the Age of Unraveling, which is characterized by ecological collapse and societal fragmentation. The Great Turning represents a fundamental shift away from a civilization that depletes to a way of life that nourishes. Bioregionalism, inter-generational dialogues, profound cultural spirituality, deep ecology movements, cooperative economies, renewable energy micro-grids and watershed restoration projects will lead the way past fancy names towards a powerful human—Nature relationship. Macy said: “The most remarkable feature of this historical moment on Earth is not that we are on the way to destroying the world—we’ve actually been on that path for quite a while. It is that we are beginning to wake up, as from a millennia-long sleep, to a whole new relationship to our world, to ourselves, and to the future we can still create.” Taking action, according to Macy, leads to efforts to slow down damage to the Earth and its beings, including policy changes, legal battles, and resistance to destructive systems. https://tinyurl.com/Macy-turning

The long journey home is possible.

Humans, in order to survive, must go beyond the Anthropocene. Imagine the Symbiocene. The Symbiocene connects all beings in a harmonious interaction with all life. https://tinyurl.com/symbiotic-planet

Humanity is without question at a crossroads. It remains to be seen whether a young generation will radically depart from the industrial capitalist vision that has prevailed. It has no choice if it is to survive and prosper.

Meanwhile, for your delectation this upcoming Halloween, take a scary look at some of our watery neighbours. To see them is to love them and be thankful that they exist on Earth. https://tinyurl.com/deep-sea-creatures

“The truth is that we have failed to avoid an overshooting above 1.5C in the next few years. And that going above 1.5C has devastating consequences. Some of these devastating consequences are tipping points, be it in the Amazon, be it in Greenland, or western Antarctica or the coral reefs.” 

—António Guterres, UN Secretary General 

By bluntly stating what is at stake prior to the UN conference on climate change, and the failure of the Paris 2015 conference’s aspiration to stop a global temperature rise of 1.5 Celsius, António Guterres is publicly demanding that next week’s gathering of nations in Belém, Brazil vigorously negotiate in good faith to curb further lapses of climate action. 

This will not be easily achieved, particularly since billionaire Bill Gates recently threw a wrench into COP30 negotiations by declaring that while climate concerns are real, the world should—bizarrely—separate the impact of climate realities such as intensified droughts and floods from ongoing work that raises the levels of health and overall economic prosperity of the poorest people. Climate-carbon mitigation technology will come in due time, Gates proclaimed.

Suggesting that we must choose either climate programmes or poverty alleviation is a false dichotomy. Gates says, “Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries.” Has he not watched with horror what has happened to the Caribbean island of Jamaica as a consequence of Hurricane Melissa and rising ocean temperatures, or Vietnam receiving 5 feet of rain recently in 24 hours? Health is directly impacted by climate. 

Gates’ term “Green Premium” means, in his own words, “the difference in cost between a product that involves emitting carbon and an alternative that doesn’t.” To bring that premium to zero, as for example electric vehicles costing the same as internal combustion vehicles and thus eliminating the extra cost—the “green premium”—of buying an electric one, will initiate a far better prospect for climate stability because the electric car pollutes far less. Until that happens, self-proclaimed “climate activist” Gates believes we must prioritize general poverty issues and cool our heels until green technology costs the same as the old fossil fuel technologies. He says, “This is a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives… But remember that climate change is not the biggest threat to the lives and livelihoods of people in poor countries, and it won’t be in the future.” https://www.gatesnotes.com/ 

Yet the opposite is true: it is precisely the unprecedented temperature increase in the last 100 years that is preventing people in the poorest countries from transitioning to a better future. Colonialism’s handmaiden, fossil fuel, frustrates people’s aspirations for a just society. 

The Guardian newspaper covers climate regularly and reported recently on a study from respected medical journal The Lancet: “Rising global heat is now killing one person a minute around the world, a major report on the health impact of the climate crisis has revealed. It says the world’s addiction to fossil fuels also causes toxic air pollution, wildfires and the spread of diseases such as dengue fever, and millions each year are dying owing to the failure to tackle global heating.” https://tinyurl.com/person-dies-each-minute

Why bother listening to the opinions of billionaires? asks long-term writer and climate activist Bill McKibben in a devastating rebuttal to Gates’ assertions.These billionaires take all the oxygen out of the scientific discussions on climate change or biodiversity loss. McKibben accused Gates of playing into Trump’s climate denial narrative. Indeed, Trump thanked Gates for exposing the “climate hoax”, even though Gates never claimed that climate science was spurious. 

McKibben isn’t alone in denouncing Gates’ essay or its publication just before COP 30. “Despite his efforts to make clear that he takes climate change seriously, his words are bound to be misused by those who would like nothing more than to destroy efforts to deal with climate change,” says Michael Oppenheimer, director of the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. 

For decades people have mumbled that governments and individuals will change their pro-oil and gas policies once there are uncontested catastrophic events linked to climate disruption. The spiel goes like this: “What we unfortunately need to turn around this iceberg-directed Titanic-like disaster called climate breakdown is to have local disasters that hit us really hard and then we will be true believers and change our ways. When the roofs are torn off and a neighbourhood is decimated even the frequent flyer will get off the flight and not take a cruise ship.” 

It hasn’t happened, because a litany of destruction hasn’t made us change course. I suppose what always peeves me the most is that the so-called instructive catastrophe always takes place in someone else’s town to teach a rich population brutal climate lessons but needn’t inflict their home with suffering. Sacrifice the next village to make the story point, and maybe this is the point: the 10% richest people (us) refuse to help those populations that are getting hit by real-life floods and sea-level rises. Ask the residents of Miquelon about rooting up their entire village to higher ground. An article titled “How do you move a village? Residents of France’s last outpost in North America try to outrun the sea” says it all. https://tinyurl.com/French-islands

Brazilian diplomat André Aranha Corrêa do Lago will preside over COP30, which runs from November 10 to 21 and will be preceded by the heads of state climate summit on November 6 and 7. (It’s still uncertain whether Mark Carney will attend. Trump, it goes without saying, will have nothing to do with it.) Lago laments: “There is a new kind of opposition to climate action. We are facing a discredit of climate policies. I don’t think we are facing climate denial… It’s not a scientific denial, it’s an economic denial.” This brashness is vividly exposed in Trump’s slash and burn tactics to rid all regulatory impediments that get in the way of profits.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are increasing at alarming rates. Given that, it doesn’t help that the Brazilian state oil company, Petrobras, has been given a permit for exploratory drilling off the Amazonia coast. “The approval is an act of sabotage against the COP and undermines the climate leadership claimed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva,” says Climate Observatory, a network of environmental organizations from Brazilian civil society.

The UN Emissions Gap Report, which came out this week, compares what countries have acted on and what they must do to lower their fossil fuel emissions and concludes that their achievements have been woefully inadequate. The report is bleak: a 2.8C rise above pre-industrial emissions is forecast unless rich nations in particular drastically revamp their carbon emissions goals. 

The Union of Concerned Scientists had this to say: “Years of grossly insufficient action from richer nations and continued climate deception and obstruction by fossil fuel interests are directly responsible for bringing us here.” It should be added that for rich nations this includes their citizens’ obsession with jetting off to places like the Galápagos Islands or Costa Rica to ponder Nature’s abundance while the world burns.

To learn what we can expect at COP30, see https://unfccc.int/cop30 Included on the website are UN reports showing that nations are forging ahead to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. In two weekswe will have a better idea whether this is just one more conference on climate that plays the world for a fool and the hundreds of lobbyists sent to Belém, Brazil go home satisfied the world is open as ever for business as usual, or whether nations will overturn 30 years of inaction to seize their citizens’ right to a healthy Earth.

We can be sure that there will be a strong presence in Belém of people keen to hold the COP to account. Saturday, November 15 is a Global Day of Action. Climate protests will be taking place around the world. 

“If we truly put a value on biodiversity, we would live in a really, really different world.”
—Clover Hogan, youth climate activist and founder of Force of Nature

“Azzam Alwash’s stubborn persistence that proved experts wrong is needed everywhere, he believes. For our civilization to continue—if not our very existence—will demand vision that transcends conventional wisdom and boundaries.” 
—Alan Weisman

A blue jay’s wing feather is a remarkable sight. Finding one and using it as a bookmark for Alan Weisman’s new book, Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future, I was taken aback by its subtle blue and black pattern of colours that end with a flourish of striking white. Of course, countless animals have such odes to beauty, but this feather is one more proof of the inexhaustible creativity found throughout the natural world. Yet most humans fail to celebrate the stunning imagination of Nature, and indeed many have a reckless disregard for it.

Fortunately, others are working tirelessly to give Nature the help it needs. One such person is Azzam Alwash, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize for his invaluable contribution with other community members to bring back the fabled Mesopotamian Marshes in southern Iraq after Saddam Hussein diverted the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in his bid to destroy the enemies he believed were hiding in the marshes. This happened in 1993, and 20 years later, after an ecocide that seemed irreversible, Alwash’s headstrong commitment to replenish the Middle East’s largest wetland had already begun to bring back the impossible: water flowed once more, and to everyone’s astonishment myriad forms of life re-emerged. 

Many years previously I had read Wilfred Thesiger’s fabulous book The Marsh Arabs, which speaks so passionately about life in the Mesopotamian Marshes, so I was particularly interested in learning about the area’s resilience to the ecocide.

Another Earth hero, Rob Hopkins, a cofounder of the Transition Network, has striven to protect communities around the world that are threatened by climate breakdown caused by the burning of fossil fuels, by bringing people into community groups that provide inspiration to succeed locally. I have witnessed first-hand how these groups are able to make huge contributions to community involvement and resilience. Hopkins’ recent work focussing on the vital role of imagination to make our world truly a place of celebration is also an inspiration for many. https://transitionnetwork.org/

An extraordinary endeavour to bring before the world the plight of animals was initiated this year by THE HERDS. Setting out from Kinshasa, DRC in April to walk the 20,000km to the Arctic Circle with life-size articulated sculptured figures that mimic real animals in both appearance and mannerisms, the participants engaged thousands of people in an invigorating conversation and educational project. The work continues with Let the Wildness in, THE HERDS’ dynamic interactive education programme “designed to connect young minds with the wonders of Nature and the urgent need for climate action.” Visiting many diverse habitats, it takes students on “a journey through the world’s ecosystems, exploring the wildlife, challenges, and conservation efforts shaping our planet.” https://www.theherds.org

Marina Silva is Brazil’s minister of environment and climate change. She is an outspoken champion for biodiversity and for the protection of her native Amazonia. She has constantly been attacked by individuals in government and in industry for her staunch dedication to both democracy and Nature. Nevertheless, she has persisted and has been an inspiration for all women. “My place is the place to defend democracy,” she says. “My place is the place to defend the environment, to combat inequality, sustainable development, to protect biodiversity… My place is where all women should be.”

People like David Suzuki, Bill McKibben, David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg have inspired millions to stand with Nature. I recommend many of McKibben’s books and have followed his unflagging passion to speak for the rights of Nature. His latest book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, sings the praises of wind and solar energy. 

The journalists at Covering Climate Now and the 89% Project are letting people around the world know that they are not alone in voicing a resounding affirmation for Nature. https://tinyurl.com/cover-climate

And the United Nations is endeavouring to ensure that Nature receives the support it so desperately needs. Just last week the High Seas Treaty finally became law. “Covering more than two-thirds of the ocean, the agreement sets binding rules to conserve and sustainably use marine biodiversity,” explains UN Secretary-General António Guterres. The treaty is a monumental achievement by governments who have worked together for over two decades to bring it to fruition. In the next five years, countries must determine which areas will be designated Marine Protected Areas.

To add to this good news, this is Climate Week in New York City, the world’s largest climate gathering outside of COP, which brings together global leaders, innovators and communities “to accelerate the transition to a cleaner, fairer Nature.” You can watch the sessions live online at https://www.climateweeknyc.org/livestream or view the recordings at https://www.climateweeknyc.org/watch-demand-2025

Now it remains to be seen whether cooperation can supersede the anti-Nature tactics of a few countries. 

Of course, it is not only humans who are to be praised for their involvement with the rest of Nature. Earth’s flora and fauna provide all the proof of Nature’s ability, if only given the chance, to thrive under the most challenging of circumstances, with some stunning examples. Take the Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), which can live for 5,000 years in the harsh conditions above 5,500 feet in altitude where there is hardly any soil to be found on many seemingly barren slopes. https://tinyurl.com/ancient-pines

On the first day of autumn this year, an all-too-rare monarch butterfly visited a flowering bush in my garden, clearly gathering her energy for the long flight to Mexico. She is one of several generations who will be born and die during the momentous two-way crossing, and she’ll be the one to complete the journey from eastern Canada. The epic migration of these beautiful insects is an extraordinary phenomenon that has existed for millions of years. 

A recent piece by Sam Davis in Resiliencemagazine entitled ”Guide to Becoming an Environmental Leader and Inspiring the Next Generation of Eco-defenders” is an adapted excerpt from his book Every Wild Voice: For Environmental Leaders, Both Present and Future. The article is an inspiring place to start if you, your friends and your family wish to act for Nature. It contains many excellent suggestions to enable us to move forward in the quest to become informed and take action. https://tinyurl.com/eco-defenders 

If you are an older person, you may wish to join Seniors for Climate, whose goal is to “build a Canada-wide community of seniors to create a liveable future.” Following successful involvement with Earth Day in April and the Draw the Line Global Days of Action last week, they are planning a Canada-wide day of climate action on October 1st, which is National Seniors Day. https://seniorsforclimate.org

“Nature has a lot to say, and it has long been time for us, her children, to stop playing deaf.” —Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist

Since 1989, UN World Population Day on July 11 has been an occasion to contemplate how humans can work together to forge a more just society. Earth’s 8.2 billion people must come together as never before to create an equitable planetary peace—a treaty, if you will—with all of Nature’s inhabitants. The world’s approximately 476 million Indigenous people are critical partners in that rising consciousness. They manage or hold tenure rights to approximately a quarter of the world’s surface area, accounting for a significant portion of the world’s biodiversity, nearly half of the protected areas, and over half of the remaining intact forests. 

Despite their vital role in conservation, Indigenous people experience disproportionately high levels of poverty. It is also not uncommon for Indigenous groups to bear the brunt of toxins and elevated air pollution. As is the case for many marginalized people, toxic industries can be found close by. For decades the Aamjiwnaang First Nation community in Ontario’s Sarina “chemical valley” has been subjected to emissions of the carcinogen benzene from the INEOS Styrolution petrochemical plant, despite the Ontario government’s acknowledgement of the dangers present. Sulphur dioxide is also a problem in Sarnia, because it irritates the human respiratory system. Environmental racism is a curse that visits groups of people who are vulnerable to the vagaries of justice. tinyurl.com/sarnia-pollution

Rights of Nature first came into focus with Christopher Stone’s Should Trees Have Standing? Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects, published in 1972. He wrote: “Each time there is a movement to confer rights onto some new ‘entity,’ the proposal is bound to sound odd or frightening or laughable. This is partly because until the rightless thing receives its rights, we cannot see it as anything but a thing for the use of ‘us’—those who are holding rights at the time.” You can read this groundbreaking essay at tinyurl.com/trees-have-rights

Robert Macfarlane’s recent book Is a River Alive? was born from the 50-year debate described in Stone’s essay, but it finds affinity with deeply rooted legal, scientific, poetic and both Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural stances—the bedrock of inspiration that encouraged him to write. Macfarlane’s undeniable passion and conviction bring Nature’s obvious centrality and necessary inclusivity into all primordial human relationships.

Is a River Alive? is unquestionably a book we should all savour. One of the areas Macfarlane visits is Ecuador, which, along with Colombia, has the world’s greatest biodiversity. In one section of the book he describes the process whereby Ecuador’s constitution incorporated a Rights of Nature manifesto, through which Indigenous people have been successful in pushing back the oil and mining companies’ rapacious appetite for destroying the country’s most biodiverse areas. including cloud forests such as the area known as Los Cedros. Two of the judges who enabled the transformation of the Ecuadorian constitution into a pro-Nature legal document accompanied Macfarlane on his journey to the headwaters of the Los Cedros river system.

Elsewhere in the book, Macfarlane’s exploration of Québec’s endangered Magpie River envelops us in an astonishing conversation that includes a group of fellow conservationists and Indigenous people. In 2021, the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the regional municipal council of Minganie passed resolutions granting the Magpie River (Mutehekau Shipu) the landmark right of legal personhood—a title that bestowed nine rights on the river: the right to live, to exist and to flow, the right to the respect for its natural cycles, the right to evolve naturally, to be protected and preserved, the right to maintain its natural biodiversity, the right to perform its essential functions within its ecosystem, the right to maintain its integrity, the right to be free from pollution, the right to regenerate and be restored, and the right to sue. 

The excellent no-fee, 44-minute documentary “I am the Magpie River” on CBC’s Gem service vividly makes the plea to defend the Rights of Nature declaration. The deeply set determination to keep the Magpie River unharnessed is evident throughout the dialogue. It also succeeds in portraying the river’s power and why Hydro Québec would love to tame it for electricity. gem.cbc.ca/the-nature-of-things

Bioregionalism inherently pulls down national and internal borders to create dialogue with all life. Permaculture, agroecology, Territories of Life, biocivilization, Zapatista, ecosocialism, ecofeminism and degrowth transition are a few of the ways to accomplish transformative alternatives that strengthen bioregionalism. A Rights of Nature credo is easy to establish when people believe in sharing peace with Nature.

A South Asian example of bioregionalism was recently presented by Ashish Kothari of the India-based Vikalp Sangam South Asia Bioregionalism Working Group, at a meeting of Elders for Peace (www.elders4peace.org). Its broad tenets are “porous boundaries, enabling free movement of wildlife, nomadic pastoralists/fishers, and traders; boundary areas governed as ‘peace sanctuaries’ by Indigenous peoples/local communities; civilizational identities replacing hyper-nationalist ones; village/town-assembly-based direct democracy coordinating over bioregional scale through federated institutions; small-scale traders and nomadic communities as messengers, story-tellers and news-givers across landscapes; and dismantling of dams/diversions on rivers, enabling free flow.” tinyurl.com/south-asia-bioregionalism

Sometimes bioregionalism enables peace and security between two warring groups that can be achieved because they find a sacred alliance with certain animals. Such is the case with the Pokot and Il-Chamus tribes in Kenya’s Rift Valley, whose members have brought conflicts regarding land, water and cattle to spiralling levels of violence. By 2005 everyone realized that an immediate solution was needed. The rare Baringo giraffe, which had been revered by both groups for centuries but had disappeared from the region in the 1960s as a result of conflict, expanding human settlements and hunting, was to be the catalyst. Working with conservation agencies, the tribes agreed to put aside their differences, and the long-gone giraffes were brought back to the region and given sanctuary. Rebby Sebei, who manages the Ruko Community Wildlife Conservancy in Baringo County, tells us why everyone wishes to work together. “Giraffe are associated with someone who plans, who sees far, because of their height.” Like seeing into the future. “Elders equated that to the vision of people coming together and living in peace.” therevelator.org/giraffes-for-peace/

An invigorating literary website, Otherwise Collective, celebrates deep connections that humans can have with plants, which reinforce a breaking down of barriers: “We hope to transport people across the seemingly unbridgeable divide from the sentience of plants to humans.” otherwisecollective.com

I conclude with some words from Robert Macfarlane: “We will never think like a river, but perhaps we can think with them… I take the Rights of Nature movement at its best to be a kind of legal ‘grammar of animacy:’ that is to say, an attempt to make structures of power align with perceptions of a world which is far more alive than power usually allows.”

“The ocean is the cornerstone of Earth’s support system. It shapes climate and weather. It holds the key to our future.” —Sylvia Earle, marine biologist and oceanographer 

“We need to stop toxic chemical, plastic, and partially combusted carbon pollution now. Along with ocean acidification, nothing else really matters.” —GOES Foundation 

To celebrate World Ocean Day on June 8, here are 13 wonderful photos that will entice you to care about protecting our ocean: https://tinyurl.com/13-photos

These images are an inspiration for people to do more for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), but in reality most of these areas are only protected on paper. The goal set out at the biodiversity COP15 in Montreal in 2022 and eventually agreed by 188 nations is to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030, but little progress has been made and indeed some of the larger areas deemed under protection are still subject to commercial fishing and proposed mining. https://tinyurl.com/marine-unprotected

The reduced protections in the US, which has abandoned MPAs under the Trump administration, have made the likelihood of achieving the goal even slimmer. https://therevelator.org/trump-marine-protection

Eighty percent of the planet’s biodiversity is found in the ocean. Scientists have so far identified 250,000 marine species but estimate that this covers only two-thirds of the life that exists there. More than half the oxygen production for Earth originates in the ocean. Yet humanity continues to orchestrate the ocean’s demise, even though 3 billion people depend on the ocean for their survival and livelihood. 

The ocean is a huge carbon sink, but the constant rise in greenhouse gas emissions is acidifying the water and making it difficult to absorb and sequester all the carbon. 

The ocean also soaks up about 90% of the excess heat generated by climate breakdown. The rise in temperature is already pushing the great coral reefs to their limit of tolerance and are threatening fish with extinction. Many fish are moving further north to escape this and lower oxygen levels. Predators don’t necessarily follow the migrating fish, and the fine balance that defines biodiversity is interrupted. And what happens to all the marine species who are unable to move to escape their drastically changing environment?

Every year 11 million tonnes of plastic find their way into the ocean and have now reached even the deepest trenches, polluting the seas from the Arctic to the Antarctic and every species of marine wildlife, and thus entering the food chain on which billions of humans depend. These plastics include lost and abandoned fishing lines and nets, which entangle creatures from seabirds to giant whales. https://tinyurl.com/ocean-planetary

The rapid melting of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is of critical concern as sea level rises threaten so many coastal communities. Small island states are now in jeopardy of disappearing entirely. 

Furthermore, a warming ocean fuels stronger hurricanes that bring more heavy rainfall and higher storm surge when they make landfall.

The Copernicus Ocean State Report lays out the multi-level crises that now plague the global ocean. https://tinyurl.com/ocean-report

One of the greatest threats to the ocean is the prospect of deep-sea mining, something many countries, aware of the risks, have chosen not to pursue. A summit conference to discuss a moratorium on this vital issue will take place in July this year. 

Flying in the face of this cautious approach, Donald Trump has issued an order to expedite permits to mine the ocean bed in international waters in order to exploit the minerals there.

This decision, says Jeff Watters of Ocean Conservancy, “runs counter to the way we as a global community have been cooperatively working on the high seas for decades now. Unilateral action to pursue deep-sea mining opens up a whole Pandora’s box of questions in terms of conflict on the high seas and conflict between nations… Do we want to experiment with the destruction of these environments before we even know what’s there?” https://tinyurl.com/deep-sea-mine

The International Seabed Authority was set up in 1994 by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. One hundred and sixty-nine nations are parties to the Law of the Sea treaty, but the US has not ratified it, just as it has failed to ratify climate or biodiversity treaties. 

A rise in temperature is one of the factors causing the colour of the ocean to change from blue to green. The water is becoming darker, driving animals who depend on light to move closer to the surface to compete for food and making them more vulnerable to predation. https://tinyurl.com/ocean-darker

Pollution from countless different human-made chemicals, including those leaching from plastics, is poisoning the water and killing the plankton that sit at the bottom of the food chain. The GOES Foundation states ominously, “If we had not poisoned the oceans, we could have prevented climate change. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of marine plankton in the maintenance and now precarious balance of life on Earth. We can all see the loss of phytoplankton, the decrease in oxygen production, and the well-documented CO2 increase… Oils and surfactants produced by marine plankton form [a] surface micro layer, which regulates water evaporation.” 

Earth’s ocean is at a crossroads. 

An alarming and tragic situation, but there are still glimmers of hope. Canada has a new area of protection 150km west of Vancouver Island. At over 133km2 it is Canada’s largest MPA, rich in hydrothermal vents and undersea formations known as seamounts and providing a unique habitat for many species. The Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council is happy that the MPA has been officially created within its territories: “With so many threats to our oceans, such as climate change and pollution, we must be vigilant in what we allow to happen in our waters. Joint management is key to reconciliation and living up to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Using our ecological knowledge is essential to the future of our oceans.”

A huge UN ocean conference is set to take place in Nice, France from June 9 to 13, as part of Ocean Week, which brings the world together so that we can celebrate and educate ourselves about the critical importance of protecting the ocean. https://tinyurl.com/know-your-ocean

The purpose of the conference is to support the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14: “Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” It will “build on existing instruments to form successful partnerships towards the swift conclusion and effective implementation of ongoing processes that contribute to the conservation and sustainable use of the ocean.” https://tinyurl.com/conference-ocean

World Ocean Day on June 8 marks year two in the multi-year action theme Catalyzing Action for Our Ocean & Climate. This is part of a movement for a more sustainable society and a healthy blue planet. Twelve separate months of actions have taken place or being planned for 2025. January: Ocean and Climate Literacy; February: Environmental Justice; March: Global Plastics Treaty; April: Earth Day Collaboration and Plastics; May: High Seas Treaty Ratification; June: World Ocean Day; July: Deep Sea Mining Moratorium; August: High Seas Treaty Ratification and 30×30; September and October: Antarctica and the Southern Ocean; November: 30×30 Implementation; December: Climate-Related Emotions & Wellbeing. https://tinyurl.com/twelve-months

Canada has many ocean celebrations in early June. Want to know what’s happening? https://tinyurl.com/ocean-quebec

“There’s a whole range of plastic items that actually we could live without, and I think we’re going to need to… We need to make sure the products we’re making are essential to society.” —Richard Thompson, marine biologist, who first coined the word “microplastics”

If you are old enough, you may remember the first time you touched a plastic bag or miraculously discovered that the shampoo bottle could bounce off the floor and not cause a mess by breaking like a glass one would. When I was a child, the reason why plastic shopping bags caught my interest was that their texture was so different from the familiar paper ones. 

Little did I realize that plastic would take over food packaging, and then take over the ocean, rivers and our bodies, including our brains. Plastics are indestructible, and our babies are being born pre-polluted. Microplastic bioaccumulation in the human placenta has been linked to premature births.

“Plastic is an essential piece of the unravelling of our human existence,” says professor of paediatrics Leo Trasande in The Plastic Crisis: A Health and Environmental Emergency, a podcast conversation with three highly knowledgeable people who know what plastics are doing to our world. https://tinyurl.com/plastics-conversation

An alarming statement, and the unravelling includes climate/biodiversity careening towards chaos because of the chemicals and fossil fuels that go into plastics. Consider that fewer than 20% of these chemicals have been investigated to understand their health implications. 

During The Big Plastic Count (https://thebigplasticcount.com), an estimated 1.7 billion pieces of plastic were thrown away in the UK in one week in March 2024. The most widely discarded were soft plastic from snacks and from fresh fruit and vegetables. Canada’s not doing any better.

Want to give up single-use plastics in your life for a month? An interesting and frustrating story emerges. Here is what happened to one journalist who tried it: https://tinyurl.com/cut-out-plastics

In many cases there appears to be currently no easy alternative. A partial solution is for governments to tax plastics and put into legislation the tools to steer an addicted public away from buying plastic-shrouded goods. 

Almost two decades ago a small island in the Caribbean was forced to give up glass bottles for plastic ones if they were to continue to drink a favourite beverage. People on the island were upset and tried get the government to refuse to accept the plastic bottles; the glass ones, which could be returned and a deposit refunded, could be used countless times—and most importantly they didn’t contribute to waste, which as you can imagine is a problem on an island. These local citizens didn’t succeed, in part because the government did not encourage public discussion. It was determined that it was a financially unacceptable burden on the beverage industry to clean and refill the glass bottles. Profit is everything, and who cares where the plastic bottles end up? 

Most plastic is made from oil, and the oil industry has little incentive to clean up after itself. To placate the public’s sense of outrage, a virtually symbolic paltry fine is imposed by governments hell bent on not disturbing the oil companies’ lobbying machinery, which ultimately funds political campaigns. 

Plastic waste ranging from toothpaste tubes to deodorant containers is exported to Java, Indonesia, to name just one country, where bakeries and street vendors burn this waste in their outdoor kitchens. The consequent contaminated food is killing thousands. In Kenya, rivers are clogged with western plastics. Since so much of the chemical/fossil fuel production and the disposal and breakdown of plastics is centred in the poorest communities, it is vital that we look at the social justice crises that arise. Some call this “garbage imperialism.”

A lawsuit pending against Danone Waters of America posits that Danone’s water in plastic bottles is not, as the company claims, natural and sustainable. Microplastics and the chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) can be found in the water. Despite what Danone will tell the court, this plastic packaging is a major factor in never creating a “sustainable” product. 

Which is more difficult to accomplish: getting individuals to give up plastic items, or having a global treaty to regulate the vast petrochemical networks that infest our world, and create legally binding targets to reduce plastics manufacturing and cut usage? We are past simply demanding behavioural change. A global plastics treaty has been in the works since 2022. It is still not in place, and if petrostates have their way, any such legislation will be wafer-thin on substance.

When California, the fifth largest economy in the world, declares certain chemicals in plastics unacceptable, petrochemical corporations will comply in California but still sell plastics that small island nations have no clout to stop. I have witnessed fossil-fuel-derived pesticides banned in Canada being sold to the global south. Scientists are telling us that there is the strong possibility that ultimately we will contaminate all our water and food, creating global conflict to procure safe food—the ultimate catastrophe. 

Last year, Carbon Brief produced an important analysis setting out the impacts of plastics on climate change. A plastics emergency is happening now, and the figures show us what is at stake and why the world must curb the production of plastics.  https://tinyurl.com/plastics-charts

In 2022 more than 170 nations backed a UN resolution to end plastic pollution. Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN environmental programme, declared: “Today marks a triumph by planet Earth over single-use plastics. This is the most significant environmental multilateral deal since the Paris accord. It is an insurance policy for this generation and future ones.” Sadly, she spoke too soon. No treaty of any substance came out of the summit.

The fifth conference of the UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee took place in Busan, South Korea in November 2024. “The failure of the Busan negotiations marks a significant setback in global efforts to combat plastic pollution,” concluded sustainability expert Mitota P. Omolere. “However, it also serves as a reminder of the complexities involved in international diplomacy where economic interests often clash with environmental imperatives.” https://tinyurl.com/busan-conference

The plastics treaty was derailed by petrochemical states such as Saudi Arabia. The previous conference, which took place in Ottawa in April 2024, had also been imperilled by an invasion of lobbyists and national governments vigorously protecting fossil-fuel interests. https://tinyurl.com/lobbying-plastics

Political momentum has definitely started to move beyond the all-encompassing reach of petrostates. The plastics treaty can be a catalyst for change, but action needs to be taken now. 

Plastics recycling is not the answer. The chemicals in plastics simply get dispersed along with microplastics, and failing to address the issue of production perpetuates dependency and provides a perceived rationale to continue using plastics. Reducing the amount of plastics manufactured, as mentioned in the plastic treaty negotiations, can have a great benefit for all life on Earth. Wildlife is impacted terribly and tragically by the release of these plastics into Nature. May 17 was Endangered Species Day, and plastics play an enormous part in pulling apart the ecological fabric of Earth. 

Nor is token banning of, for example, plastic shopping bags, as in Québec, going to solve the problem. However, there are small steps we can all take to reduce our dependence on single-use plastics. When the local bakery asks you if you want a plastic bag for your bread for the freezer, hand them a reusable plastic bag or request a paper one. Buying take-away food? Bring your own containers. Styrofoam will last for a million years. We must immediately stop indulging in short-term, unnecessary conveniences. 

“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.”