Archive for the ‘Nature Articles’ Category

“Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.”

~ Jacques-Yves Cousteau

It has been stated many times that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is at best a poor indicator of humanity’s and the planet’s wellbeing. The Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy (CASSE) [www.steadystate.org] has always rejected the argument put forward by capitalism-driven economists, industrialists and most governments that growth is the key to better lives across the planet. In fact, perpetual growth is a recipe for runaway profits, ultimately promotes ecocide, and at its most aggressive, as it is currently, leads to the genocide of Indigenous groups and the poorest people. Sound like an unstoppable disease? 

Though it is true that countless millions have been able to pursue healthier and fulfilling lives when pulled from extreme poverty, the way to get there is not through unlimited economic growth, which in turn is just smoke and mirrors and relies on an ever-increasing human population. Yes, contrary to the pronouncements of people like Elon Musk who believe that an ever-expanding human population is necessary if only to inhabit an utterly inhospitable planet like Mars, unlimited growth is the undisputed hallmark and madness of modern-day extractive colonialism. w

The people at CASSE show that GDP is always linked to the ecological footprint of a country: the higher the GDP, the more land is consumed to facilitate that growth, and the less room there is left for biodiversity to flourish. And of course humans are part of the planet’s biodiversity. So, on a local level, if Sherbrooke’s Plan Nature will truly protect 45% of its land and thus limit growth, developers will tend to hate that plan because for them development, as part of an outdated economic paradigm of endless growth, is always a good venture and brings “wealth” to more people. Preserving and increasing habitat is fundamental for the survival of wildlife. 

All of this brings me to reflect on UN World Population Day, held on July 11th every year since 1990. This year we contemplate the milestone of a human population of 8 billion. The focus in 2023 is on safeguarding the health and rights of women and girls, and on putting the brakes on Covid-19. With almost half of all pregnancies unintended, women and girls frequently find themselves in an untenable situation. Through the years, the UN has tried to foster open discussion regarding the rights of women and girls, always stressing the right to an education because this in turn lowers the pregnancy rate. It is equally important that men be educated too, as in many countries they are the ones who impede girls’ education.

With the number of humans likely to exceed 10 billion before decreasing, the strong case to advocate for and celebrate the need to make people aware of the relationship between an increasing human population and ever-creeping consumption levels has not gone unnoticed by those who demand that our besieged ecosystems be protected. It has been calculated that the super-rich top 1%’s destructive ecological footprint is responsible for 15% of carbon emissions, but our jet-setting neighbours in the west, who by and large form the next 10% of the world’s population, are culpable for a massive 48% of emissions. 

This May, ‘Population Decline Will Change the World for the Better’, an article by Stephanie Feldstein, population and sustainability director at the Center for Biological Diversity, appeared in Scientific American. tinyurl.com/fewer-people-better-world

Feldstein writes: “Where our current model of endless growth and short-term profits sacrifices vulnerable people and the planet’s future, population decline could help create a future with more opportunity and a healthy, biologically rich world… We can maintain the economic status quo and continue to pursue infinite growth on a finite planet. Or we can heed the warning signs of a planet pushed to its limits, put the brakes on environmental catastrophe, and choose a different way to define prosperity that’s grounded in equity and a thriving natural world.” 

China’s per capita ecological footprint might be far lower than that of the US, but owing to its much larger population and its import of western industrial companies, its total footprint is twice as large as that of the US and thus its carbon emissions represent a third of global emissions and its impact on deforestation is huge. Feldstein goes on to say: “Reducing consumption in high-income countries is necessary, but insufficient on its own if global population continues to rise.” 

If we look at the excellent graphs and data from Toronto’s York University tinyurl.com/Ecological-footprints we can easily see that no country surpasses Canada’s damning ecological footprint – not even the US. Does this mean, in part, that Canada’s population is too large? Although its biocapacity (the area of biologically productive land and ocean area providing food, fibre and timber, accommodating urban infrastructure, and absorbing excess CO2) per individual is “healthier” than that of our southern neighbours, a steady decline of biodiversity is indicated over several decades. Our rapacious consumption history shows that our population of 38 million people extracts the equivalent of five Earths to sustain this pattern, while a country like Democratic Republic of the Congo is still within its one world of sustainability, though it too is in a steep decline of biocapacity.

Clearly Canada has to do better if it is to stop a precipitous abyss in its ecological integrity, but until it does so, should it strive to also lower its population? Cleaning up our house first seems to be a logical place to start. For where is Canada extracting its four extra worlds of biodiversity and climate destructive industries if not from other countries? We do live on a finite planet, after all. North Americans forget this at the world’s ultimate peril. This is why the UN’s recent climate and biodiversity conferences had the global south ready to mutiny if the biodiversity and climate-warming losses and damages indebted to it by the global north were not addressed.

A good example to show the discrepancy between rich and poor can be seen in the spiralling use of air conditioners. As more people can afford to buy an air conditioner to combat deadly heatwaves, those same air conditioners have become one of the fastest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and they heat even further the air outside. At the same time, a billion people don’t have access to electricity at all and are not responsible for the escalating climate crisis. There is nothing equitable about cooling with air conditioning, which further divides society between the haves and the have-nots. Closer to home, Toronto has become a world success story with its deep Ontario lake water cooling of over 100 large buildings, which lowers the city’s emissions, but there are many simpler ways to cool our cities without air conditioning. See, for example, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher

Overconsumption threatens all life on the planet. A lower population level will help reduce consumption levels and enable women to participate more fully in their own future.

“O ruin’d piece of nature, this great world
Shall so wear out to naught.”

William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Lear

When in 1951 Rachel Carson published her extraordinarily popular book The Sea Around Us, which galvanized huge interest in the oceans, she was not overly optimistic concerning humanity’s ability to be an engaged steward and partner to these vast and rich biologically endowed marine regions of the Earth. She said: “There has long been a certain comfort in the belief that the sea, at least, was inviolate, beyond man’s ability to change and to despoil. But this belief, unfortunately, has proved to be naïve.” Seventy years ago people thought the ocean was pristine, but in the intervening years it has lurched from one crisis to another.

Carson amplified her urgent call to protect life on Earth with her revealing book Silent Spring, for she wished to whittle away a dangerous collective prejudice that has increasingly wrought havoc. Adding to the growing destruction of the fantastically fecund coral reefs brought on in large part by climate warming and the insatiable demand for the sea’s marine bounty, including its minerals, the newest concern is the level of plastics found in the ocean. 

June 5 is World Environment Day, and this year its focus was on the ending of plastic pollution. Now, at last, a UN treaty on global plastic pollution based on the full life cycle of plastics is going ahead, with the details to be finalized by the end of 2024.

We all know that there is great beauty, creativity—imagination, if you will—and intelligence in all sentient life forms. There are groups of people throughout the world who are striving to address an embedded ignorance of Nature, as there are also millions who share the recognition that the Earth’s biodiversity is unique in the universe.

As we know, the prospects for the future on this planet grow dimmer with each year as biodiversity is lost, nuclear threats grow, and climate action never seems to take hold fast enough to hold off the sheer madness of a fossil-fuelled, irresponsible and unethical growth economy that is surely epitomized by gross domestic product (GDP). That homage to capitalism at its worst doesn’t care whether this growth economy encompasses the production of more armaments or the financing and reckless forging ahead with artificial intelligence.

Nature is now given a price, but such intangibles as the inalienable right for humans and animals to have a healthy quality of life is looked upon askance and often shrugged off as some utopian pipe dream. Yet there is never a lack of ways for a person to wake in the morning and not feel beauty, even though the west would like to requisition it all by refusing to stop its extractive neo-colonial obsessions. In place of that unbridled greed courage, determination and education are fertile soil for a sense of agency that can grow vigorously.

The David Suzuki Foundation announced recently that a long overdue overhaul of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is finally inching closer into law with Bill S-5, which spells out the right of Canadians to a robust and healthy environment. There are huge implications.

Can Canadians soon go to court and finally be empowered to make a winnable case highlighting a loss of biodiversity or clean air and water, and make governments large and small criminally responsible? Will S-5 demand that governments and corporations will no longer be able to play down and stop climate action? Can humanity slash a jagged hole through its most unconscionable values and allow a light shine through to foster peace with Nature? Bill S-5 is a strong pathway towards making federal and regional governments accountable to Nature—and, yes, humans are included.

On May 26, several demonstrations happened in Québec. Vigilance OGM organized the protests. OGM stands for genetically modified organism in French—GMO in English. 

Try to speak about mainstream food systems’ fossil-fuel-pumped rigidity to the government, and often you’ll encounter an unwillingness to discuss such an important subject as the safety of our foods. CropLife Canada is the principal lobbyist for pesticides use, targeting the government.

People on some protests carried several ‘tombstones’ bearing the names ‘choice’, ‘science’, ‘transparency’ and ‘democracy’, clearly decrying the possible death of all four of those guardians that a democratic society relies on to function fully. Some solemnly carried a casket with the name ‘CropLife’ written on it. Biotechnology is the key to a better world, according to the website croplife.ca. CropLife promotes products such as “Long Shelf-Life” strawberries (proudly touted as “the first #GeneEdited strawberry to hit the market”), and represents the huge biotechnology industries that push for GMOs as the answer to everything. 

I like what anthropologists Anne Buchanan and Kenneth Weiss have to say: “Life is an orderly collection of uncertainties.” We are finally coming to the conclusion that the universe is an expanding, open system. Ignorance and prejudice regarding such topics as colonialism, gender, culture, climate and biodiversity can be ended if humanity so wills.

Climate/biodiversity advocacy groups such as 350.organd Extinction Rebellion endeavour through non-violent means to shake us up. Tom Bullough recently wrote for Writers Rebel: “To be a writer today is to hold the climate and ecological emergency at the heart of your work… If the emergency is not at the heart of your work then you’re not writing honestly, and if you’re not writing honestly then you are not a writer.” Provocative words to get us to stand up and take notice of our own proclivity to sit back. I fully embrace what he offers us!

Magazines such as Resurgence & Ecologist and Orionlive up to Bullough’s admonition and are sweet antidotes to our anti-Nature prejudices. Take some time to discover their writing, which jubilantly educates us and celebrates the ability to create a better world for generations to come. 

I sometimes think that those finely clipped, pesticide-ridden, over-fertilized and biodiversity dead-zone lawns that western society cherishes so highly are a mirror, a microcosm, a landmark or a cemetery, if you will, of our dead feelings for Nature, and that if we could only break through these toxic attitudes to know our place as just one biological species of many in a replenished and open macrocosm, the world would truly flourish.

The great biologist E.O. Wilson put it succinctly: “To strive against odds on behalf of all life would be humanity at its most noble.”

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

– Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote those words in 1963 while he was in jail in Birmingham, Alabama for instigating a coordinated campaign of protest against desegregation. Was he referring only to humans, or did he acknowledge the ecological web of being too? It wouldn’t surprise me if he had had the extraordinary prescience to point out to us the interconnectivity of all life and not just focus on human relationships, as the ecology movement was about to get started with the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. And I have no doubt that if King were living today he would say that those same inexplicable but vital pulses of mutuality across Nature are being increasingly frayed.

On April 22nd, millions of people celebrated Earth Day. The UN calls it “Mother Earth Day,” and it was celebrated within the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, which resolves “to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. It can help to end poverty, combat climate change and prevent a mass extinction.” [www.decadeonrestoration.org/] This resolution partners with the Convention on Biological Diversity, whose recent summit in Montreal I reported on last December. However, the resolution speaks to all of us, and calls out to each of us to do our part. 

In the past I have celebrated Earth Day by attending Earth-themed concerts and protests and by propagating seeds; this year it was sweet peas. I also read the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report, State of the Global Climate 2022 [tinyurl.com/WMO-climate-indicators], published on April 21st this year. One of its key messages is: “The years 2015 to 2022 were the eight warmest in the 173-year instrumental record. The year 2022 was the fifth or sixth warmest year on record, despite ongoing La Niña conditions.” As the three main greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide—rise to new levels, so temperatures increase, along with intensified flooding and droughts, rising sea levels and the loss of glacial ice. The report looks in depth at global climate indicators and key drivers of climate breakdown.

There is no dearth of peer-reviewed reports on the biodiversity/climate crisis. The WMO report amplifies with frightening graphics what we already know will come: a “death sentence,” as the Secretary-General of the UN bluntly calls it, is rapidly approaching and will be upon us unless all people give immediate attention to the crises. This report is aided by an interactive and simplified overview version, which I highly recommend: tinyurl.com/WMO-stories

These accelerating ecosystem disasters in the last two decades have caused young people to launch many legal challenges around the world to force governments to move on the climate crisis. Young people in Canada, Norway, US states—Hawaii and Washington—Pakistan, Peru, Portugal and the Netherlands have brought cogent arguments to the courts. The urgency for young people lies in the universal truth that climate chaos will upend their lives. 

Young people in Québec and Ontario have individually gone to court claiming that their charter rights are being violated. Last week Justice Marie-Andrée Vermette, who presided over the case in Ontario said young people “make a compelling case that climate change and the existential threat that it poses to human life present special circumstances that could justify the imposition of positive obligations under section 7 of the Charter [of Rights and Freedoms],” which guarantees the right to life, liberty and security. Despite acknowledging that young people and Indigenous groups would bear the brunt of Ontario’s lack of commitment to uphold its pledge to act on the 2015 Paris climate agreement, she was skeptical that weaknesses in Ontario’s climate plan violated section 7 of the Charter.

Vermette also dismissed the idea that Ontario’s plan violated section 15 of the charter, which recognizes the right to equality under the law without discrimination. A similar dismissal took place in Québec, where the courts rejected young people’s fight for climate mitigation by refusing to accept that the Québec government has a direct obligation to protect its citizens from climate chaos. The Québec organization Environnement Jeunesse (ENJEU) announced in 2018 that it was taking the Canadian government to court for failing to protect young people from global warming. The court documents begin with the question, “What is the purpose of a government if not to protect the lives and safety of its citizens?” This class action lawsuit was also dismissed.

An inspiring article in the Guardian interviewed young people from around the world who decided to fight for their right to have a future [tinyurl.com/young-people-court]. Some courts are beginning to listen to young people’s climate arguments. I have followed for years the ups and downs of the US-based Our Children’s Trust, which has forged ahead to defend the claim that young people and future generations have inviolable rights that include climate stability. So far only the Netherlands Supreme Court has ruled in favour of demanding climate action by its government. tinyurl.com/netherlands-court

Many people cannot but ask why it is that young people need to confront their elected governments by reluctantly taking up the protracted and exhausting fight in the courts to counter the self-imposed inertia of democratically elected governments. Why is it that there have now been 27 UN climate conferences, and yet it is still taboo to even mention having a reduction in fossil fuel production on record at those conferences? Typically, young people are pushed aside at these world summits. As a result, they feel that they have no choice but to go to the place of last resort—the courts—to voice their despair and overturn these flagrant injustices.

It should be noted here that there have been no court appearances by young people in authoritarian countries, as the courts there are “owned” by those same regimes. But are not western courts similarly “owned” by corporate power? As democratically elected states increasingly fall or are made into one-party states as is the case in Hungary, perhaps we need to say that we are potentially next. Governments that are only beholden to their corporations and not their constituents become plutocracies. As the world rides on the cutting edge of so many crises, those who unfailingly believe that democracy is being threatened must come to the aid of young people to reinforce our protection of Nature—and humanity.

“I teach self-reliance, the world’s most subversive practice. I teach people how to grow their own food, which is shockingly subversive. So, yes, it’s seditious. But it’s peaceful sedition.” 

Bill Mollison

This is a magical time of the year. When I heard the first robin sing the other day, I realized how desperately quiet winter had been. When I see new birds arrive at the bird feeder who weren’t there two weeks ago, it’s clear that all animals are celebrating the arrival of spring. It doesn’t matter that there may be a little snow on the ground, because suddenly there are creeks that have come alive and rivers are rising with the breakup of ice. Canada geese are on the wing, and vultures hover overhead riding the warmer air. We also emerge from our wintry habitats, change our shoes and adorn ourselves with spring apparel, and open windows to fresh air and perhaps new ideas.

As the price of food rose 10% last autumn, did it occur to you to consider starting a garden, but then to ask where? Why not put the garden where presently there is a patch of grass? There are so many reasons to do so. It’s hard to beat freshly picked peas, spinach or tomatoes, and a parade of sweet pea flowers adds fragrance and colour; no lawn offers that. Besides, a liberated area of earth allows for a plethora of beneficial insects to enter the space. Furthermore, biodiversity flourishes when the garden is an organic one. Organic horticulture respects the soil and the creatures who live there; harmful herbicides and pesticides are not used. Although organically grown seeds are slightly more expensive than others, they are the foundation for any garden, as they are free of chemical residues that contaminate the land. It’s also fun to save seeds from your organic produce.

In the depths of winter the joyful and hope-filled arrival of the seed catalogue kicks off the flurry of dreams, plans and actions for our awakening. You might have discussions with others about what to include that is new to the garden. A gardening plan makes sense, but spontaneity is important too, and it doesn’t matter if all you have is a sunny patio to start your garden paradise. A collection of different potted pepper plants, for example, will enliven any space with their elegant shapes and fruits. During April and May there are many seedlings that can be propagated in the house. In fact, I start basil—the tender leaves are a treat to eat in April—and snapdragons in early February. As you will probably know, supermarkets and hardware stores sell both vegetable and flower seeds. Right now is the perfect time to buy a selection of seeds, or, better, to use the seeds you have collected from last year’s harvest. If you use open-pollinated varieties, you will have many possibilities to save seeds. This gives you independence from buying what you can instead nurture yourself. Growing garlic is an example of home sustainability. There is never a need to buy garlic again if you save enough bulbs for them to be planted in late October. Right now they are pushing past the leaf mulch to harvest mid-July.

Municipal garden plots offer a wonderful way to explore and hone your skills as a novice gardener, and if you don’t have a lawn or a piece of land to convert into a garden, you may be able to rent a plot. Sherbrooke offers this opportunity. See tinyurl.com/Start-a-community-garden and tinyurl.com/Town-collective-gardens

For years I had a city garden plot and it afforded me many gifts: not only fine vegetables, but also a ready-made community of like-minded and enthusiastic people who shared their experiences. It was always enjoyable to stroll from one plot to the next and observe how other people went about growing their food—there are, as it turns out, a dozen ways to trellis your peas—and it’s a great way to make new friends. 

There are other ways to find some space to grow flowers and vegetables. It is possible, as I found out, to cut out some of the asphalt leading up to your house and plant a tree or flowers in the space opened up. Simply laying some garden fabric on top of the area, framing it with wood and adding soil and compost makes for a successful area to grow flowers that help out butterflies and other insects. (There is something subversive—as renowned permaculturist Bill Mollison muses above—to the status quo that represents fossil oil, when we get rid of asphalt and free up land for living plants!) 

Have a flat roof? Why not put some seasonal planters up there? Ask a neighbour who has too much grass if you can use some of the area to start a garden. Once you begin to look around while walking or cycling, you’ll see the immense opportunities there are for people to convert endless lawns into gardens. Naturally there are farms nearby, and some may be interested in starting up a community garden. Universities are also gearing up to support horticulture. Bishop’s University is now starting a program that teaches agroforestry, agroecology and permaculture; it is also a hands-on endeavour there. In this time of biodiversity loss and climate warming it’s vital that a new generation of students take up horticulture.

More and more cities are allowing front lawns to be converted into flower and vegetable gardens. Toronto and other large cities are loosening up their bylaws to give people the opportunity to have pollinator gardens. No Mow May is catching on in the Eastern Townships, including Sherbrooke, to allow pollinators to have a larger source of flowers to visit. Public parks will defer the first mowing until after May. It is no secret that bee populations in particular are dropping precipitously, so they need all the help we can give them. One Sherbrooke resident who grew a garden facing the street called his action “horticultural disobedience”! So don’t worry about digging up the front lawn to replace it with a garden. People realize that those beautiful flowers are a sign not of your wilful neglect, but of your love for Nature. tinyurl.com/Flowers-on-our-streets

Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community, written by Heather Jo Flores, is a wonderful book for self-empowerment. The book was written to celebrate Nature and to inspire us to create new synergies that make for a more compassionate and healthier planet. Visit www.foodnotlawns.com to read it. It tells us, “Lawns use ten times as many chemicals per acre as industrial farmland. These pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides run off into our groundwater and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming, and greatly increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease, and birth defects. In addition, the pollution emitted from a [gasoline] power mower in just one hour is equal to the amount from a car being driven 350 miles.” 

Soon a few packets or envelopes of seeds will be rattling in my pockets asking to be sown in the warming earth. Hearing them call out is a joy each springtime. Make it yours too.

“Humanity is on thin ice—and that ice is melting fast… Concentrations of carbon dioxide are at their highest levels in at least 2 million years. The climate time bomb is ticking… Today’s IPCC report is a how-to guide to defuse the climate time bomb… It is a survival guide for humanity.” Video

UN Secretary General António Guterres

During the last few years I have often quoted UN Secretary General António Guterres in these articles. As the leader of the UN he should inspire people and countries to take notice of grave humanitarian and ecological situations. He advises us to act on impending crises. His voice is one for solidarity and the courage to face existential threats.

But who listens to him? Certainly not global north societies. This is a source of great sadness for me and many others who have recognized for decades the looming encirclement of a multitude of crises that are now at the point of being unleashed full-blown upon this world. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that was released a week ago is being called a “survival guide.” This is NOT hyperbole. “The choices and actions implemented in this decade will have impacts now and for thousands of years,” the IPCC declares. 

The recent first water conference given by the UN in 50 years points us to the immediate task of giving urgent relief to the accumulative wrongs wrought against the most needy. The IPCC points out the extreme scenarios that are gaining higher and higher scientific confidence, whereby the global south finds it increasingly difficult to cope with the many cascading crises, including sea level rises, that will upend already fragile communities.

The IPCC report published this month links achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals to the immediate reduction of carbon dioxide levels: “Climate change has reduced food security and affected water security due to warming, changing precipitation patterns, reduction and loss of cryospheric elements, and greater frequency and intensity of climatic extremes, thereby hindering efforts to meet Sustainable Development Goals.” Goal 6 targets clean water and sanitation. Places like Africa cannot meet clean water and sanitation goals unless the rich nations get their act together. The report is a must-read!

Bill McKibben’s book The End of Nature, published in 1989, was the first book aimed at raising public awareness of the catastrophic direction in which the accumulation of carbon dioxide pollution would take us: where we are now, on the cusp of ecological and societal collapse. (Tellingly, the secretive scientific papers written by fossil fuel companies had laid out the dangers back in the 1970s.)

Now that McKibben is over 60 years old, he has co-founded Third Act (thirdact.org), the purpose of which is to bring the wisdom and huge financial clout of the richest living generation to put pressure on governments and financial institutions to stop loaning obscene amounts of money to the oil and gas industries that in turn accelerate new levels of production. It is well known that institutions such as Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of America are financing climate destruction. Recent protests have brought older people to the banks to demand the cessation of those loans or else lose the billions of dollars that the over-sixties generations control. As McKibben recently said in an interview with Democracy Now!, “If we can get that message through, if we can remind people today of the connection between cash and carbon—literally, somebody who has $125,000 in those banks is producing more money, because it’s being lent out for pipelines and frack wells… Five thousand dollars in the bank produces more carbon than flying back and forth across the country. So we need these banks to start acting responsibly. And we need it—well, the IPCC said we’re in the last act of this drama unless we stand up and move fast. That’s one of the things that Third Act is really about.”

The UN report just published ties together all the IPCC’s other reports to show that it is now or never that humanity must act to ensure wellbeing for all creatures on Earth. The last part of the report includes a strategy for achieving a vast reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in order to make the second half of this century tolerable—for there is the means for us to do so. If we fail in this, we face a grim and harrowing future. Please see the graphics included in the report.

One of the scientists who worked on the IPCC 6th Assessment Report is Joëlle Gergis, who has just published Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope. In a recent conversation with The Revelator, Gergis said: “The 2020s will be remembered as the decade that determined the fate of humanity. We can each choose to be part of the critical mass that will change the world. And when we do, it will bring profound meaning and purpose to our lives… We know exactly what we need to do, we just need governments all over the world to urgently implement policy to avert disaster… The IPCC has very clearly laid out a path towards stabilizing the Earth’s climate. For that to happen we need ordinary citizens to vote for politicians who will take real leadership, and also be prepared to do whatever we can in our own lives to live more sustainably on the planet.”

The famous investigative journalist Daniel Ellsberg, a lifelong activist against nuclear weapons, was interviewed recently for a New York Times piece, “The Man Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers Is Scared.” In the interview he expressed his fear that we are living in the most dangerous time for humanity. He questioned the ability of governments to stop nuclear war as well as climate chaos. Guterres’s role is to shine a beacon of courage and activism at the UN and the world, but without all of us in the west saying enough is enough, nothing will change.

The secretary general tells it as it is, and the IPCC deals in unadorned language too: “The likelihood of abrupt and irreversible changes and their impacts increases with higher global warming levels… Climatic and non-climatic risks will increasingly interact, creating compound and cascading risks that are more complex and difficult to manage.”

In a stark graphic, the IPCC shows the levels of generational climate risk. A person born in 1950 has had nowhere close to the existential risk of a person born in 2020. The IPCC shows us unequivocally by how much every ton of CO2 is estimated to increase global heating.

It’s vital for each of us to think about our individual carbon budget, which crucially reflects our ecological footprint. For example, if you are a 50-plus-year-old North American and have been flying, in keeping with your financial abilities, since you were 20, you have probably busted your carbon budget. The mindset of North Americans to shamelessly pollute has no equal in the rest of the world. Carbon budgets are not only for governments to rein in. Massive consumption levels by North Americans are increasingly out of line. Are we purposely undereducated and incurious?

It is interesting to note that the graphs that accompany the report include both Canadians and Americans as North Americans, who contribute to the largest carbon levels. Canadians are the equal to American profligacy. Please read the IPCC report and transform your everyday activities and goals to reflect what is at stake: everything.

“At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity.”

Chico Mendes

We all know about the sordid machinations of big tobacco when they kept the public in the dark about the huge dangers associated with smoking. Just look at all the films produced throughout the 20th century that typically show cigarette smoking to be perfectly acceptable and indeed glamorous. How can we forget about television commercials showing doctors smoking most contentedly while giving medical advice? The same criminal activity happened with the oil industry when their lobbyists and politicians declared climate change to be nothing more than an ongoing natural occurrence, just as they had refused to act on their own scientific evidence in the 1970s regarding the accumulation of carbon dioxide emissions.

They would no doubt say that acceptance of the data would have put them out of business decades ago – and that is never allowed, no matter how nefarious the operation.

As Québec phases out the installation of new domestic oil furnaces and the repair of older ones for a host of health reasons, including valid climate concerns, we must ask what comes next. “Oil-fuelled residential heating systems generate about one million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, the equivalent of the greenhouse gas emissions of 300,000 light vehicles, according to the provincial government. The combustion of home heating oil also generates nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide, and pollutes the air with fine particles.”

Furthermore, “oil is 1.4 times more polluting than natural gas and 102 times more polluting than hydroelectricity as a heating option.”

The news that gas water heaters and gas stoves are next on the list for removal for similarly valid reasons has the natural gas (but let’s call it what it is, please – fossil gas) crew up in arms. Right-wing politicians, funded and greased by those same companies, are crying foul. Never mind what the science says, they declare, there is a conspiracy to shut off the spigots of oil and gas in favour of renewable energies such as wind, solar and historically controversial hydropower.

We now know that for 50 years gas companies have disregarded their own research for the same unethical and reprehensible reasons that were accepted by oil corporations. “In recent months, studies have found that gas-burning stoves are responsible for nearly 13 percent of childhood asthma cases in the United States, and that they leak methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and benzene, a cancer-causing chemical, even when they’re shut off.”

Powered by renewable energy, electrification of our homes, businesses, farming, transportation –everything – has emerged as one of the best ways to drastically reduce fossil fuel emissions and is being committed to by countries around the world. The International Energy Agency has made it clear that the electrification of transportation and the heating of both residential and commercial buildings is making a huge contribution to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Electrification also has an immediate and long-term effect on biodiversity loss in that pollution and habitat loss will lessen considerably. Climate heating, massively exacerbated by burning fossil fuels, has a direct link to the destruction of human habitats. As more cities and towns in Québec and elsewhere are writing resolutions that proclaim their commitment to taking action and responding to the COP15 Convention on Biological Diversity framework signed last December in Montreal, they are also committing to phasing out the use of both oil and fossil gas. It is my experience that writing up municipal resolutions doesn’t translate necessarily into actions. Words can be cheap, and it is for citizens to hold governments to their word.

There are significant government subsidies for disposing of fossil fuel home furnaces and installing the electric equivalent. It is simple to request a grant. My conversion from oil to electrical home heating when I bought my house was easy to accomplish. Even the oil tank was removed.

Heat pumps are also being heralded as a valid alternative to traditional fossil heating, and financial assistance is available for their installation. Please see tinyurl.com/heat-pumps for an explanation of why we should strongly consider them for our homes.

In Québec, driving an electric car rather than a gas- or diesel-powered one makes sense, owing to the source of the electricity to power it. In fact there is much discussion about how to hook up your electric car to the grid while it is typically sitting idle, and sell that electricity! This is far simpler than building new infrastructure to supply that electricity. Gas- and diesel-powered automobiles are to be banned in 2035, and starting in 2026 an increasing percentage of cars sold each year must be electric. Fortunately the research enabling complete recycling of batteries is making headway. Air pollution in cities now poses an undeniable threat to human health, and electric transportation will make a huge difference.

Because 99% of Québec’s electricity is generated by hydro, residents enjoy one of the highest levels of renewable electricity in the world, but the expansion of hydroelectric power has also meant that Indigenous groups as well as biodiversity have borne the brunt of those hydropower stations and the flooding of lands. Premier Legault wants to expand the dams across untamed rivers. Wilderness has its own intrinsic worth. When do we stop the ongoing destruction of Nature?

“Nature is our ship. We must ensure it stays afloat”

Virginijus Sinkevičius, EU Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries

“Forget the dreams of some billionaires. There is no planet B.”

António Guterres

“This global agreement is a win for people and the planet. We are pleased that it recognizes the need to protect much more land and ocean, and equally that Indigenous leadership and quality of protection is key to success.”

Sandra Schwartz, National Executive Director, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society

The UN biodiversity summit in Montreal (COP15) has now come to a close. Governments, corporations and individuals must see the resulting Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) for 2030 as a floor and not a ceiling for humanity’s resolve to stop biodiversity loss and then accelerate immediately the commitments to include strong levels of implementation. So, for example, Target 3 of the GBF requires that 30% of both land and oceans be protected by 2030, but as the great biologist E.O. Wilson pointed out, the planet can only truly rebound and be a safe haven for Nature if we vigorously protect 50% of Earth, while emphasizing that Indigenous knowledge and inclusion in biodiversity agreements be sacrosanct.

Because of the very real possibility that the entire biodiversity framework would have failed without it, I thought it vital to include the full text of Target 3 here: “Ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 per cent of terrestrial, inland water, and coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed through ecologically representative, well-connected and equitably governed systems of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures, recognizing Indigenous and traditional territories, where applicable, and integrated into wider landscapes, seascapes and the ocean, while ensuring that any sustainable use, where appropriate in such areas, is fully consistent with conservation outcomes, recognizing and respecting the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities including over their traditional territories.”

Equally important is Target 22: “Ensure the full, equitable, inclusive, effective and gender-responsive representation and participation in decision-making, and access to justice and information related to biodiversity by Indigenous peoples and local communities, respecting their cultures and their rights over lands, territories, resources, and traditional knowledge, as well as by women and girls, children and youth, and persons with disabilities, and ensure the full protection of environmental human defenders.” After the murder of thousands of Nature defenders the inclusion in this target has great significance.

Many of the targets are cause for celebration. Please take the time to read the document linked at the end of this article, as only an informed society can move us to an ecologically based civilization.

Although the Montreal–Kunming agreement is not legally binding, governments will be tasked with showing their progress towards meeting the targets through national biodiversity plans, akin to the nationally determined contributions countries use to show progress on meeting the goals of the Paris climate agreement. You may be entirely justified in being sceptical as to whether any progress in combating biodiversity will be made if the climate contributions example is anything to go by. Nevertheless, after years of wrangling, the four goals and 23 targets in the GBF are without a doubt a major step forward. The aims of the COP15 biodiversity summit contrast significantly with those of the COP27 climate summit that took place in Egypt last month.

However, despite the perceived success of COP15, scientists, youth and Indigenous Peoples have huge and ongoing concerns about whether the GBF process will emerge into a successful outcome for a resilient and flourishing planet. Here is an important appraisal of where we stand. Please see also the Guardian’s analysis of the conference.

I attended COP15 in Montreal. It displayed both the best of humanity, whereby scientists, Indigenous biodiversity campaigners and groups including young people passionately and articulately made their cases known, and – albeit to a far lesser extent than at the UN climate summits – the entrenched mindset of a political/corporate order that is hell-bent on protecting a rapidly failing capitalist unliveable agenda.

Just as we saw at the climate conference in Egypt this November that the global north resisted giving money to the global south in the form of restitution and compensation under Loss and Damage to help poor countries protect themselves from the ravages of climate breakdown brought on by the industrial north, but will hand out trillions of dollars in subsidies for fossil fuel ventures, so too will abundantly biodiverse countries such as are found in Amazonia and Africa find few doors opening to enable them to receive the generous sums they require to protect the world’s most resplendent biodiversity. Finance for the Global Biodiversity Framework is a critical component for successfully going forward towards 2030 and beyond. As a financial consultant for The Nature Conservancy said in a media forum, it isn’t a matter of how many water glasses there are on the table, but of how large the water pitcher is to distribute equitably and fully what is truly needed. If you wish to see the amounts of money pledged by governments, philanthropists and corporations, see www.naturefinance.info

The protest march that I attended for biodiversity and human rights on December 10, UN Human Rights Day, brought out maybe 3,000 people, who made their voices heard close to the Palais des Congrès, where COP15 was taking place. In a city that has almost 2 million inhabitants, it’s fair to ask why there weren’t more people marching. We know that a healthy biosphere and vibrant human rights are intertwined, but why has the conference been kept such a secret?

It’s not only mainstream media and governments that prioritize everything except the protection of life on this planet. Corporations’ self-inflicted ignorance appears to know no bounds when their unchecked lack of actions to put their businesses in sync with ecological realities is revealed. “A nature-positive future demands that companies look beyond climate goals. Companies can and must take direct action to halt biodiversity loss. Companies’ transparency on biodiversity hotspots and endangered species is low,” the revealing website of the World Benchmarking Alliance tells us. Only 5% of major companies assessed know how their activities impact Nature, and only 1% know to what extent their activities depend on Nature. This is utterly tragic for all life on the planet.

Most global companies display shocking indifference towards the natural world in their pursuit of profit. By default ecocide is written into their very business models. The COP15 agreement puts corporations on notice: take on board a responsible action plan for biodiversity, or your bottom line will be severely impacted.

On top of this, the whole education system is at fault, with the universities at the helm of this debacle. My attempts to have Bishop’s University acknowledge COP15 and most importantly give students the opportunity to acquaint themselves with and respond to possibly the greatest existential crisis that will determine their own success in life failed to gain traction.

“I have planted a false oath in the earth, it has brought forth a poison tree
I have chosen the serpent for a councellor & the dog
For a schoolmaster to my children
I have blotted out from light & living the dove & nightingale
And I have caused the earth worm to beg from door to door
I have taught the thief a secret path into the house of the just
I have taught pale artifice to spread his nets upon the morning
My heavens are brass my earth is iron my moon a clod of clay
My sun a pestilence burning at noon & a vapour of death in night”

from Vala, or the Four Zoas by William Blake

Since 80% of Earth’s intact biodiversity is to be found where Indigenous peoples live, and since Indigenous peoples are now recognized as the best stewards of Nature, any COP15 Global Biodiversity Framework that guides us to 2030 and then towards a vision of living in harmony with Nature and a global ecological civilization must require that human rights be embedded into that framework. And they are! Past and present colonialism has refused to protect and recognize Indigenous lands. On a national level an agreement at COP15 must change that. In Canada it can begin with cancelling the Trans Mountain Pipeline and closing down the failing Line 5 pipeline that is now a real risk to the Great Lakes and the Aboriginal First Nation tribes that have been and continue to be sustained by their ecological harvesting of wild rice in that region, let alone to the 40 million people who rely on clean drinking water. Please see www.forestpeoples.org to better understand the fundamental connection between human rights and a just biodiversity policy negotiated at COP15.

The Global Youth Biodiversity Network maintained that there must be a principle on intergenerational equity written into the goals and targets of the GBF. Together with children’s and women’s participation, this is now part of Target 22’s goals for protecting human rights.

Please listen to the December 18 assessment by the World Wildlife Fund to better understand what pitfalls existed both before the final negotiations on December 19 and after the final GBF text was agreed. It is revealing. You will also be able to see the overwhelming goodwill exhibited at the summit. An ongoing open working group will try to raise ambitions. The questions on everyone’s minds have been, has enough been included to secure an ambitious global biodiversity agreement? And if not, where do we go from here?’ These COP goals and targets must be enshrined in legislation. We must all strive to bring this about. Future generations of all life forms depend on us. Let’s make it happen; implement the necessary legal framework. Undoubtedly it is our universal responsibility.

Please see the final release of the COP15 agreement.

“You are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody!”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

As the time approaches for the critically important UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) summit (COP15) in Montreal this December, I have had the fortunate opportunity to speak with youth leaders from around the world, some of whom will be attending the summit. I met Jonas Kittelsen on a Zoom conference call in September. As members of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN), he and other young Norwegian activists have a working relationship with the CBD, which strongly advocates the inclusion of young people in decision-making. Jonas and his fellow global activists Shruthi, Swetha and Sudha are knowledgeable and passionate about protecting Nature, and I was honoured to discuss with them their thoughts and actions to protect Earth’s biodiversity, of which humans are a part.

The GYBN website makes it very clear that there is a global biodiversity emergency. The organisation is asking all young people to rally for biodiversity. Has Norway’s biodiversity youth network succeeded in rallying its peer group?

Jonas: Unfortunately, there is no specifically Norwegian biodiversity network, but we have a Nordic youth biodiversity network, which aims to bring young voices to the forefront at UN negotiations for Nature. Our Nordic Youth Biodiversity Paper carries the voices of several thousand Nordic young people, who have articulated what they think politicians must do, and we will use this to push policymakers to take responsibility for this acute emergency. However, I wish more young people rallied for biodiversity, as the crisis is existential, and there are still very few of us working with these issues firsthand.

Why did you feel compelled to join GYBN? Are you a member of other climate/biodiversity groups? What is unique about GYBN?

Shruthi: GYBN is the first climate/biodiversity group I joined. The reason I wanted to join was the capacity building that they did around the CBD, which was my source of understanding this complex process, something I always wanted to do. The capacity-building training was my introduction to GYBN and the community. GYBN is unique in that they don’t just organise campaigns and awareness marches. They really make the effort to involve young people’s opinions and voices in discussions about policy and to get up to speed regarding these important negotiations. They are involved in a wide range of activities that engage artists, young people, decision makers, governments and international bodies. The fact that they have 40+ national chapters and several subnational ones speaks of the reach of the GYBN community.

The global youth climate/biodiversity movement has gained much-needed momentum. However, the term “youth-washing,” whereby a corporation, government or the UN uses its seemingly engaging relationship with young people to foster its own agenda, is of concern for groups such as yours. For example, Egypt’s repressive regime, which is hosting November’s Climate summit (COP27), is going to have a Children and Youth Pavilion there. Greta Thunberg has said, “The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like real action is happening when, in fact, almost nothing is being done apart from clever accounting and creative PR.” Does your connection with the summit feel like a public relations stunt on Egypt’s part? Tell us about your relationship with it. How does it support your efforts?
Swetha: With any initiative, it is always important to ask what the overall objective is and how it is being achieved. Take your example of the youth pavilion at COP27. If this initiative is youth-led, if it brings grassroots and marginalized young voices to the forefront, and if it is done in a way that can highlight their voices, concerns and demands, then it can be a very powerful space. We have a very good collaborative relationship with the Secretariat of the CBD. This helps young people in the biodiversity community create youth-led spaces that are used to mobilize intergenerational partnerships with various stakeholders.

Many times younger people are pushed aside when consultations are held and policies are made in regional and national governments. How can this change? What can older people do to support your group?

Sudha: This is exactly what GYBN is actively advocating for and trying to change. We have had success in this sphere, with the CBD recognising us as an official youth group, but a lot still remains to be done. Active youth engagement in policy and decision-making is critical because young people and future generations are going to live in a world that is rapidly changing, with ecological and climate crises looming right over our heads. The change can only happen when older generations realize that the dynamism and knowledge young people have is important and create a space for dialogue between the two groups, because each group has a lot to learn from the other. What the older people can definitely do is consciously and actively encourage young people to voice their opinions, and give them a seat at the table where important decisions affecting their lives are made. Dismissing the opinions of young people due to a perceived lack of experience is another major factor at play, which needs to change because a lot of young people are involved in several grassroots and international initiatives and therefore have a lot to bring to a discussion. An open, respectful dialogue, and inclusion and recognition in all decision-making spaces (from regional to national and international) that is not tokenistic is the best way to support youth groups.

I have noticed for years that more than twice as many young women as young men are participating in biodiversity and climate groups. I have observed this in university classrooms, on protests, and even in photos on the GYBN website. Why might this be happening?

Swetha: Yes, this is a very interesting trend when you look at it globally. My personal observation as someone coming from Asia is that this has a lot to do with job opportunities. Young men in many cultures need to get a well-paying job, which may not always be possible for a climate change activist. However, this trend is not the same in all regions. For example, in Africa the biodiversity movement offers many men jobs in wildlife conservation and eco-tourism, with well-paid salaries.

Will Norwegian youth activists be coming to Montreal in December to take part in the UN summit? If so, what do you hope to achieve?

Jonas: As far as I know, it will only be me and Norway’s youth delegate in Montreal. The goal is obviously to get the best Global Biodiversity Framework possible, and our task as young activists is to hold governments responsible and accountable for the massive gap between scientific consensus and politics. We are there to scream in the halls and fiercely demand a just future behind closed doors. A just future entails a rights-based approach taking equity and intergenerational justice as premises, with proper funding mechanisms to enable marginalized countries to uphold their biodiversity targets.
Climate/biodiversity justice and social justice are intertwined issues. Do you believe that governments are up to the task of strengthening and upholding basic rights? Is there another path?
Jonas: No, not really. I have no trust that governments will uphold our basic human rights and give us a safe, liveable future. They always disappoint us, and I can’t see that changing after following the negotiations rounds prior to this meeting. If you look at your policies, you will see that richer countries consistently prioritize their own national interest over planetary and human wellbeing. Where is the climate and biodiversity finance for marginalized countries? Nowhere. That doesn’t mean we should give up. Every species matters, every degree of temperature matters. This is felt bodily. Traumas will rise exponentially without an emergency plan, so we must fight with everything we can to avoid the worst consequences of irreversible tipping points in our natural systems.

Biodiversity loss will impact your generation massively unless there are immediate agreements to push back against the destructive tide we are witnessing daily. A never-ending series of scientific reports are shouting out to us to act for Nature. What strategies are you prepared to use?
Jonas: We are staring apocalypse in the eyes when 70% of wildlife is lost in just 50 years. Ecosystems rely on animals. We – and our economy – rely on ecosystems. Urgent times require urgent measures. I’m willing to use all non-violent strategies that bring urgency and visibility, but I would need to connect more with local movements like Extinction Rebellion Canada and MAPA (Most Affected Peoples and Areas) networks to understand how best I can contribute. I will join marches outside and organize frequent actions inside the venue to bring the needed urgency – potentially with disrupting elements – but how actions are designed must take into consideration how negotiations develop and what strategies GYBN and other affected communities want to pursue.

Global surveys have shown that young people are overwhelmingly distraught about what is unfolding for our planet’s ecological wellbeing. What keeps you going?
Jonas: I don’t feel I have much choice. The moment you realize the gravity of our crisis, there is no turning back. I have accepted that my life will become progressively worse over time, but I’m not seeing my planet deteriorate without a proper fight. There is enormous power in people power. We just need to realize what we are capable of, and then social tipping points and new political landscapes will arise. History has showed us that movements can win justice. That is what keeps me going.

Overconsumption is a main source of biodiversity destruction and it is mostly happening in the global north, where the carbon footprint of people is huge. How can we turn this around? Would having fewer children help to reduce this impact?
Jonas: We must stop overconsumption, especially among the 1% wealthiest. They are responsible for most of the emissions and the degradation of Nature. I’m convinced we must build new systems designed for protecting the integrity of ecosystems through rights-based approaches dignifying human and animal life, instead of profit-maximizing systems designed to degrade Nature. Our focus should lie there, not on birth rates.

Please view tinyurl.com/GYBN-interview to have an even better understanding of what committed youth are doing and what is at stake at the Montreal biodiversity summit.

“The clock is ticking,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told participants. “We are in the fight of our lives. And we are losing. Greenhouse gas emissions keep growing. Global temperatures keep rising. And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible…It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact.” He added: “We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”

The 27th UN conference on climate change, known as COP27, is currently taking place in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. There are topics that cannot be thrown down the to-do list for next year. The delegates know that they must follow through on lowering fossil fuel pollution. Period.

Last year’s summit in Glasgow, Scotland made it clear that if world temperatures are to stay below 2 degrees Celsius – or better, much better, 1.5 degrees Celsius – implementation of the aspirational goals set there must translate into signed and sealed legal agreements. Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a UN climate adviser, says: “Putting off to tomorrow that which needs to be done today has come back to bite us… Decades of under-investment in infrastructure, of too-slow progress on protecting Nature, faltering responses to rising inequality, undervaluing energy efficiency. Now we find ourselves scrambling to swing away from fossil fuels, ramp up renewables, respond to famine and food price shocks, and with inflation on the rise and growth stalling, and very little of the policy frameworks we need to make the transitions move smoothly at speed. 2021 was about ambition – 2022 is about following through.”

If there were ever a summer to prove that speedily implemented decisions to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions and the subsidies given to oil and gas, 2022’s months of drought, floods and forest fires surely would convince anyone. Demands from non-G7 nations to finally receive for climate adaptation the billions of dollars promised by those wealthy industrial countries that almost single-handedly caused the climate crisis will feature prominently at COP27. But the hypocrisy of countries like the US and Canada that subsidise or promote new fossil fuel projects while not doing nearly enough to accelerate the production of renewable sources of energy fuel projects will also be highlighted.

With the spotlight now on Africa, as COP27 is taking place there, transitioning away from oil and in particular ending new fossil fuel projects will be a key barometer of this year’s conference. But are countries like the US really interested? Please see tinyurl.com/US-Africa-fossil-fuels

Two other focal points will be aimed at having debt as well as loss and damage to developing countries examined. Massive debts that have grown in these countries must be rescinded, since those debilitating debts to rich countries stop them from initiating climate adaptation, including building infrastructure that can withstand the new reality of climate breakdown such as the devastation caused by flooding in Pakistan. Take a look at this summer’s catastrophes through this video: tinyurl.com/climate-carnage-2022

In what is thought of as a slap in the face to social justice groups, the Egyptian dictatorship decided to arrest hundreds more people days before the convention. There are many people who are so upset that the global conference will take place in a police state that they are boycotting it. Many activists, including Greta Thunberg, will not show up, with Thunberg citing UN meetings’ propensity to “encourage gradual progress,” which is not plausible now with the accelerating climate emergency.

King Charles, another long-avowed climate advocate, will not be going to the UN conference on the advice of Rishi Sunak, the new prime minister of the UK, perhaps because Sunak didn’t wish to be outshone by the king’s climate credentials. Billionaire Sunak, who initially said he would not be going because he had more pressing domestic matters to deal with, changed his mind after receiving massive condemnation for his statement.

Justin Trudeau won’t be going to Egypt either. Green MP Elizabeth May had this to say about his absence: “No one will miss more self-congratulatory platitudes from Canada, but we’ll all lament the lack of leadership. It is only critical for Justin Trudeau to attend if he is part of the solution… He could come to COP27 to set a new standard for climate leadership — cancelling the TMX pipeline, reversing the Bay du Nord decision, cancelling all fossil fuel subsidies while expanding forest protections.”

Canada will instead be represented by environment minister Steven Guilbeault, joined by Catherine Stewart, the country’s climate change ambassador, and Steven Kuhn, the federal government’s chief negotiator for climate change.
As Naomi Klein has pointed out, this world climate change summit is more than just greenwashing a polluting state: it’s greenwashing a police state. The entire conference’s integrity is being called into question. Nobel laureates and US congress members have signed letters demanding the release of political prisoners, including Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who is on hunger strike in prison, but recently the state of terror has intensified to the extent that people are being taken off the streets and even Indigenous people of Sinai have been displaced because of the extreme paranoia of the totalitarian regime of Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
It has long been recognized that political, social and climate/biodiversity injustices hamper or stop any real progress towards climate/biodiversity protection. The Egyptian human rights crisis will clearly continue to be an impediment to the overall success of this year’s summit, which is in itself another crime perpetrated upon Egyptian society.

The next seven weeks will be filled with apprehension. Not only is the outcome of the climate negotiations of vital importance, but also, starting on December 3, the Montreal Convention on Biological Diversity will bring the world’s nations together to try to finalize a framework for halting biodiversity loss. Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, said: “What’s at stake are the fundamentals of human existence. Biodiverse, well-balanced ecosystems provide climate moderation, fertile soil and foods, clean water, modern drugs, and the foundation of our economies… Nearly half of humanity depends directly on natural resources for livelihoods and, in many cases, their daily subsistence needs.”

It’s crucial to be knowledgeable about these crises. Failing to educate ourselves on these vital planetary issues will not help our children’s future, and nor will ignorance contribute to democracy. The word of the year chosen by Collins English Dictionary is “permacrisis,” which is defined as “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events.” Certainly climate/biodiversity breakdown is playing a part here.

However, doom and gloom are not conducive to getting people to act. Future articles will explore ways in which individuals can contribute to a safer and more just alternative.

“The populous and the powerful was a lump, 

Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless— 

A lump of death—a chaos of hard clay. 

The rivers, lakes, and ocean all stood still, 

And nothing stirred within their silent depths…”

– from ”Darkness” by Lord Byron

The English poet Lord Byron wrote the poem “Darkness” in 1816 to describe the horrors of not having sunlight and adequate atmospheric heat to grow crops after the eruption of Mount Tambora in present-day Indonesia the previous spring. The year 1816 is known as the “the year without a summer” because the dust in the sky blotted out the sun and caused temperatures to plummet. There was widespread famine in eastern Canada as a result of crop failure, as elsewhere in the world. 

Clearly a stable climate matters if life is to flourish, and although 2022 has had quite a different sort of summer than 1816, its own set of catastrophic events rival what happened across the world in 1816. Unlike the natural event brought on with the eruption of Mount Tambora, our global woes are intrinsically linked to the fossil-fuel-addicted industrial countries, whose governments refuse to rein in oil and gas profits and stand up for young people’s right to a future. (Just twenty of the biggest oil and gas producers are projected to spend $932 billion by the end of 2030 on developing new oil and gas fields if they have their way.)

Remember that global temperature is now 1.2°C higher than it was in 1816. This summer’s multi-disasters have brought into stark relief what chaos awaits us if we disregard broadly accepted scientific reports predicting what confronts us with an increase of 2–3°C. Exceeding even 1.5°C of global heating could trigger multiple climate tipping points, warns Johan Rockström, joint director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Climate tipping points such as sudden enormous water releases from Greenland’s ice sheet would engender a global emergency and are openly researched and debated. Many scientists believe that a 1.8°C rise is the most optimistic chance we have.

After this summer, when 1.2°C has caused such mayhem, what global hell awaits the living at 1.8°C? If this summer hasn’t made abundantly obvious and with added urgency the imperative for industrialized countries to shut down the oil and gas schemes for energy reliance, civil disobedience will scream its way to the halls of power.

We do this to ourselves. The poet John Donne, born in 1572, expresses this self-afflicting tendency of humans well: ”Nothing but man of all envenom’d things doth work upon itselfe, with inborne stings.” 

What started with drought has moved to unprecedented flooding in Pakistan, putting a third of the country under water and displacing 32 million people. Two-thirds of Europe is suffering drought, and major rivers are becoming unnavigable for commercial craft. France relies on its rivers to cool its nuclear reactors, which produce most of its electricity, but those rivers are experiencing drastically diminished water flow. China’s summer of unprecedented heat waves has caused rivers there to not produce electricity causing a consequent upsurge of coal power production to take up the slack in electricity, which in turn accelerated climate emissions that causes more heat waves in the future. As well, the autumn harvest is threatened by the summer’s drought.

Extreme drought also continues in America’s southwest, and its huge dams are losing the capacity to produce electricity as well as supply water for agriculture and cities, because of historically low reservoir levels. The integrity of Great Salt Lake in Utah is collapsing, and the Rio Grande along the Mexican/US border can no longer be expected to supply enough water for agriculture and cities.

After years of wildfires it is not only forests and houses on the Pacific coast that are being impacted. It was recently documented that the Pacific Crest Trail, which follows the American Pacific and runs for 4,270 kilometres, is becoming impossible to walk in certain places because there is neither shade nor water. 

Governments are quick to speak about the economic impacts of climate breakdown, but what about the accelerating and accompanying cascading ecological repercussions when rivers like the Po in Italy, the Loire in France and the 2,800-kilometre Danube dry up? Do governments care about the myriad life forms that inhabit those rivers?

Scientists are asking themselves whether this is to be the “new normal.” In recent research published in the science journal Nature, scientists were asked whether governments were up to the task of defending our climate. Most were highly sceptical, and in a second article, “Civil disobedience by scientists helps press for urgent climate action,” scientists speak openly, saying that civil disobedience is utterly justified in order to save us, as trust in governments’ ability to serve their populations and not their corporations is at a new low.

Scientists no longer view themselves as solely objective mouthpieces for scientific research or believe that their scientific neutrality in research prohibits public expressions of concern. They wish to make it absolutely clear that their values, like those of other citizens, demand in a time of environmental crisis a voice that has, as has always been the case, the right and indeed the obligation to influence ongoing and future events. They have arrived at a place of last resort to protect the planet, and they will be heard. Scientists’ credibility is not diminished because of their justifiable protests.

As developing nations have told the rich polluting west before, loss and damage must be a central topic if the UN climate talks to be held this November in Egypt are to succeed. “Loss and damage” refers to the global south’s precarious state as a result of 150 years of colonialism and fossil fuel extraction by the global north. The rising cost of staple foods, from olive and sunflower oils to wheat, illustrates all too well that countries cannot afford the prices that war, drought and floods have brought on. At the same time, zero-emissions Greenland is the largest contributor to ocean-level rise as a direct result of European and North American industries. Billions of tonnes of water from the ice sheet are finding their way to the oceans, and for the first time since records began, September’s temperatures are causing a release of water that until now only happened in July. Higher ocean levels will disproportionately affect the poorest coastal regions. 

The UN climate summit in Egypt and the UN biodiversity summit in Montréal will hold the world’s attention this autumn. People are preparing to gather for these meetings, not only as government representatives, but also to represent Indigenous peoples and all those who demand a positive future for all living creatures. Stay tuned.