I greatly admire today’s young people — but I sure don’t envy them. We older generations are leaving them a hell of a mess.

Granted, many people of all ages are trying to help the world shift to efficient, cost-effective renewable energy and avert the increasingly devastating impacts of a heating planet. But some don’t want to give up the conveniences and luxuries they’ve become accustomed to, from jet-setting vacations to private automobiles, so they don’t push too hard for change.

And despite international agreements and significant progress on many fronts, those with real power to effect change are still propping up the fossil fuel industry. As oil companies rake in record profits, the world’s biggest economies, the G20 countries, invested a record US$1.4 trillion in public money in coal, oil and gas last year — despite ongoing pledges since 2009 to phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

It pains me to mention political “leaders” who oppose almost all climate policy and action — some publicly rejecting climate science altogether! The excessive support some show for polluting, inefficient energy sources makes me wonder who they’re really working for. They’re certainly not prioritizing the interests of those they were elected to represent, including those too young to vote.

It’s no wonder so many young people are angry — and sad, anxious and afraid. We’ve failed them. When they should be enjoying relatively care-free lives with friends and family, learning and gaining experience, many have become rightfully terrified for their futures. The resulting despair can be paralyzing.

It’s up to older generations to foster hope by taking concrete action to get off fossil fuels and stop destroying natural spaces. But we must also recognize the serious, often long-term mental health effects youth can experience in facing this crisis. We need to ensure they have access to adequate mental health support and tools for self-care.

After waiting too long for adults to make the right choices, many young people are finding that channelling their anger and fear into action is one antidote to despair. From climate strikes to community activism, they’re finding ways to connect with each other and shape their future.

Some have courageously mounted legal challenges. In Montana, 16 young people successfully sued the state this month for violating their right to a clean and healthful environment.

“Because of their unique vulnerabilities, their stages of development as youth, and their average longevity on the planet in the future, plaintiffs face lifelong hardships resulting from climate change,” the judge wrote.

Many are hoping the landmark decision will energize other youth climate lawsuits, including one next year in Hawaii.

In Canada, seven young people are suing the Ontario government over climate issues. And in a case supported by the David Suzuki Foundation, 15 youth from seven provinces and one territory are suing the federal government for violating their rights to life, liberty and security of the person under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and violating their right to equality under section 15, because they’re disproportionately affected by the climate emergency.

Again, young people shouldn’t have to spend their time and resources going to court to compel governments to do what they should be doing in the first place: ensuring their constituents live in a healthy environment and that youth of all ages can expect a bright future.

It’s exhausting enough just living with the growing climate crisis, even if you aren’t in the midst of fires or floods or smoke-clogged skies — or worse. Knowing so many solutions exist and that change is possible offers hope but can also be a source of frustration, as there are so many barriers to progress.

Young people are especially vulnerable. I urge all youth to talk about and get active in climate issues if you can — whether it’s participating in a march, writing a letter or joining an organization — but remember also to enjoy your life. We still have each day, and it’s important and energizing to have fun, get out into nature, spend time with friends and family, listen to music, dance, play and just live.

Let’s not be overcome by despair. A better future is achievable. We older generations owe those coming after us our consistent, focused efforts to do whatever we can to get there!

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

With all the problems in the world, from massive inequality to the climate crisis, you’d think voluntary guidelines to improve corporate environmental and social practices would be a no-brainer. After all, addressing those critical issues can also boost a company’s bottom line.

But for companies with business models based on activities that harm the air, water and soil and create greater inequalities, ESG (environmental, social and governance) investor policies are a threat. That’s why Big Oil is fighting back. Much of the “anti-woke” rhetoric you hear from right-wing politicians and media is funded by fossil fuel interests.

Given what we know about the industry’s decades-long efforts to stall action on climate change by sowing doubt and confusion regarding the clear scientific evidence, it’s no surprise that the same people are putting enormous amounts of money and resources into obstructing efforts to introduce greater corporate responsibility. ESG encourages investors to consider criteria such as environmental risk, pay equity and transparency in accounting.

A report from U.S.-based Pleiades Strategy found that in 2023, fossil fuel money was behind 165 pieces of legislation introduced in 37 states “to weaponize government funds, contracts, and pensions to prevent companies and investors from considering commonplace risk factors in making responsible, risk-adjusted investment decisions.”

Most of the legislation, aimed at restricting the use of ESG investment criteria, was based on “model bills circulated by right-wing organizations that targeted diverse aspects of state financial regulation…”

Those organizations get much of their support from fossil fuel interests. They include four of the country’s most influential think tanks: the American Legislative Exchange Council, Heritage Foundation, Heartland Institute and Foundation for Government Accountability. All are affiliated with the State Policy Network, which receives funding from the fossil fuel billionaire Koch family, the Guardian reports.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation (which gets money from Koch-supported organizations, as well as ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron) and oil and gas lobbyist the American Petroleum Institute have also been involved.

Some have worked to get laws passed to severely punish people protesting pipelines.

The study found the groups had limited success, getting only 22 of the proposed 165 anti-ESG laws passed, thanks to opposition from business, labour and environmental advocates, but laws that did pass — even those that were watered down — could affect climate and other policies to protect people and the planet.

Report co-author Connor Gibson warned that lack of success isn’t likely to deter oil interests. “We think this is the latest iteration of climate denial and obstruction and delay,” he told the Guardian.

It’s astounding that people would put their short-term economic interests ahead of human health, well-being and survival, but that’s what they’re doing with greenwashing, furtive propaganda campaigns and influence over politicians, governments and media.

The fossil fuel economy is about more than just money, though. It’s also about consolidating power and wealth, which creates greater inequality. It’s far more difficult for a small number of people and companies to control access to energy and the wealth it generates when it comes from sun and wind rather than coal, oil and gas.

Numerous studies show the clean energy transition would save enormous amounts of money in everything from health care to energy expenses and that continuing to use coal, oil and gas will become increasingly costly and deadly.

Leaving fossil fuels behind won’t even be that hard on investors, according to a recent study published in Joule. It found that in high-income countries, the richest 10 per cent would bear two-thirds of investment losses from scaling back fossil fuel production, with the wealthiest one per cent taking half that hit. Because most moneyed people have diverse portfolios, the study found, losses would only make up about one per cent of their net wealth.

Researchers also found it would be cost-effective for governments to compensate those less well off for any losses.

We have every reason to switch rapidly from fossil fuels to renewable sources — and to conserve energy and improve efficiency. We’re also increasingly finding that the corporate, political and media justifications for avoiding or delaying the necessary shift are brought to you by the industry itself, often clandestinely.

It’s time to get fossil fuel money out of politics and leave the oil in the ground.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

As you walk outside, watching birds take flight or a squirrel run up a tree, take a moment to consider the activity beneath your feet. A new study shows more than half the world’s life is in soil — including 90 per cent of fungi, 85 per cent of plants and more than 50 per cent of bacteria. Just a teaspoon of healthy soil can contain up to a billion bacteria and more than a kilometre of fungi, Nature reports.

That makes soil “the singular most biodiverse habitat on Earth,” according to the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. We often take soil, and the biodiversity it supports, for granted, but it’s critical to understand it.

“Organisms in soil play an outweighed impact on the balance of our planet. Their biodiversity matters because soil life affects climate change feedbacks, global food security, and even human health,” lead researcher Mark Anthony, an ecologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, told the Guardian.

Soil, which makes up the top layer of Earth’s crust, is where we grow almost all our food and it’s second only to the ocean for carbon storage. We should dig deeper into understanding it — especially because topsoil degradation and loss are a growing ecological problem. The United Nations says one-third of global soil has already been affected, mainly by intensive agricultural practices that cause and speed up erosion and runoff, nutrient and organic matter depletion and disruption of natural processes and cycles.

Soil can also be susceptible to drought and floods, especially where sustainable agricultural practices aren’t employed. Dry soils don’t support life well and can be too baked to absorb water, making them prone to erosion and nutrient loss during sudden rains, with potential flooding below from runoff.

To address the global heating that’s causing weather to become more extreme and unpredictable, making farming challenging, we must shift to renewable energy, used efficiently and wisely. But there are immediate, proven ways to protect and make better use of the soils we need to grow food — and they come with climate benefits.

Quick-growing cover plants like clover, alfalfa, barley, oats, wheat and legumes can prevent erosion, fix nitrogen, replenish nutrients, control weeds and pests, slow evaporation and reduce ground-level temperatures.

Because ploughing up topsoil to plant seeds for monoculture crops has contributed to soil loss and depletion, no-till farming — gaining widespread acceptance worldwide — also helps, especially combined with cover crops.

The Biggest Little Farm documentary film illustrates (on a relatively small scale) how working with nature can keep soils in place and healthy while producing nutrient-rich, flavourful food, even under increasingly volatile California weather conditions.

As the farm’s website says, “healthy soil is built from the top down, which means every decision we make above it matters. In short this is why ecologically regenerative farming methods that restore biodiversity above and within the soil (cover cropping, compost application, managed grazing, etc.) create some of the most nutrient-dense and flavorful food that only nature can provide.”

Other methods such as agroforestry (integrating trees and shrubs with agriculture), urban and vertical agriculture, a shift toward plant-based diets and more can help maintain and enrich soils while safeguarding the climate, food systems, waterways, lands and ocean.

We must also protect and restore natural lands and the soils within them. We can’t keep paving or planting over forest and wetland soils through which mycelial networks and root systems connect with nutrients, chemical processes, plants, animals and each other, providing services our health and lives depend on — oxygen production, flood control, food, carbon sequestration, animal habitat, recreational opportunities and more.

The study on soil life also reminds us that, although we’ve been developing large-scale agriculture as if we had a complete understanding of natural systems, our knowledge has been and is still lacking. The researchers note that their study’s margin of error is large and that there’s much still to learn. And yet, we’ve been treating this essential, life-filled, life-giving layer of Earth like we treat the rest of the planet: as if it’s there to exploit without fear of consequences.

But we’re now seeing devastating consequences. Adopting better conservation, restoration and agricultural practices would help soil, food security, climate and health.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Too many people are consuming more than Earth’s systems can replenish. But while population growth is an important issue, overconsumption of energy and products is the more immediate and easily resolvable problem.

The wealthy, including middle-class people in rich countries, are responsible for many times the climate-altering emissions of lower-income people — the super rich especially. The Stockholm Environment Institute estimates that the world’s top 0.1 per cent emitted 10 times more per capita than the rest of the richest 10 per cent combined, more than 200 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year each.

Poorly insulated, inefficient large homes and buildings, large personal vehicles, yachts and private jets (and just flying a lot in general) all use considerable amounts of energy.

As the International Energy Agency points out, “Wealth, energy use, and the consumption of goods and services are unevenly distributed across the world. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are no exception.”

The IEA adds, “Globally, the top 10% of emitters were responsible for almost half of global energy-related CO2 emissions in 2021, compared with a mere 0.2% for the bottom 10%,” and “85% of them live in advanced economies” — including Canada.

The disproportionate numbers are equally shocking when considering wealth indicators within countries, which reveal the oversized footprint the tiny minority of excessively moneyed people have.

A recent study published in Nature Energy, “Emissions savings from equitable energy demand reduction,” found meeting the needs of 20 per cent of people in Europe who use the least energy while reducing demand from the top 20 per cent high energy users “can achieve considerable greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 11.4% from domestic energy, 16.8% from transport and 9.7% from total energy consumption.”

The study points out that while decarbonizing energy use — that is, stopping fossil fuel use — is essential, reducing energy demand in the Global North is a necessary step to meeting climate targets.

In its latest review, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found strategies to cut demand could reduce emissions by 40 to 70 per cent by 2050, compared to business as usual. Curbing use of everything from goods to energy among the well-off, which requires overcoming our wasteful consumerist habits, could help meet the needs of those experiencing energy poverty as emissions come down.

“We have to start tackling luxury energy use to stay within an equitable carbon budget for the globe but also to actually have the energy resources to enable people in fuel poverty to slightly increase their energy use and meet their needs,” said Milena Büchs, “Emissions savings” study lead author and professor of sustainable welfare at the University of Leeds, in a Guardian interview.

The study affirms that “those who have contributed most to climate change and who have greatest capacity to act should carry the greatest responsibility for reducing energy demand and emissions.” “Capacity to act” refers to the fact that the affluent could substantially reduce their environmental footprints by giving up or curtailing what many would consider “luxuries.” And, as the Guardian reports, “Rich people have more agency to cut their emissions and those of others” — not just in how they shop “but also how they act as citizens, investors, role models and workers.”

We should also consider the Jevons paradox when discussing consumerism. This implies that, rather than reducing demand, greater efficiency leads to lower costs, which increases overall demand. Let’s not just swap out one wasteful consumer society for another, albeit one with cleaner energy sources.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that the climate crisis is also a social justice crisis. Much of it has been caused by excessive consumption among the economically privileged — people and nations — who have benefited the most from it, while those who have contributed the least to the problem have been most devastated by its impacts — impacts that are cutting a wider swathe every day!

Addressing the climate crisis requires numerous solutions; the most critical is shifting quickly from coal, oil and gas to renewable energy. But we must also reduce overall energy use, and that starts with those who use the most. At the same time, policies and regulations that curb excessive consumption among the rich must also lift those less fortunate out of energy poverty. Better energy, better equity.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org

On July 6, the world’s average temperature was the hottest ever recorded, at 17.23 C. That beat the previous highs on… July 3 and 4! June was the hottest month ever, but July is shaping up to be even hotter. Experts expect more records to break over the next while, as an El Niño weather pattern combines with record emissions to drive temperatures up.

“We have never seen anything like this before,” Carlo Buontempo, director of Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, told the Washington Post, noting that “we are in uncharted territory.” Temperatures are hotter than they’ve been in 125,000 years!

People worldwide are feeling the effects, with scorching heat from Africa to Europe, and across China and the southern U.S. Records are even breaking in Antarctica, where warming drove sea ice to 17 per cent below the 1991-2020 June average. In Canada, May was the hottest month ever, until June recorded even higher temperatures. We see the results in air congested with wildfire smoke.

Heat and humidity are already causing an increasing number of direct deaths, along with numerous other negative impacts — floods, droughts, wildfires, refugee crises, water shortages, biodiversity loss and more.

How bad does it have to get before the world wakes up?

Unless we reject the widespread power and influence of the fossil fuel industry in all aspects of our lives, we could reach the point of no return before we employ the many available and emerging solutions.

Industry puts massive resources into convincing people that curbing the crisis will cause too much hardship. Shell chief executive Wael Sawan recently offered an example. “What would be dangerous and irresponsible is cutting oil and gas production so that the cost of living, as we saw last year, starts to shoot up again,” he told the BBC.

Shell had planned modest production cuts, but under Sawan’s leadership has backtracked, instead enriching its executives and shareholders in the wake of fuel prices driven up by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As global temperatures exceed record highs, so too do the profits of companies such as Shell.

Big Oil money flows through secretive organizations that downplay or deny the climate crisis, to media outlets and to politicians, their parties and governments. Lobbyists work both sides of the fence and gain astounding access to the political sphere. Governments, including Canada’s, continue to subsidize the industry though tax and royalty breaks, infrastructure purchases and more.

Dirty oil sands bitumen is sold as “ethical” and fracked methane gas as a “natural” climate solution. And who can forget “clean coal”? The industry and its supporters paint themselves as beneficial to society, creating jobs, boosting economies and keeping the lights on. Ordinary people struggling to pay bills are often too busy to see through these greenwashed false narratives.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Renewable energy, energy efficiency and conservation offer numerous advantages over fossil fuels beyond climate benefits. Along with energy storage, technologies including wind and solar have advanced much faster than experts predicted, and costs have dropped to the point where they’re far lower than coal, oil and gas prices. Renewables also create greater energy independence and better employment opportunities.

The only ones who don’t reap massive benefits from a rapid transition away from fossil fuels are the relatively few who profit enormously by monopolizing supplies, production and distribution of gas, oil and coal — and the politicians and media supporters on the receiving end of their donations and ad dollars.

That doesn’t mean shifting from fossil fuels to cleaner energy will be painless. We might have to curtail or give up luxuries, and the overconsumption, to which we’ve become accustomed — especially in wealthier parts of the world. For example, although electric vehicles are far better than gas-burners, private SUVs and automobiles for everyone aren’t sustainable over the long term regardless of how they’re powered.

But the transition won’t be as painful as the fossil fuel industry wants you to believe — although the more we delay in taking the much-needed steps, the more difficult it will be.

The only records we should be breaking now are in the speed at which we adopt healthier ways to live and to power our societies — without fossil fuels.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

If you understand that the climate crisis is a serious challenge and believe governments, industry and society should be doing everything possible to address it, you’re not alone. You’re part of a growing majority. After all, who doesn’t want to ensure Earth remains a healthy place to live for generations to come?

People are also becoming more aware of the many benefits that energy efficiency, clean power and nature protection bring — from improving human health to saving money to avoiding volatile coal, oil and gas supplies and prices.

In Canada, a recent poll shows 75 per cent are concerned about climate change, and more than half think governments must do more to address it. But what about the U.S., where many politicians and media outlets attack progressive climate and energy policies as “woke”? Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has even spurned hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants and tax rebates for residents to make energy efficiency upgrades, and passed a law making it illegal for local governments to ban fossil fuels in favour of clean energy.

With the massive amount of attention paid to those who reject climate science and push fossil fuels, one would think most Americans are on board with policies like these. That’s not the case, according to a study published in Nature Communications. It found that 66 to 80 per cent of people in the U.S. are worried about global heating and support policies to address it, but many don’t realize their numbers are so high: 80 to 90 per cent “in every state and every assessed demographic underestimate support across all policies tested,” believing only 37 to 43 per cent favour them.

The study found one factor in the misperception was “consuming conservative news.”

This matters because, as an article in Yale Climate Connections reports, “When people feel alone in their views, they are less likely to take action.” Boston College psychology and neuroscience professor Gregg Sparkman said that’s why it’s important “to voice your concerns about climate change to others, to talk about climate policies that you think are exciting: These kinds of conversations, when done en masse, will help correct this misperception.”

One useful conversation to bring even more people into the majority is about how much money policies that encourage energy efficiency and clean energy will save. The European Union offers a good example.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, many feared Russian gas would be replaced with even dirtier coal. Instead, EU countries fast-tracked wind and solar installations, displacing “an estimated 230 TWh of expensive fossil fuel generation,” according to the International Energy Agency. That reduced wholesale electricity prices by at least eight per cent, saving electricity consumers about €100 billion, or C$145 billion.

The IEA also reports, “Between January 2021 and August 2022, the average monthly natural gas price increased ten-fold and the price of hard coal quintupled,” whereas, “Long-term contracts secured through policy mechanisms and regulations provide stable prices for most wind and solar PV power generators in Europe, limiting their exposure to volatile electricity prices. They can also help shelter consumers from rising electricity prices.”

Politicians who reject sound climate and energy policies are not only accelerating destruction of Earth’s life-support systems but are also putting wealthy fossil fuel industry donors’ short-term, selfish interests above those of the people they were elected to represent.

Policies and regulations are crucial. A study by the International Institute for Sustainable Development found that “unprecedented volatility and high oil and gas prices” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russian invasion brought “windfall profits for global oil and gas producers, including those in Canada.” This has led to a push to expand the industry here.

But, the IISD reports, “Given demand projections, business as usual in the sector is no longer an option. To minimize the risks to dependent workers, communities, and regions, governments must take an active role in overseeing a predicted phase-down of oil and gas production and diversifying the economy.”

Those who profit from the climate crisis and reject sound policies to address it — policies that would benefit most people — are speaking loudly, but their numbers are dwindling.

We’re in the majority. It’s up to us to speak louder.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

In 1989, I did a radio series for CBC called It’s a Matter of Survival. It examined how humans were altering the environment in detrimental ways, including heating the planet by burning massive amounts of coal, oil and gas for power and transportation. Listeners were so concerned that 17,000 sent in letters (this was pre-email days) asking what they could do. That led to the David Suzuki Foundation’s start in 1990.

It wasn’t the first time I had discussed the looming climate crisis. In 1977, I interviewed writer Isaac Asimov, who spoke about the “greenhouse effect.” He explained how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere absorbs infrared light, acting as a “heat shroud.” He noted that burning coal, oil and gas raises CO2 levels in the atmosphere and that, in “another 50 years or so … instead of three hundredths of a percent, it might be five hundredths of a percent.” (It’s now over four hundredths of a per cent.)

Even though that seems like a small increase, he said, it could melt polar ice caps, raise sea levels and cause runaway effects.

In 1988, just before the CBC series, renowned NASA scientist James Hansen testified to the U.S. Congress that climate change was, in fact, occurring and that failing to address it quickly could lead to dangerous consequences. In his presidential campaign, Republican candidate George H.W. Bush vowed to combat the problem if elected. Four years later, under his presidency, the U.S. became a founding member of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which continues to be the international forum for efforts to address climate change.

Even though politicians of every political stripe from around the world vowed to take climate change seriously, emissions have risen by 68 per cent since then, and fossil fuels have gone from supplying 79 per cent of the world’s energy needs to 81 per cent.

Greenhouse gas emissions have reached a record high, and scientists say it’s now too late to save summer Arctic ice. We’re seeing the effects: massive wildfires in Canada — where warming is occurring faster than southern parts of the world — droughts, floods, extreme weather events, growing numbers of climate refugees leaving increasingly inhospitable parts of the world.

What’s astounding is that fossil fuel spokespeople, politicians and media pundits are still saying the same things they’ve been saying for at least the past four decades — that we can’t get off fossil fuels overnight (it’s been a long night), that we need to keep burning fossil gas as a bridge fuel (it’s a long bridge) and that we can’t afford to transition to renewable energy (it’s long outdated information).

Then there are those who still deny there’s a problem at all, or who say our concerns are alarmist or hysterical. If you aren’t alarmed, you don’t understand the science.

If it seems dire, it’s because it is. But it’s not hopeless. We’re running out of time, but we’ve made progress, and we have numerous solutions — more every day. Evidence shows that employing those solutions will make the world better for just about everyone except, perhaps, those raking in massive profits from fossil fuels and destroying forests, wetlands and agricultural land. Even their lives would likely be more satisfying if they realized there’s more to life than profit and power.

Energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy storage solutions have advanced by leaps and bounds, far faster than anticipated. Not only that, but costs have fallen to the point that renewable energy is less expensive than coal, oil and gas.

Overall, we’d all be better off economically if we shifted rapidly to more affordable renewables, especially given the volatility of fossil fuel markets. Our health would be better without the pollution burning fuels causes. Ecosystems would improve. And, if done right, the shift could bring greater equality as power and wealth wouldn’t be as concentrated as it is in the fossil fuel economy.

Of course, we still have the responsibility to stop consuming so much, to rethink our wasteful ways of living. As human populations increase, the planet can’t support endless growth and consumption.

There are no excuses left to continue exploiting and burning any fossil fuels, and there’s no time left to waste. Nature has spoken. We must listen and act now.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

The world is on fire. Sometimes it seems not enough people care.

We’re still electing governments that do the bare minimum to address the climate crisis or reject necessary measures altogether. SUVs and trucks are ubiquitous on city streets. People continue to fly everywhere. Some media pundits accuse those who have been warning about ever-increasing global heating impacts for decades of hysteria, alarmism or overreaction.

Industry, governments and banks continue to support and develop coal, oil and gas projects, even though renewable energy options are available for less cost — and research shows we can’t keep extracting and burning fossil fuels if we’re to avert increasingly worse consequences of climate disruption.

Despite global agreements and goals, many people would rather continue as usual, hoping to escape the worst impacts for a few more years, or refusing to believe anything disastrous will occur in their lifetimes. That’s why it’s important for those of us who do grasp the problem to speak up.

If smoke-choked skies and evacuations don’t convince people the climate crisis is real, and costly, maybe insurance companies will. As wildfires tear through Canada, the U.S., Australia, Europe and more, and as floods and rising sea levels erode coastlines and destroy homes worldwide, insurers are noticing.

In Canada, claims for extreme weather events have more than quadrupled over the past 15 years. Insurers expect to pay out C$2 billion and rising every year for disaster-related claims. The 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire alone is estimated to have cost about $9 billion for firefighting, evacuations, industry shutdowns and damage to homes and businesses.

In the U.S., two major insurance companies have stopped offering new homeowner policies in California, partly due to “rapidly growing catastrophe exposure.” Increasingly frequent and intense hurricanes, wildfires and floods have made it difficult to insure homes in Florida, Texas, Colorado, Louisiana and New York.

Even when insurance is available, rates are often skyrocketing, leaving a growing number of homeowners unable to afford insurance. Because many banks won’t offer mortgages without home insurance, ownership and housing markets are being affected. Many insurance companies can’t afford to stay in business.

It will get worse if we don’t do everything possible to address climate disruption. By early June, nearly 10 million acres had already burned across Canada. Normally, only 600,000 acres would burn by then, usually in just one part of the country. Although many fires are sparked by campfires, careless cigarette butt disposal or lightning, climate change is causing hotter, windier and dryer conditions, longer summers, reduced snowpack and more lightning strikes — all of which increase the frequency and intensity of fires.

Increasing wildfires also contribute to further global heating. Because trees and plants remove and store carbon from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, forests are “carbon sinks.” When they burn, carbon is released into the atmosphere, and the burned forests no longer sequester carbon. In 2017 and 2018, wildfires in B.C. emitted more greenhouse gases than all other sectors combined.

The best solution is to do everything possible to halt and reverse climate disruption by getting off fossil fuels and protecting carbon sinks such as forests.

Near-term solutions to prevent forests from burning and to adapt to increasing wildfires are also important. One answer may lie in knowledge and methods Indigenous Peoples have long employed. In April, members of the ʔaq’am First Nation in southeastern B.C. worked with the B.C. Wildlife Service and others on a “prescribed burn” — setting intentional fires to clear out low-lying branches and dead shrubs that can contribute to wildfire spread.

Although prescribed burning carries its own risks, it’s being adopted in many jurisdictions. Other methods to create buffers and breaks around human settlements can also reduce the risk of wildfire damage to homes and property. Using better building materials to withstand fire damage is also necessary, as are better emergency response resources and protocols.

Ultimately, though, unless we take the climate crisis seriously and employ all the many readily available and emerging solutions, we’ll see more fires, floods and extreme weather events. The rising costs will affect everyone from marginalized and remote communities to homeowners to society at large. We can no longer afford incremental change. We’ve run out of time, and nature’s warnings are ever more urgent.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Nine years ago, the David Suzuki Foundation launched the Blue Dot Movement. Its goal was to enshrine the right to a healthy environment in Canadian law. It started with a cross-country tour featuring Feist, Neil Young, the Barenaked Ladies, Margaret Atwood, Kinnie Starr, Raine Maida, Grimes, Danny Michel, Stephen Lewis, Bruce Cockburn, Robert Bateman, Shane Koyczan and many more.

The multi-pronged efforts over the years are finally starting to pay off. With recent passage of Bill S-5 to modernize the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the right of all people in Canada to a healthy environment is now recognized in law. Although the ultimate goal was to have this right enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, getting it into this law is a great start.

The Environmental Protection Act hasn’t been updated since 1999, and over that time, much has changed regarding environmental issues and our understanding of them, so the amendments are long overdue.

Under the revised act, the federal government will have the duty to protect the right to a healthy environment and uphold the principles of environmental justice. The act also includes requirements to consider cumulative effects on environmental and human health and on vulnerable populations. And it updates regulations around control of toxic substances and dangerous chemicals, including ensuring that priority is given to prohibiting the most hazardous substances.

When the Blue Dot Tour hit the road in 2014, more than half the world’s nations recognized the legal right to healthy environment. It was astounding that Canada, a country known for its spectacular wilderness and abundant nature, was not among them. Now more than three-quarters of countries recognize and protect this right!

As the movement gained momentum, an ever-increasing number of municipalities adopted environmental rights declarations, many members of Parliament signed pledges supporting them, and people, organizations and communities joined the effort.

The movement also inspired the Foundation’s Future Ground Network and Réseau Demain le Québec, two growing online organizing hubs (one English, one French) that support local groups taking action in their communities to secure healthier, more viable futures in the areas of climate justice, biodiversity, waste reduction and sustainable systems.

It shouldn’t be controversial to recognize that we can’t live well without clean air and water, toxic-free food and the numerous services that diverse ecosystems provide. But Canada and the world still face increasing environmental crises, which often most affect marginalized people.

Here, we have dozens of drinking water advisories in effect, most in Indigenous communities. Air quality often reaches dangerous levels, and the oil and mining industries continue to poison land, air and water — again, most often near Indigenous communities. Environmental hazards contribute to tens of thousands of premature deaths in Canada every year, and pollution costs us more than $100 billion a year.

Although modernizing the Environmental Protection Act won’t resolve all those problems, it will at least set us on a path to government responsibility. But more needs to be done.

The government should remove barriers that prevent citizens from using legal methods to hold polluters accountable when they violate the act and its regulations. We need enforceable national air quality standards. Regulations around labelling of potentially hazardous substances in consumer products must be strengthened. Government must also close loopholes regarding ocean dumping, and it must ensure that Indigenous communities get the same level of environmental protection as other communities in Canada. We must also restrict plastic waste exports.

Another important step will be for government to pass Bill S-226 — “an act respecting the development of a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism and to advance environmental justice.” This is critical, because social and environmental justice are inextricably linked. Solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises must be grounded in equity, access to justice and fulfilment of human rights.

Long overdue modernization of Canada’s Environmental Protection Act is a positive first step and shows what we can accomplish when we work together.

As David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and environment and long-time Blue Dot spokesperson, said, “It’s a terrific day when Canada recognizes the right to a healthy environment and will be an even better day when governments respect, protect and fulfil everyone’s right to a healthy environment!”

Let’s keep moving!

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

In the effort to limit and reverse the worsening impacts of global heating, the immediate goal is to quickly stop burning coal, oil and gas. That means rapidly shifting to renewable energy for electricity generation and transportation.

But simply switching from one source of energy to another and trading gas-powered cars, trucks and SUVs for electric ones won’t resolve the climate crisis — as important as those are. The interrelated environmental crises — deforestation, species extinction, climate change — are being driven by wasteful consumerism. Getting off fossil fuels poses more of a challenge if we continue to consume massive amounts of disposable products and energy.

As Andrew Nikiforuk recently wrote in the Tyee, “Any imperfect solution to our current civilization-threatening predicament must include dialing down our energy consumption rather than coming up with high-tech visions that keep accelerating it.” That includes the energy and materials used to produce growing mountains of disposable products, from smartphones to cars to clothing.

Almost everything we produce requires minerals and metals, which must be mined — including wind turbines and solar panels. If we continue to use electronic gizmos that must be replaced every year or two, and if we continue to insist that most people should have a couple of tonnes of metal, plastic and glass to move a hundred or so kilos of human, rather than building reliable transit systems and walkable communities, building out renewable energy might slow our descent but won’t save us from calamity.

That is isn’t an argument against renewable energy, which is absolutely necessary. Coal, oil and gas are also mined, cause massive damage to air, water, land and climate and put all life at risk. But we can’t continue to thrive in a system that depends on constant growth on a finite planet — population growth, economic growth, ever-increasing consumption. We need unlimited sunlight and wind for energy, but we have to recognize that finite resources are required to utilize that energy.

We’ve been misled into believing that endlessly chasing after more, bigger, shinier things will bring us satisfaction and happiness when, in fact, it’s often the opposite. Our Sisyphean struggle has left us tired and alienated, created massive inequality and pushed us toward ecological collapse.

We need a paradigm shift.

Getting by with less doesn’t mean living less satisfying lives. It’s a question of what we value. We’ve been indoctrinated into believing that wealth and power are the ultimate goals, but only a minuscule percentage of the growing human population truly benefits from that, and the “trickle down” economic theory has always been a hoax.

If we truly valued the short time we each spend on this planet, we surely wouldn’t waste it to wreak misery and destruction in pursuit of elusive goals. We’d learn to find joy in family, friendship and nature, in learning and sharing.

Working ourselves to exhaustion and jetting off to some increasingly crowded resort area for a couple of weeks to recover can’t be what life is about. Does dining on burgers and steaks make us any happier than enjoying healthy plant-based foods? It certainly doesn’t make us healthier. Does staring at a tiny device all day make us feel any more connected and satisfied with our lives than actually getting together with real people in real time, or taking in the quiet beauty of nature?

Industrialization, and especially car culture, were sold to us under false premises, fuelling a crisis that now threatens our survival. We’re not going to go back to the way things were, nor should we. But we can progress to better ways of living.

That will require quitting fossil fuels as quickly as possible and shifting to renewable energy. But we must also learn to use less. Energy efficiency is part of that, but reducing what we use is critical, especially in the western world, where per capita energy consumption is many times higher than in other parts of the world.

We’re capable of great technological innovation, but that alone isn’t enough to create a better world.

As Nikiforuk writes, “In blunt terms we need an energy strategy that pointedly shrinks economic activity over time the same way chemotherapy effectively diminishes a cancerous tumor.”

We might be surprised to find that our lives will improve if we do.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

As the impacts of climate disruption become more frequent and intense, we need a range of solutions. One that’s getting a lot of attention is nuclear power.

Industry is pushing hard for it, especially “small modular reactors,” and the federal government has offered support and tax incentives. After 30 years without building any new reactors, Ontario is also jumping onto the nuclear bandwagon again. How should we react?

Along with its many known problems, as an inflexible, costly baseload power source, nuclear is becoming as outdated as fossil fuels. Small modular reactors will create even more waste and cost more — and slow the necessary transition to renewable energy.

Many disadvantages of nuclear are well known. It can contribute to weapons proliferation. Radioactive waste remains highly toxic for a long time and must be carefully and permanently stored or disposed of. And while serious accidents are rare, they can be devastating and difficult to deal with, as the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters demonstrated.

Uranium to fuel nuclear also raises problems, including high rates of lung cancer in miners and emissions from mining, transport and refining. Add that to the water vapour and heat it releases, and nuclear power produces “on average 23 times the emissions per unit electricity generated” as onshore wind, according to Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson.

But the biggest issues are that nuclear power is expensive — at least five times more than wind and solar — and takes a long time to plan and build. Small modular reactors are likely to be even more expensive, especially considering they’ll produce far less electricity than larger plants. And because the various models are still at the prototype stage, they won’t be available soon.

Because we’ve stalled for so long in getting off coal, oil and gas for electricity generation, we need solutions that can be scaled up quickly and affordably.

The last nuclear plant built in Ontario, Darlington, ended up costing $14.4 billion, almost four times the initial estimate. It took from 1981 to 1993 to construct (and years before that to plan) and is now being refurbished at an estimated cost of close to $13 billion. In 1998, Ontario Hydro faced the equivalent of bankruptcy, in part because of Darlington.

Ontario’s experience isn’t unique. A Boston University study of more than 400 large-scale electricity projects around the world over the past 80 years found “on average, nuclear plants cost more than double their original budgets and took 64 per cent longer to build than projected,” the Toronto Star reports. “Wind and solar, by contrast, had average cost overruns of 7.7 per cent and 1.3 per cent, respectively.”

China has been building more nuclear power plants than any other country — 50 over the past 20 years. But in half that time, it has added 13 times more wind and solar capacity.

As renewable energy, energy efficiency and storage technologies continue to rapidly improve and come down in price, costs for nuclear are rising. As we recently noted, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment report shows that nuclear power delivers only 10 per cent of the results of wind and solar at far higher costs. In the time it takes to plan and build nuclear, including SMRs, and for much less money, we could be putting far more wind, solar and geothermal online, and developing and increasing storage capacity, grid flexibility and energy efficiency.

The amount it will cost to build out sufficient nuclear power — some of which must come in the form of taxpayer subsidies — could be better put to more quickly improving energy efficiency and developing renewable energy such as wind, solar and geothermal.

Putting money and resources into nuclear appears to be an attempt to stall renewable electricity uptake and grid modernization. Small modular reactors are likely to cost even more than large plants for the electricity they generate. And, because more will be required, they pose increased safety issues.

David Suzuki Foundation research shows how Canada could get 100 per cent reliable, affordable, emissions-free electricity by 2035 — without resorting to expensive and potentially dangerous (and, in the case of SMRs, untested) technologies like nuclear.

New nuclear is a costly, time-consuming hurdle on the path to reliable, flexible, available, cost-effective renewable energy. The future is in renewables.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org

Canada’s recent greenhouse gas inventory shows climate policies are working — but we still face major hurdles.

On the positive side, overall emissions have been declining, despite a smaller-than-expected post-pandemic increase. On the negative side, oil and gas and transportation sector emissions are rising. And plans to expand gas power generation, especially in Alberta and Ontario, are undermining progress in the necessary shift to clean electricity.

Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, countries must submit standardized annual inventories of emissions from a range of sources. Canada’s recent inventory, examining data from 2021, shows emissions have dropped by 8.4 per cent from 2005, despite a 1.8 per cent increase over 2020, remaining 7.4 per cent below 2019’s pre-pandemic levels. Policies that have driven improvements in electricity generation, home heating, energy efficiency, industrial processes and structural economic changes have contributed to declines.

Unfortunately, oil and gas industry emissions — which make up 28 per cent of our current annual greenhouse gas emissions — continue to rise. They grew by four per cent (four megatonnes) in one year alone, from 2020 to 2021. Transport emissions grew by five per cent (nine megatonnes). The transport increase was partly from a spike in travel as the pandemic eased, but was also fuelled by increased truck and SUV sales.

To meet its international commitments and help keep global heating from reaching catastrophic levels, Canada must focus hard on these sectors. Policies and regulations are working in other areas. There’s no reason to let the most polluting sectors get away with not doing their share.

To begin, Canada should impose a hard cap on allowable emissions from the oil and gas industry that will decline over time. This is especially needed to tackle oilsands emissions, which were the highest ever recorded in 2021, in line with record production and profits. It’s important to note that emissions counted are only from operations and not the far greater and more serious ones from burning the fuels where they’re exported! A cap would at least limit the amount of emissions the industry is allowed to release into the atmosphere during extraction and processing.

We also have to stop letting government and industry get away with highlighting distracting measures such as “emissions intensity,” which, as the Tyee points out, “refers to the amount of greenhouse gases emitted per unit of production” and doesn’t offer a true picture of the rising emissions as production increases.

Despite record profits and lucrative executive compensation packages, the industry has invested little to no money to bring its excessive emissions under control — other than reducing some methane emissions, as regulations require. Ultimately, we need to phase out production, not just emissions.

Tackling transport emissions is up to government, industry and people. We need to stop buying and driving unnecessary SUVs and trucks. Most are used where smaller cars would serve as well and are rarely for work purposes. Many argue that advertising for all fossil-fuelled vehicles, especially trucks and SUVs, should be banned. To ensure the vehicles we use are primarily electric, government needs to proceed with proposed standards for zero-emission vehicle production and sales. Investments in public transit and infrastructure for active transportation such as cycling are also critical.

We also need to step up progress in electrification and clean electricity generation — one area where there’s reason for optimism. In 2021,  emissions from electricity generation were less than half of what they were in 2005. We must continue to shift to renewable electricity sources, improve energy efficiency and build more interprovincial transmission.

A David Suzuki Foundation report shows that 100 per cent clean electricity by 2035 is feasible even without relying on expensive technologies that take a long time to build, such as nuclear and carbon capture and storage. It also means not relying on fracked gas for power.

Volumes of research show all this is possible and cost-effective, and will lead to more affordable energy bills, while failing to do so will cost far more and will lead to disaster.

Canada’s government says it is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Despite some positive trends, the inventory shows that we can and must go further. It’s doable. Let’s give’r!

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Cutting greenhouse gas emissions to keep the world from heating to catastrophic levels is entirely possible and would save money. Although emissions continue to rise, there’s still time to reverse course. Ways to slash them by more than half over the next seven years are readily available and cost-effective — and necessary to keep the global average temperature from rising more than 1.5 C.

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report includes a chart that shows how. Compiled by the world’s top scientists using the most up-to-date research, it illustrates potential emissions reductions and costs of various methods.

At the top are wind and solar power, followed by energy efficiency, stopping deforestation and reducing methane emissions. Nuclear energy, carbon capture and storage and biofuels bring much poorer results for a lot more money.

Wind and solar together can cut eight billion tonnes of emissions annually — “equivalent to the combined emissions of the US and European Union today” and “at lower cost than just continuing with today’s electricity systems,” the Guardian reports.

Nuclear power and carbon capture and storage each deliver only 10 per cent of the results of wind and solar at far higher costs. It’s telling that those less effective, more expensive pathways are the ones touted most often by government, industry and media people who are determined to keep fossil fuels burning or are resistant to power sources that offer greater energy independence.

Making buildings, industry, lighting and appliances more energy efficient could cut 4.5 billion tonnes of emissions a year by 2030 — and there’s no doubt that simply reducing energy consumption could add to that.

Because forests, wetlands and other green spaces sequester carbon, stopping deforestation could cut four billion tonnes a year by 2030, almost “double the fossil fuel emissions from the whole of Africa and South America today,” the Guardian reports.

Cutting methane emissions, especially those that leak from fossil fuel operations, could cut three billion tonnes. This is especially important because methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over the short term. It also shows that fracking for fossil gas and production of so-called “liquefied natural gas” are not viable solutions.

Other ways to lower emissions include switching to sustainable diets, such as eating less meat (1.7 billion tonnes), shifting toward public transit and active transportation (which has more potential than electric cars) and better agricultural methods.

We’re constantly told that quickly transitioning from coal, oil and gas is not realistic and that renewables aren’t ready to replace them, and that we need expensive, often unproven or dangerous methods like nuclear and carbon capture and storage. But those claims ignore the rapid pace at which renewable energy and storage technologies have been advancing — and dropping in price.

We could get even further than this research suggests by using less energy and fewer products that require energy to produce and transport. Shifting from a consumer-based system is especially important in light of the fact that even renewable energy is not impact-free. Mining for materials, replacing aging infrastructure and making space for installations means our ultimate goal should be to use less.

Likewise with electric cars. Although electric cars are far better than fossil-fuelled, all personal vehicles waste resources, require massive infrastructure and are not efficient at moving people around, regardless of how they’re powered.

But what this chart and mountains of other research show is that even with current technologies, methods and systems, cutting emissions and avoiding catastrophic consequences of climate disruption are entirely possible and affordable.

If we fail to reach the goal of reducing emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, it won’t be for lack of options.

The problem isn’t a shortage of solutions, or exorbitant costs, or any benefits of fossil fuels over renewable energy; it’s a lack of political will, and to some extent, public support. This is driven to a large degree by the efforts of industry to protect its interests in raking in huge profits and perpetuating a system that mostly benefits a small and dwindling number of people at the expense of human health, well-being and survival.

Nature is speaking, and science is confirming that we have no time to lose. We can’t afford not to change.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

How can a bank for wealthy venture capitalists, tech bros and people such as ultraconservative billionaire Peter Thiel be “woke”? Or the U.S. military? What does “woke” even mean?

The word is bandied about by right-wing politicians, media pundits and online commenters to disparage everything from government departments to corporations to educational institutions that implement policies that might appear “progressive.”

When asked to define the term, they often struggle or fail, or come up with meaningless statements like “You know it when you see it.” It’s the new version of “politically correct,” which really just means having good manners. “Woke” has become “a catch-all term for everything they don’t like about modern society,” a Wonkette article says.

It’s not really difficult to define, although its meaning has evolved. It gained traction in 2014, after police in Ferguson, Missouri, shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old Black man. “Stay woke” meant to keep watch for police brutality.

According to a Vox article, the term has been used in Black communities for many years. In 1938, blues musician Huddie Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, wrote the song “Scottsboro Boys” about nine Black teenagers in Scottsboro, Arkansas, who were unjustly accused of raping two white women. In describing the song, he said, “So I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there — best stay woke, keep their eyes open.”

It’s meaning has since broadened to encompass an awareness of and attention to many societal injustices, especially racial issues. Although some argue the broader meaning is cultural and linguistic appropriation, and that the term has been somewhat emptied of meaning, its weaponization by people on the right is arguably worse.

Those involved in social justice and environmental activities have unfortunately become accustomed to the non-arguments and insults that people unable to come up with rational responses employ. Often these take the form of “logical fallacies” — deceptive statements that lack reason.

Two of the most common are ad hominem attacks and what has become known as “whataboutism.” The former, which means “to the person,” is an attack against the character of a person rather than addressing the person’s contention. The latter is an attempt to discredit an argument by deflecting to something the opponent or someone else has done. Neither invalidates the original argument.

Throwing around terms like “woke,” “cancel” or “critical race theory” to elicit emotional reactions rather than spark thoughtful discourse is also widespread, especially in the U.S.

Similar to the fossil fuel industry’s attempts to detract from the damage it causes by sowing doubt and confusion, those who use the term “woke” disparagingly are trying to distract from efforts to rectify systemic injustices that benefit them, especially when it comes to racial injustice. They want society to ignore the harms that work in their favour, whether it’s profiting massively from coal, oil and gas or benefiting from white privilege and systemic racism.

But they don’t want to be obvious. After all, few people will admit that they prefer a system that gives them unfair advantages over others, even if they do allude to being “replaced” by racialized people. And few corporate executives want to admit that their profits and outsized compensation packages come at the expense of human and planetary health and survival.

Terms and arguments like these are increasingly common in a world where discourse gets distilled into a few hundred characters for social media, or brief news clips and articles for busy people with limited attention spans. It can often be difficult to respond without also resorting to shorthand arguments or co-opted terms. And it can be difficult to gain awareness — to wake up to — the real systemic injustices and issues that divide us and slow progress at such a critical time in human history.

But it’s critical to increase our awareness of these issues, to listen to those who suffer from the injustices perpetrated by a system built on colonialism and white supremacy — whether it’s police actions that unfairly target racialized people, hiring practices that favour white people or create barriers for people of colour or polluting industries placed near Indigenous and racialized communities.

We must work for equality, justice and healthy communities. The alarm clock is ringing. It’s time to wake up.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

We can all help bring nature home to our neighbourhoods. This story begins with a plan to crowdsource a network of do-it-yourself “national parks” and some keen community volunteers who filled a canoe with flowers.

A decade ago, volunteers planted a beat-up canoe, retired from active service, in a downtown Toronto green space at the Fort York historical site. They drilled it with holes for drainage, filled it with soil and transformed it into a planter filled with native wildflowers.

The initial aim was to plant canoes in parks and schoolyards along the old Garrison Creek, a “lost river” that had been incorporated into the city’s subterranean sewer system in the late 19th century. Each canoe would be a nod to the not-too-distant ecological past when the creek ran through the neighbourhood, and would provide much-needed habitat for local bees and butterflies.

Over the next three years, volunteers planted dozens of repurposed canoes throughout Toronto, Markham and Richmond Hill. Today, the canoe garden network stretches from Cape Breton to Vancouver Island, providing pollen and nectar patches for local critters and whimsical native plant demonstration gardens for passersby.

The idea to plant a canoe fleet was inspired by American author and entomologist Douglas Tallamy. In his book Bringing Nature Home, Tallamy offered a novel way to increase biodiversity in communities. Instead of relying on government agencies to establish green spaces like parks and conservation reserves, he encouraged residents to create “Homegrown National Parks.” Unlike traditional national parks, these loose patchworks of habitat would be citizen-led. They could be on private or public lands and, most importantly, planted with native plants, shrubs and trees that support local insects and wildlife.

The David Suzuki Foundation took up Tallamy’s challenge to create Canada’s first Homegrown National Park and enlisted the help of a couple dozen volunteers, including Toronto resident Aidan Dahlin Nolan, who became one of the first Homegrown Park Rangers in 2013.

After a few years of plantings, events and musical parades, the Homegrown National Park Project morphed into the Butterflyway Project in 2017. Still Ranger-powered, it’s expanded from a local greening initiative into a national network of volunteers creating Butterflyways — neighbourhood-scale habitat corridors for pollinators and other wildlife.

It’s now come full circle. The David Suzuki Foundation is collaborating with the new U.S.-based Homegrown National Park organization Tallamy co-founded. People in Canada can now officially join this growing movement by uploading their native plant gardens to the Canadian Homegrown National Park Map. The goal is to highlight how much is happening on the ground — stitching together a growing international patchwork of individual actions into one inspiring movement.

The project is a lot of fun, but it’s motivated by troubling trends for the tiny creatures that run the world: insects. Despite being the planet’s largest and most diverse group of organisms, insect populations have dropped by 45 per cent over the past 40 years as a result of industrial agriculture, urbanization, invasive species and climate change. In rural areas, natural habitat has been replaced by monoculture crops maintained with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Urban areas are characterized by impermeable surfaces, high temperatures and non-native vegetation — all of which lead to fewer insects.

The good news is that insect devastation isn’t inevitable. Each one of us can play a hands-on role in helping bring back local populations. Contributing to grassroots habitat-creation initiatives like the award-winning Butterflyway Project and adding plantings to the Homegrown National Park Map are small, simple actions that, when multiplied by thousands of volunteers and groups and agencies, will make a big difference.

Douglas Tallamy is a scientist who is able to communicate complicated concepts, such as insect collapses and conservation, in simple and inspiring ways. Decades into his tireless efforts to bring nature home, he argues that the task is not as enormous as it seems. “You can’t reverse insect declines by yourself, but if we each do our own small part, not only can we restore insect populations, we will create the largest collective conservation effort in history,” he wrote in a 2020 Washington Post article.

All it takes is a couple of trays of native wildflowers, gardening gloves and a gentler approach to managing our yards and neighbourhoods — and perhaps an old canoe.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Strategist Jode Roberts. 

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org. 

People who oppose the transition from polluting, climate-altering fossil fuel energy to cleaner, renewable energy often point to the latter’s negative impacts.

Rapidly advancing renewable energy technologies aren’t problem-free. After all, nothing we do is without consequences. But are the arguments against wind, water and solar energy valid?

One is that mining required for wind, solar and storage technologies is unacceptably destructive. You can’t make something from nothing, and like all products, wind turbines, solar panels, batteries and transmission infrastructure use materials, many of which must be taken from earth or oceans.

That’s why energy efficiency and conservation are so important. We consume far more than necessary, especially in the Western world. The first R is always “reduce.” We also have to consider the life cycle of products, to ensure we recycle, reuse and repurpose as much as possible.

Many renewable energy and storage technologies use minerals such as lithium, copper, graphite, zinc, cobalt, copper, nickel and rare earth minerals — far more than fossil fuel infrastructure, in fact. As the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Climate Portal notes, this requires energy and freshwater, produces greenhouse gas emissions and waste, can be dangerous for workers and is sometimes tied to labour and human rights abuses.

Of course, these problems and more also exist with fossil fuel extraction and use, often to a much greater degree.

A December 2021 study by researchers from the Baker Institute Center for Energy Studies in Texas found, “Even if the world increased 12-fold the annual global production of all rare earths, lithium, cobalt, and even copper, the metals produced would comprise just 3% of 2020 world coal production. Over two decades, five times more power would be produced by mining an equivalent amount for wind rather than coal.”

Mark Jacobson, Stanford University professor and author of No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air, says wind and solar require about one per cent of the mining fossil fuel energy needs in terms of materials mass.

The Baker Institute study also found renewable technologies come with less political risk, because “they depend on trade only for the acquisition of materials and components during construction” and so are “not exposed to the political risks that plague fossil fuel production and shipments, such as interdiction, embargo, civil war, labor actions, and other disruptions.”

Jacobson also notes that, because wind, solar and water (hydroelectric, tidal, ocean current, geothermal, etc.) are more efficient than burning coal, oil and gas, and require less energy to obtain than fossil and nuclear fuels, global energy use from renewables is 56 per cent lower and annual costs about 63 per cent lower. Adding health and climate savings makes renewables even more cost-effective.

Many of mining’s environmental and social impacts can be reduced by “adopting improved regulations and lower-impact methods,” including “improving community consultation processes, ensuring comprehensive mine closure and remediation of abandoned mine sites, and exploring ways to reduce or reuse mining waste,” according to MIT.

Rapidly advancing technologies will also help, such as smaller, lighter batteries, better ways to obtain lithium and development of storage solutions such as sodium-ion batteries, which use abundant sodium from seawater. Obtaining materials from recycling or secondary sources is also necessary.

The space renewable energy infrastructure takes up is also an issue. But unlike fossil fuel developments, wind turbines and solar panels can often coexist with other uses; for example, wind turbines can be placed on agricultural land and solar panels on roofs.

Siting is also important to reduce harm to nature and wildlife, such as the effects of wind turbines on birds and bats. Again, although these impacts must be considered and avoided or reduced, it’s important to note that extracting, transporting and burning coal, oil and gas cause far more damage to wildlife and ecosystems.

A systemic shift from an economy based on excessive, wasteful consumption of energy and products is critical. We also need to reduce problems from energy we do use. Although no technology will ever be impact-free, renewable energy uses far fewer resources overall, takes up less space, is more efficient, pollutes less, isn’t as environmentally damaging, creates fewer health problems and deaths and is better for the climate than fossil fuel energy.

There’s just no comparison!

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

In many countries — most notably the U.S. — corporations are considered “persons” under law, enjoying many of the same legal rights and responsibilities as “natural” persons. Judging by the way some corporations operate, you might conclude they’re not very good people.

Defining corporations as “persons” simply means they have a legal identity separate from shareholders and owners. But what is the purpose of a business or corporation? If you look at sectors such as the fossil fuel industry, you might be led to believe the primary aim is to enrich shareholders and CEOs, and maybe create some employment, regardless of the costs to society.

Generating profits and jobs is important in an economic system that relies on those principles, but they shouldn’t be the ultimate goals. The British Academy — the U.K.’s national institution for the humanities and social sciences — concluded from its research on the future of the corporation “that the purpose of business is to solve the problems of people and planet profitably, and not profit from causing problems.”

In most countries, it’s left up to business owners, CEOs and boards to decide what their purpose is, and all too often the choice is ultimately based on greed. That’s why many countries, including France and the U.K., have started incorporating corporate purpose into legal frameworks.

France amended its Civil Code in 2019 to include, “The company is managed in its corporate interest, while taking into account the social and environmental issues related to its activity.” It also introduced a measure, albeit not mandatory, for companies to articulate their reason for being in their “articles of association.”

Although many Canadian companies have vision and mission statements, these often amount to little more than public relations and don’t spell out any legal duties or requirements. The Canada Business Corporations Act doesn’t require a statement of corporate purpose. It’s time to change that, for the good of society and the corporations themselves.

Research shows companies with stated purposes that take into account their impacts on people and the planet often do better than those without. They attract loyal customers willing to advocate for and promote them. And the companies enjoy better reputations and are able to attract good employees who stay longer.

A U.S. study found 60 per cent of Americans would “choose, switch, avoid or boycott a company based on its stand on social issues.” Another found that 66 per cent of people would switch from a product they normally buy to one from a purpose-driven company.

The real bottom line, though, is that the world can no longer afford to support or sustain companies that exist almost entirely to make money. Humanity is reeling under numerous crises brought on by consumer-driven economics based on the fallacy of endless growth in a finite world — from biodiversity loss to gross inequality to climate disruption.

A new David Suzuki Foundation report offers a way for Canada to correct course. “Bringing Corporate Purpose into the Mainstream: Directions for Canadian Law” recommends major changes to the Canada Business Corporations Act to ensure that large companies prioritize people and planet over profit. It’s part of a global movement to shift the focus of economic systems from money-driven consumerism to well-being.

Among its recommendations, the report — by academics from the Faculty of Law at McGill University — calls for the act to be reformed to require corporate boards to have a statement of purpose, to extend the fiduciary duty of directors and officers to pursuing the purpose of the corporation in good faith with a view to its best interests, and to broaden those best interests to include impacts on the community in which it operates.

“Part of transforming to a society that values our needs, relationships and the natural world is ensuring corporations are held accountable for their actions. Establishing a corporate purpose is one tool to help enable that shift,” said Tara Campbell, David Suzuki Foundation well-being economies specialist.

These reforms won’t transform society by themselves, and would only apply to large corporations that operate under the act, but they’re an important step in the necessary shift from a society that prioritizes wealth accumulation and economic growth to one that puts personal and societal well-being above the pursuit of profit.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Long-awaited bill to update Canadian Environmental Protection Act faces final MP vote.

OTTAWA | TRADITIONAL, UNCEDED TERRITORY OF THE ALGONQUIN ANISHNAABEG PEOPLE – Bill S-5, which seeks to reform the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) for the first in more than two decades, must be passed into law as soon as possible this spring, say five leading health and environmental groups. The House of Commons committee studying the legislation reported the bill with amendments yesterday. MPs must now approve the bill in a final vote.

While Bill S-5 does not address all aspects of CEPA in need of modernization, its passage will represent important progress:

• It introduces long-overdue updates for the control of toxic substances and dangerous chemicals, including requiring that priority be given to prohibiting the most hazardous substances. The bill also updates the framework for assessing and managing toxic substances and improves transparency and accountability.
• The right to a healthy environment will be recognized for the first time under federal law. The legislation establishes a new duty for the government to uphold the principles of environmental justice, intergenerational equity and non-regression. It also requires the federal government to consider the cumulative impacts of toxics, and their effects on vulnerable populations.

The groups welcomed the introduction of the original version of this bill in April 2021 and called for it to be prioritized and strengthened. Following the 2021 elections, the bill was reintroduced in the Senate as S-5 last year and then progressed to the House. The Senate and House committees that studied the bill passed amendments that improve key provisions, addressing some – though not all – of the groups’ recommendations.

The groups now call on all MPs to prioritize the passage of these important updates to CEPA, Canada’s cornerstone environmental law.

While passage of the bill is urgent, it is regrettable that members of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development rejected proposed amendments to require action on air pollution, labelling of hazardous substances in consumer products and clear timelines for action on toxics, among other proposals – such as improving control of genetically modified animals and strengthening CEPA requirements for pollution prevention planning – to further strengthen Bill S-5.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault has indicated that he intends to introduce a second CEPA modernization bill. It will need to address these outstanding recommendations for CEPA reform, to complement Bill S-5.

The groups supporting this statement are:

• Environmental Defence
• Breast Cancer Action Quebec
• Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE)
• David Suzuki Foundation
• Ecojustice

For more information or media inquiries:

• Paula Gray, media@environmentaldefence.ca, 705-435-8611
• Viorica Lorcencova, viorica.lorcencova@acsqc.ca, 514-443-8437
• Jane McArthur, media@cape.ca / jane@cape.ca, 647-762-9168
• Brendan Glauser, bglauser@davidsuzuki.org, 604-356-8829
• Sean O’Shea, soshea@ecojustice.ca, 416-368-7533 ext. 523

Reproduced from David Suzuki’s Newsletter

Resolving the climate crisis is a challenge — but not for lack of solutions. What’s needed is political will and public support.

Considerable research shows existing methods and technologies could quickly shift the world away from fossil fuels — even without accounting for rapidly advancing renewable energy and storage technologies.

As Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson told the Guardian, “We have wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, electric cars. We have batteries, heat pumps, energy efficiency. We have 95% of the technologies right now that we need to solve the problem,” adding that the remaining five per cent “is for long-distance aircraft and ships…for which hydrogen-powered fuel cells can be developed.”

In his forthcoming book No Miracles Needed, Jacobson lists other benefits, including reducing pollution and related health care costs and deaths, lowering energy prices and improving energy efficiency (much of the energy from fossil fuels is lost as heat).

David Suzuki Foundation research shows that by prioritizing wind, solar, energy storage, energy efficiency and interprovincial transmission, Canada could reach zero-emissions electricity by 2035 “without relying on expensive and sometimes unproven and dangerous technologies like nuclear or fossil gas with carbon capture and storage.”

Although Jacobson sees a possible role for “direct air capture” technologies that remove CO2 from the air, he’s skeptical about carbon capture and storage, new nuclear, biofuels and blue hydrogen (which requires fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage to produce).

“Carbon capture and storage is solely designed to keep the fossil fuel industry in business,” Jacobson told the Guardian. As many, including me, have pointed out, nuclear is expensive and takes a long time to build, while renewable energy is readily available at far lower costs. Biofuels still pollute and often require lots of land.

As for the oft-repeated claim that mining for renewable energy materials is too destructive, Jacobson says the mining required for wind and solar is about one per cent of that required for the fossil fuel system in terms of the mass of materials. (That doesn’t mean we should dismiss mining-related issues.)

Not everyone shares Jacobson’s optimism, but he makes compelling arguments and backs them with substantial research. Why wouldn’t we employ all available solutions, when failing to do so will lead to catastrophe?

Much of the pushback is from oil, gas and coal interests and the short-sighted politicians, “dark money” groups and media that support them — as has been the case for the many decades we’ve known burning fossil fuels and destroying natural systems that store carbon are causing the world to heat to levels inhospitable to humans and many other beings.

Plenty of industry propaganda is misleading and disingenuous, and counts on widespread lack of awareness among the public, especially older people who tend to vote more often. For example, arguments that Canada’s oilsands industry is cleaning up its act and reducing emissions fail to mention this only refers to operations emissions and not the far more serious problems caused by burning the fuels in countries we export to.

Although the fossil fuel industry is responsible for significant misinformation, promoters of other large-scale power sources are also digging in, as it’s easier under current economic systems to profit from these often-monopolized sources.

As one small example, a racketeering trial just got underway in Ohio against top Republican lawmakers accused of taking $60 million in bribes — mostly funnelled through a secretive, tax-exempt dark money group called Generation Now — to bail out ailing nuclear power plants by adding a surcharge to customers’ energy bills.

A Guardian article notes the case follows similar scandals in Arizona, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida. Money was also channelled through Generation Now to subsidize ailing coal plants by raising prices. Along with lobbying to increase solar costs, these moves increase prices for customers and slow or prevent cleaner energy from coming online.

Governments worldwide are finally realizing we don’t have time to waste in shifting to cleaner energy and that doing so comes with many benefits beyond those for climate — especially if they ensure affected workers and marginalized people and communities are looked after in the transition.

Politicians are accountable to the people they serve, not to wealthy corporate interests, so it’s important for all of us to demand action, through petitions, letters, calls, demonstrations and voting. People have the power!

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

By now, anyone paying attention knows that burning coal, oil and gas has created a crisis that threatens our survival. The scientific evidence — in fields including physics, geography, oceanography, meteorology, chemistry, biology and more — is indisputable. All major scientific institutions and national governments confirm this.

Still, many people continue to deny or downplay the problem. Writers for major media outlets complain about climate “alarmism,” failing to realize that if you aren’t alarmed by what’s happening, you aren’t paying attention.

A dwindling minority of the public prefers to believe industry propaganda over actual science, but it’s often those who aren’t adequately educated or versed in critical thinking, or who fear change. Others understand the threat but ignore it.

Speaking to the latter, climate activist Greta Thunberg said, “To all of you who choose to look the other way every day because you seem more frightened of the changes that can prevent catastrophic climate change than the catastrophic climate change itself: Your silence is worst of all.”

Fear and ignorance may be somewhat excusable. But what about those who knew, and still know, that overheating the planet with fossil fuels and destroying natural systems that keep the carbon cycle in balance will create calamitous consequences for humanity — but who say or do nothing, or cover up what they know, for the sake of profit?

Recently uncovered documents and research papers show oil giant Exxon knew as early as the 1970s that using its products would cause global heating. Other oil industry organizations knew as early as the 1950s. Research shows projections from Exxon’s own scientists starting in the 1970s were astonishingly accurate — that burning coal, oil and gas would cause heating of about 0.2 C per decade.

“We now have the smoking gun showing that they accurately predicted warming years before they started attacking the science,” said Geoffrey Supran, who led the study by Harvard University and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Instead of providing urgent warnings and shifting from a business model that UN secretary general António Guterres calls “inconsistent with human survival,” Exxon executives have put enormous resources into downplaying, discrediting and denying research by their own and other scientists. In 2013, Exxon’s then-CEO Rex Tillerson, who later served as secretary of state under U.S. President Donald Trump, claimed that climate models were “not competent.”

Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald told the Guardian that delays brought on by the misinformation have had “profound implications,” as the knowledge they covered up could have sparked a much faster shift to renewable energy.

Now, everyone is affected: from heat domes to atmospheric rivers, floods to droughts, migration crises to global conflicts, the consequences are increasing daily in all parts of the world. It will only get worse as we hit tipping points that could set off irreversible changes.

As just one of many examples, Greenland ice, which has helped keep the planet cool, is rapidly melting as the country reaches average temperatures warmer than in at least 1,000 years.

This could add more than 50 centimetres to rising sea levels by the end of the century!

Although it’s becoming impossible for industry executives to deny what science and observation confirm, they’ve come up with other ways to keep the money rolling in. They continue to argue that we’ll need their products for decades to come and that we “can’t shift overnight,” even though they’ve prevented us from starting the necessary transition that should have begun decades ago.

And, as the implications of burning coal and oil are indisputable, they’ve started touting “natural” gas (which is almost entirely the potent greenhouse gas methane) as a “green” fuel. The Washington Post recently revealed how “dark money” groups tied to the fossil fuel industry have convinced lawmakers in the U.S. to enact legislation redefining fossil gas as “green.”

The Empowerment Alliance and American Legislative Exchange Council (both anonymously funded) are working to get states to overturn renewable energy requirements or rebrand gas as “clean.”

Enough is enough. We’ve already wasted too much time, too many valuable resources and too many lives just to enrich people who care little if at all about anything beyond themselves. It’s time to hold industry accountable and end the fossil fuel era! A cleaner future is possible.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org

Cooking with gas has some advantages over cooking on conventional electric stoves, as gas stoves heat and cool instantly. But it’s not difficult to prepare amazing meals on an electric range, and efficient induction ranges offer even more versatility than gas — without the problems.

Those problems are significant, from household pollution to global heating. Gas stoves release dangerous pollutants into homes, buildings and the atmosphere, including nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and particulate matter.

A recent analysis of 27 studies on the effects of gas appliances on children concluded 12.7 per cent of current childhood asthma in the U.S. can be attributed to gas stove use — ranging from three per cent in Florida to 21.1 per cent in Illinois. (The percentage of homes with gas stoves is much higher in Illinois than in Florida.) About 40 million U.S. households, 38 per cent, have gas stoves.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found nitrogen dioxide concentrations are 50 to 400 per cent higher in homes with gas stoves than homes with electric appliances.

Nitrogen dioxide can cause cardiovascular and respiratory problems and exacerbate illnesses like flu and COVID-19. As a Vox article notes, “Outside, the EPA would consider the level of NO2 produced by the stove illegal. Inside, though, there is no regulation.”

Gas furnaces and water heaters cause less indoor air pollution because many jurisdictions require them to be vented outside — contributing to outdoor air pollution and climate change. (Research shows buildings in California emit more nitrogen oxides than power plants, and almost as much as cars.)

So-called “natural” gas is almost entirely methane, a greenhouse gas pollutant about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over the short term. All along the supply chain, from extraction and production to transportation and use, considerable amounts of it escape into the atmosphere.

Health issues around gas appliances have been known since the 1980s. But as with other problems fossil fuels cause, industry has put considerable resources into downplaying or denying the dangers, and into promoting gas appliances.

Those efforts are heating up as many jurisdictions consider banning gas stoves for new homes and buildings. The tactics are wide-ranging: massive ad and “influencer” campaigns, fake grassroots groups and supporters (known as “astroturfing”) to support gas over electric, lobbying politicians and, sometimes, outright threats. Even the term “natural gas” was coined back in the 1930s as a way to portray it as a clean, affordable fuel. As a Mother Jones article points out, industry also adopted the slogan “cooking with gas” in the 1930s.

Industry argues proper ventilation will resolve indoor pollution issues. Putting aside the fact that this just moves pollution outdoors, most jurisdictions don’t require venting that would keep indoor air pure. Many people can’t afford to install adequate range hoods and fans, and renters often have no say.

The advantages of cooking with gas over conventional electric are mostly about convenience, and newer induction stoves, which use magnetics to heat, are more efficient, safer and better for indoor and outdoor environments. They’re also not subject to the volatility of fossil fuel markets.

However, shifting to electricity in all areas of our lives also means using cleaner sources, such as wind and solar. The main disadvantage of induction stoves is that they don’t work with all types of cookware — including copper and aluminium — but even that can be overcome by placing those pots and pans on a suitable metal heat plate.

Not everyone can immediately replace their polluting gas appliance, but incentives, regulations and building codes can ensure gas becomes a thing of the past. Of course, if you continue to use a gas stove, you should vent to the outside, or at least keep windows open while using it.

As with fossil fuels wastefully burned in cars, gas for cooking was never really about efficiency or affordability. The goal was to get people to buy and burn more to enrich the most profitable industry in history. Instead of recognizing the true value of these limited stores of concentrated solar energy that took millennia to create, our growth-driven economic system has long relied on burning them up as quickly as possible.

Its’ time to change that, for the health of our children, ourselves and the planet.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org

The following is adapted from the prologue to the 25th anniversary edition of The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature (Greystone Books), released in December.

As host of the long-running television series The Nature of Things, I learned of the battle over clearcut logging on Haida Gwaii, off the coast of British Columbia, in the 1970s. For thousands of years, the islands have been home to the Haida. Forest companies had been denuding much of the islands by clearcut logging, which had generated growing opposition.

In the early 1980s, I flew to Haida Gwaii to interview loggers, forestry officials, government bureaucrats, environmentalists and Indigenous people. One of the people I interviewed was a young Haida artist named Guujaaw who had led the opposition to logging for years.

Unemployment was high in Haida communities, and logging generated desperately needed jobs. So I asked Guujaaw why he opposed the logging. He answered, “Our people have determined that Windy Bay and other areas must be left in their natural condition so that we can keep our identity and pass it on to following generations. The forests, those oceans, are what keep us as Haida people today.”

When I asked him what would happen if the logging continued and the trees were cleared, he answered simply, “If they’re logged off, we’ll probably end up the same as everyone else, I guess.”

It was a simple statement whose implications escaped me at the time. But on reflection, I realized that he had given me a glimpse into a profoundly different way of seeing the world. Guujaaw’s statement suggested that for his people, the trees, the birds, the fish, the water and wind are all parts of Haida identity.

Ever since that interview, I have been a student learning from encounters with Indigenous Peoples in many parts of the world. From Japan to Australia, Papua New Guinea, Borneo, the Kalahari, the Amazon and the Arctic, Indigenous people have expressed to me that vital need to be connected to the land. They refer to Earth as their Mother, who they say gives birth to us. Moreover, skin enfolds our bodies but does not define our limits because water, gases and heat dissipating from our bodies radiate outward, joining us to the world around us. What I have learned is a perspective that we are an inseparable part of a community of organisms that are our kin.

With this realization, I also saw that environmentalists like me had been framing the issue improperly. There is no environment “out there” that is separate from us. We can’t manage our impact on the environment if we are our surroundings. Indigenous people are absolutely correct: we are born of the Earth and constructed from the four sacred elements of earth, air, fire and water. (Hindus add a fifth element, space.)

Once I had finally understood the truth of these ancient wisdoms, I also realized that we are intimately fused to our surroundings and the notion of separateness or isolation is an illusion. Through reading I came to understand that science reaffirms the profundity of these ancient truths over and over again.

We are no more removed from nature than any other creature, even in the midst of a large city. Our animal nature dictates our essential needs: clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy. This led me to another insight, that these four “sacred elements” are created, cleansed and renewed by the web of life itself. If there is to be a fifth sacred element, it is biodiversity itself. And whatever we do to these elements, we do directly to ourselves.

At the most basic level, we require the five sacred elements to live rich, full lives. But when those basic necessities are met, a new set of needs arises. We are social animals, and the most profound force shaping our humanity is love. And when that vital social requirement is fulfilled, then a new level of spiritual needs arises as an urgent priority. This is how I made the fundamental re-examination of our relationship with Earth that led to The Sacred Balance.

The challenge of this millennium is to recognize what we need to live rich, rewarding lives without undermining the very elements that ensure them.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

The human population just reached eight billion! Does it matter?

Our numbers have quadrupled in my lifetime — and doubled since 1975. It’s undeniable that rapid growth of any species in a finite environment will have consequences. As humans require more land, water, trees and fuels, we leave less for other species and upset ecological equilibrium.

When people consume as we have in the Global North, or aspire to, the problems become far more severe.

How connected are climate change and population growth, though? Maybe not so much. A recent UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs report states, “although high-income and upper-middle-income countries contain around 50 per cent of the global population, they contribute around 85 per cent of global emissions of carbon dioxide. Such emissions from upper-middle-income countries have more than doubled since 2000, even though the population growth rate was falling throughout this period.”

The average person in the U.S. and Canada emits more than twice as much as someone in the European Union or the U.K. and 10 times as much as in India and Pakistan. But Pakistan, like many countries that have contributed least to the problem, has been hit hard by climate impacts, with one-third of the country devastated by floods in 2022.

It’s clear that the immediate concern is excessive consumption. Population growth is already slowing, with 10.4 billion humans expected by 2080, followed by a levelling off. One study found that increase would contribute much less to global heating than, for example, not putting a price on carbon.

We can cut consumption immediately, but stabilizing population growth takes time, and will require ongoing global efforts to strengthen women’s rights, provide education to women, girls and families and ensure access to family planning resources and birth control.

Focusing more on population than consumption ignores the far greater impacts wealthy countries — where population growth is slowing — are creating.

Consider also that much of the Global North’s wealth is in effect stolen from the Global South. Through ongoing colonial enterprises, wealthy people and nations have exploited the natural resources and people of lands everywhere — from slavery to driving Indigenous Peoples from their own territories and destroying lands and waters for mining, fossil fuel development, industrial agriculture and massive dams and power plants.

One study found unequal exchange is draining US$10 trillion a year from Global South countries and that “in 2015 the North net appropriated from the South 12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents, 822 million hectares of embodied land, 21 exajoules of embodied energy, and 188 million person-years of embodied labour, worth $10.8 trillion in Northern prices — enough to end extreme poverty 70 times over.”

They concluded that this “unequal exchange is significant driver of global inequality, uneven development, and ecological breakdown.”

Climate disruption is caused mainly by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from consumer-driven economics in the Global North, much of it founded on exploitation of labour and resources of countries and people who don’t reap anything near equal benefits. Many of those countries are now experiencing severe climate-related crises, from massive floods to deadly heat waves to increasing human migration. And people argue population growth is the main problem?

That’s why recent discussions at the COP27 climate summit and beyond about “loss and damage” compensation and funding to help Global South countries adapt to the inevitable and avoid the worst climate impacts should not have been controversial.

All of us who have benefited from decades or centuries of exploitation owe a debt to vulnerable people, communities and nations. At the very least, we ought to do everything possible to curtail our consumer lifestyles and reduce our environmental footprints, including reducing emissions.

But it’s not just up to individuals; industry must pay its share. That’s why a “windfall profits tax” is garnering a lot of attention. Properly done, it would tax the massive returns fossil fuel companies are raking in — fuelled in part by global conflict — and use the money to help those at risk.

Our immediate crisis is caused by a system that encourages endless growth, exploitation, waste and energy use. Population growth is a factor, but it’s one that can be addressed partly by rethinking our greed-based economic system and the inequalities it creates.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

As the 27th UN climate conference of the parties (COP27) wraps up, we can’t lose sight of the biodiversity COP15 (or NatureCOP) from December 7 to 19 in Montreal. As a host country that’s failing in many ways to protect and restore its vast, diverse ecosystems, Canada has a large role and responsibility.

Delegates from countries worldwide will meet for the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to try to finalize the Global Biodiversity Framework, “to bring about a transformation in society’s relationship with biodiversity and to ensure that, by 2050, the shared vision of living in harmony with nature is fulfilled.”

It’s a huge and necessary goal, and Canada must get on board. That means stopping destructive practices like logging old-growth forests. Despite government assurances that it would “fundamentally transform the way we manage our old-growth forests, lands and resources,” it’s been especially bad here in British Columbia.

A 2021 old growth technical advisory panel found B.C. has cut well over half the estimated 25 million hectares of natural forest that existed before large-scale industrial logging began. Only 11 million hectares remain, much of it unprotected and/or at risk.

Healthy ecosystems throughout the country are being sliced up by roads for industrial incursion, dug up and drilled for minerals and oil, fracked for gas and cleared for more urban sprawl and highways.

We continue to see the same battles between those who want to protect, restore and live in harmony with forests, waterways, wetlands and more, and government- and police-backed extraction companies who want to enrich themselves and their shareholders while creating a few temporary jobs.

We’ve seen it in Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island, the Klabona or Sacred Headwaters in northern B.C. and Wetʼsuwetʼen territory on the North Coast. We were fighting similar battles decades ago, in Clayoquot Sound, the Stein Valley and Site C.

Canada’s government recognizes the importance of protecting and restoring nature. It’s pledged to protect 25 per cent of lands and oceans by 2025 while working toward 30 per cent by 2030. Its commitment to marine protected areas and networks and expanded national wildlife areas is admirable and essential, as is getting open-net fish farms out of the way of wild salmon.

The government also promised “close collaboration and partnership with First Nations, Inuit and Métis.” This is crucial and must include Indigenous representation in decision-making and governance over traditional lands. Indigenous protected and conserved areas are an emerging way to combine recognition of Indigenous rights and governance with conservation and restoration goals.

But with rampant gas fracking, oil exploitation, logging and mining and the infrastructure that comes with them, B.C. and Canada don’t appear remotely ready to realize the convention’s vision of “living in harmony with nature” any time soon. Short-sighted, outdated economics too often put continued fossil fuel and other industrial dollars ahead of the natural systems we rely on for health, well-being and survival.

As the UN Environment Programme states, “Despite on-going efforts, biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide and this decline is projected to worsen with business-as-usual scenarios.” The biodiversity and climate crises are interconnected, rooted in an exploitative system that encourages greed, waste, pollution and rapid resource depletion.

The UN Association in Canada says the estimated million species at risk of extinction worldwide has critical implications: “From the collapse of food supplies, to direct threats to health, to the disruption of supply chains, the loss of nature is a loss for us all.”

At NatureCOP, delegates will discuss, among other issues, a proposal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss in lands and oceans by 2050, and funding. But talk is one thing; no government has met its nature-protection targets over the past 15 years. And countries must ensure the measures don’t exacerbate global inequality.

As with climate change, we’re trying to patch a broken system. Western scientific research has clearly identified the rapidly growing problem, but we need the knowledge and wisdom of Indigenous Peoples who have lived in place for millennia to truly learn to live in harmony within Earth’s intricately interconnected biosphere.

The COP15 biodiversity convention and COP27 climate summit reaffirm that the massive overarching crises we’re facing require systemic change and better ways of seeing, not more tinkering and incremental change.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

This summer, a Fortis BC booth at a Vancouver farmers market displayed the slogan, “Natural gas is good for your home.”

Fortis and other fossil gas companies call their product an “affordable luxury” — “a safe, reliable source of energy that’s easy to use in your home or business.” Fortis even claims to be helping meet climate goals because its product “is the cleanest fossil fuel, and it’s an abundant, local energy source.”

Safe, abundant, natural, local and good for the environment! What’s not to like? Sure, exploiting the mostly fracked gas devastates huge swathes of landscape, consumes enormous volumes of water, emits copious amounts of the powerful greenhouse gas methane (which it largely is) and causes health problems in households where it’s used, but at least the company is increasing its mix of “renewable natural gas” (which doesn’t live up to its hype) “and exploring the possibilities of adding hydrogen gas to our system.”

Fortis ads may not seem overly egregious in light of the fossil fuel industry’s massive decades-long efforts to manipulate information and discourse around climate disruption — which Geoff Dembicki brilliantly illustrates in his essential new book The Petroleum Papers — but they show there’s no end in sight to the all-out drive to keep the fossil fuel industry burning.

How much more proof do we need that burning coal, oil and gas is heating the planet before we take it seriously and quickly shift away from all fossil fuels? Unfortunately, industry and its supporters continue to respond to the ever-mounting evidence (some of it their own!) with greenwashing, gaslighting and coverups — stalling the necessary transition to renewable energy.

During a recent Washington, D.C., congressional hearing into the role of fossil fuels in the climate crisis, reams of unveiled documents showed “companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted ‘gaslighting’ the public over purported efforts to go green” and denigrated activists.

House committee on oversight and reform co-chair Ro Khanna said they reveal oil companies’ “climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks and misleading language to hide the reality.”

Fossil fuel benefits mostly flow to industry executives and shareholders, with everyone else paying the price. Workers are being displaced by automation, market conditions and global realities. Economies and individuals are shuddering under volatile global fossil fuel markets. Indigenous and rural communities are being uprooted, or are seeing lands degraded by fossil fuel exploration and development. People are suffering and dying from pollution.

The global climate is reacting to our excessive fossil fuel burning in increasingly costly ways that put human health and lives — as well as other life on this small planet — at risk.

In the past, politicians and others absurdly argued addressing issues like climate change would be too expensive. That’s ensured the costs of the crisis continue to mount as we forgo the benefits of a major, just transition. We’ll all be better off — healthier, happier, with greater economic stability — when governments and industry treat the climate crisis with the gravity it demands.

Beyond curtailing emissions, we must also respond to impacts already set in motion. Canadian Climate Institute analysis found investing in adaptation could cut many climate change costs by 75 per cent if we also reduce emissions in line with international commitments, and that every dollar invested in proactive adaptation measures “can return $13-$15 in direct and indirect benefits.”

The report, “Damage Control,” noted severe weather caused $2.1 billion in insured damages in 2021, not including costs related to public infrastructure or uninsured private losses. It estimated disaster recovery will cost Canada $5 billion annually by 2025 and $17 billion by 2050.

The climate crisis is real and accelerating. It’s caused by burning coal, oil and gas and destroying “carbon sinks” like forests and wetlands. Many solutions are available. We can’t continue to let the fossil fuel industry “gaslight” us into thinking the reality is otherwise.

The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment is calling for a “comprehensive ban on advertising by fossil fuel industries, products, and services (such as gasoline and gas utilities) and internal combustion engine vehicles,” a “robust regulatory response to address misleading environmental claims by fossil fuel companies” and regulations “mandating the disclosure of the health and environmental risks associated with fossil fuel production and use.” It’s a good start.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Environmental racism or discrimination can take many forms. It can mean building polluting factories or mines next to Indigenous communities, or “relocating” marginalized or racialized people to make room for an industrial project or dam.

To find an urban example, look to the trees. Research shows wealthier neighbourhoods usually have better tree and shrub cover than poorer, more diverse neighbourhoods. That’s important for a number of reasons. First, most of us live in cities — 80 per cent in Canada. Beyond the fact that they look nice and increase property values, trees and shrubs reduce pollution and noise, keep air cooler, decrease flooding and runoff, make cities more resilient, improve mental health and well-being, and provide shelter and habitat for numerous animals.

Trees’ ability to cool and shade is particularly critical as the planet heats up. Sadly, people in areas with fewer trees also often lack air conditioners or public buildings where they can get relief.

Giving more people better access to treed green spaces is something everyone can get behind. David Suzuki Foundation studies in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto found residents in all three cities are willing to invest in “an urban forest with a higher density of trees, a wider diversity of tree species, the presence of street shrubs.”

The studies — conducted by researchers at the University of Quebec in Outaouais and University of Montreal — point out that, in terms of resilience, social acceptance and economic viability, natural infrastructure is one of the most effective climate adaptation solutions.

They also noted that “the distribution of vegetation over a city’s territory is generally uneven: poorer or more multicultural neighbourhoods often have a thinner canopy than their richer or white neighbours. These well-documented inequalities can be seen in cities around the world, and Canadian cities are no exception.”

It’s especially important as research shows urban areas are heating faster than rural areas — on average about 29 per cent. A study by scientists at Nanjing and Yale universities found planting trees along streets, creating rain gardens and removing pavement can create a cooling effect and reduce the rate of urban warming. Increasing trees and green spaces in urban areas has already reduced heat in cities in Europe and the U.S.

But just as urban life can be difficult for residents in areas lacking green spaces and trees, it can also be difficult for trees. “Trees are not given enough room, they have poor soil quality and limited access to water,” University of British Columbia assistant forestry professor Lorien Nesbitt told the West End Journal. “They’re usually planted in an environment after all the grey infrastructure has already gone in. We need to create more space for trees in our city, and to prioritize protecting them.”

A recent study in Nature found that “more than two-thirds of tree species across cities worldwide are facing severe climate risks, undermining their roles in climate adaptation and other ecosystem services they provide.” The researchers recommend cities everywhere take immediate measures such as planting more trees and shrubs, especially climate-resilient ones, and channelling rainfall into rain gardens or tanks.

An urban forest is not, after all, the same as a wild forest, with its incredible diversity, mother trees, interconnected mycelial networks and abundance of wildlife. Urban plantings need to be planned and executed in ways that ensure resilience, including increasing tree and shrub diversity. The Foundation study found that, just as tree cover is lacking in neighbourhoods with socio-economically vulnerable populations, tree diversity was also proportionately lower, increasing “the risk of destruction of a larger part of the urban forest in these neighbourhoods following a disturbance.”

It’s no wonder that research found such widespread support for more urban greening. Not only do trees, shrubs, rain gardens, “Butterflyways” and other green spaces offer numerous benefits for everything from human health and well-being to the climate crisis, they can also save enormous amounts of money by reducing health care costs, making city infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather–related events and even reducing crime.

Greening cities is a crucial part of resolving the climate crisis, but it also offers ways to address the many inequities that poor urban planning has created and climate disruption has exacerbated. It’s an affordable, practical, popular solution with numerous benefits and no real downside.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Moose management in Canada is unique compared to other wildlife management. The primary driver of most species’ decline in Canada is habitat loss and fragmentation. Yet moose enjoy the new browse that springs up after an area has been disturbed, so it’s long been thought they benefit from industrial activities like clearcutting. Because moose are widely hunted, provinces and territories are charged with managing their habitat, ensuring healthy populations and granting tags to hunters.

Although Canada hasn’t assessed moose as at risk nationally, reports are increasing of their worrisome decline in many provinces. Governments cite myriad factors, include disease, climate change, parasites and habitat alteration.

“The population is, in my opinion, heading toward a crisis and if the decline isn’t stopped it could create a situation from which it may take decades to recover,” retired Ontario moose biologist Alan Bisset writes of his province. “If it gets low enough, predation and unregulated hunting could keep it from growing at all, or worse, result in local extinction.”

Since governments control the hunt, decreasing the number of seasonal hunting tags seems like a straightforward way to reduce at least one pressure moose populations face. Yet Bisset’s proposal to reduce moose tags also reveals a social dynamic that complicates management, as he recognizes this will likely incur backlash from hunters. “Moose are being managed by hunting interests for hunting interests with little apparent concern for the future of the herd or the interests of other Ontario residents,” he writes.

Of course, many responsible hunters support strong management and protection measures. The conservation movement was initiated by hunters to ensure sufficient habitat for preferred game species. But some are also deeply invested in their right to hunt and view hunting limitations as an inherent threat.

In fact, the right to hunt belongs to Indigenous Peoples, and they’ve been among the loudest voices calling for change recently. Many consider moose a cultural keystone species. This summer, the Tŝilhqot’in Nation in B.C. issued a news release, “condemning the B.C. government’s destructive moose harvest allocation for the Chilcotin Region in recent days and expressing its opposition, in the strongest terms, to B.C.’s drastic escalation of Limited Entry Hunts (LEH) for moose in Tŝilhqot’in territory.”

Moose decline also played a significant role in the landmark legal case between Blueberry River First Nations and the Province of B.C. in 2021, and its precedent-setting ruling. Blueberry River community members argued that moose and caribou — which they rely on for sustenance — became increasingly scarce at their usual hunting grounds in the territory in conjunction with high levels of cumulative industrial disturbance approved by the province, and that this reflected the province’s failure to uphold their treaty right to hunt.

The case brought moose habitat needs, and the impacts of industrial activity on them, into sharper focus. Research reveals that moose rely on forests for parts of their life cycle, and that clearings and roads increase hunter access, sightlines and success rates. As Bisset observes regarding Ontario, “In essence, the numbers of tags have never regulated the kill over most of the province. The kill depended on how many moose were vulnerable and exposed to gunfire or arrows.” Scientists called as witnesses for Blueberry River First Nations in B.C. testified that large-scale forest change was having negative repercussions for moose populations.

After reviewing the evidence, the judge ruled in favour of Blueberry River, explaining: “While the Province relies on the ‘early seral forage’ created after logging to say that such disturbances benefit moose, they do not acknowledge the limiting factor created by a lack of effective winter habitat/old forest. I conclude the evidence establishes that the moose declines are the result of anthropogenic [human-caused] disturbances, including industrial development impacts upon habitat.”

The Blueberry River ruling set legal precedents and made clear that new governance and decision-making systems are needed to manage lands and waters in ways that uphold treaty rights and ensure wildlife abundance.

It’s time for governments to provide better management and protection for moose populations and the habitat they depend on, including stricter hunting restrictions. This won’t make everyone happy, but it will provide food security for Indigenous Peoples, benefit other wildlife and ensure healthy moose populations.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Boreal Project Manager Rachel Plotkin. 

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

In Canada and many places worldwide, those who pollute the atmosphere must pay. By putting a price on activities that produce greenhouse gas emissions, governments make polluting more expensive and solutions more affordable.

As a Deloitte report puts it, “Carbon pricing reduces transition costs, in line with economic theory, because it acts as a financial incentive for consumers and businesses to modify their energy usage.”

With Phase 1 of Canada’s carbon pricing regime moving to Phase 2 from 2023 to 2030, most people have adjusted and incorporated it into business plans.

But, as with many measures to protect the environment and ourselves, vested interests are set on unravelling carbon pricing and fomenting backlash. That’s unfortunate because, as a powerful tool in the ambition to shift the “market” to cleaner energy sources, Canada’s carbon pricing needs to be strengthened, not stalled or weakened. And it needs to be much tougher on the biggest emitters, including the oil and gas industry, and fairer for Indigenous communities and small businesses.

The International Monetary Fund says 46 countries are pricing emissions and others are considering it.

Sweden’s carbon price, implemented in 1991 at about US$40 a tonne, is now $137, the world’s highest. According to Reuters, the country is a leader in renewable energy use, its 2018 carbon emissions per person were 3.5 tonnes, well below the 6.4 tonne EU average, and it cut emissions by 29 per cent over the past three decades.

Canada has had carbon pricing in all jurisdictions since 2019 (Alberta and B.C. since 2007 and 2008, respectively). It started at $20 per tonne of emissions, and rose to $50 on April 1 this year. It will increase by $15 a year to reach $170 by 2030. Although it varies by jurisdiction, many households get rebates, and revenues are returned to the provinces they came from.

Even with a relatively low price, it’s helped tame transportation emissions that would otherwise have surged, and its effectiveness will increase as it rises.

Canada permits provinces and territories to design their own systems or adopt the federal plan. All have submitted 2023 proposals for review, as required. Those with their own systems must meet minimum national stringency standards to ensure they’re comparable and contribute their fair share of reductions. If a province doesn’t meet the standards or fails to implement a system, the federal scheme will be imposed.

Many experts say Canada will start to see greater benefits as the price rises. “Modelling conducted by Deloitte indicates that a gradual rise in carbon pricing to $170 per tonne in 2030 will drive major emissions reductions, bringing Canada three-quarters of the way to its Paris Agreement target,” with minimal impact on economic performance, Deloitte reports.

Although carbon pricing is widely accepted as a critical tool to help resolve the climate crisis, it faces persistent myths perpetrated by vested interests and some politicians and premiers. One is that it’s a significant factor in surging inflation and affordability issues. Although it’s designed to reduce fossil fuel use, including in transportation, it has a far smaller and more predictable influence on things like rising car costs and volatile gas prices than global events and companies that take advantage of them.

When carefully designed, carbon pricing has little negative economic impact on most individuals, especially those curtailing fossil fuel use by driving less or improving home energy efficiency, for example.

But there’s need for improvement here. In April, environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco released an audit that found Canada hasn’t done enough to ensure the carbon price is applied fairly to the biggest industrial emitters. He also said more exposure is needed on how provincial systems compare to the federal benchmark, and that “grant money to help small businesses become more energy efficient has been slow to roll out.”

Canada’s environment minister must now decide which provincial pollution-pricing schemes meet the grade and which are too weak. He should also close any loopholes and reject requests from provinces and industry for exemptions or further concessions. And all governments should collaborate to support and protect marginalized people in the shift to clean electricity.

Done well, carbon pricing is a proven economic lever to help with a smoother transition to cleaner energy, fewer emissions and better lives.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Beavers have long been considered nuisances. They knock down trees and block waterways, often flooding areas where humans live and gather. But recent moves to leave the beavers alone show they can enhance and restore natural environments.

Like other animals that create, modify and maintain their environments, beavers are referred to as “ecosystem engineers.” In one study, scientists determined busy beavers improve ecosystem health, “increasing species richness at the landscape scale.” They found that in New York’s central Adirondacks, “ecosystem engineering by beaver leads to the formation of extensive wetland habitat capable of supporting herbaceous plant species not found elsewhere in the riparian zone.”

In Europe, many towns and municipalities are reintroducing beavers where they were previously wiped out. In Scotland, beavers were released into a 44-square-kilometre area in 2009 after a 400-year absence. The five-year trial’s success convinced the government to allow beavers to remain.

According to Wildlife Trusts, an organization instrumental in European rewildling efforts, beavers and the landscapes they generate benefit people and wildlife by helping to reduce downstream flooding — “the channels, dams and wetland habitats that beavers create hold back water and release it more slowly after heavy rain.” They also reduce siltation, and the wetlands sequester carbon, an essential process for fighting the climate crisis.

In Vancouver, where I live, beavers in Stanley Park have created new wetland habitat and reduced invasive species like water lilies. (Some human intervention has been necessary, such as protecting a number of trees with wire mesh, and taking measures to ensure water levels are maintained.)

Beavers aren’t the only animals that engineer the worlds around them, often making them more viable for other creatures. Many do, which has led to efforts worldwide to reintroduce species to fulfil the roles they’ve historically played in maintaining healthy ecosystems. In fact, one could argue that all animals play an active role in shaping the places in which they live, to varying degrees. Some, such as invasive zebra mussels, can negatively reshape ecosystems. (The human animal, of course, has engineered some of the worst impacts!)

According to Janet Marinelli in Yale Environment 360, “In the past two or three decades, research has underscored the importance of large mammals like bison as ecosystem engineers, shaping and maintaining natural processes and sequestering large amounts of carbon.” She notes that bison wallowing sculpts “depressions in the ground where water can accumulate and sustain healthy stands of grass.”

Marinelli also writes, “coral-reef habitats, created by the ecosystem engineer coral species, hold some of the highest abundances of aquatic species in the world,” and, “Prairie dogs are another terrestrial form of allogenic ecosystem engineers due to the fact that the species has the ability to perform substantial modifications by burrowing and turning soil.” Their activity influences “soils and vegetation of the landscape while providing underground corridors for arthropods, avians, other small mammals, and reptiles.”

Similarly, marine vegetation such as eelgrass is an anchor for healthy marine ecosystems, as seagrasses create and modify structural elements of the sea. As scientist Sarah Berke points out, “structures in marine habitats play myriad well-documented roles, providing living space for other organisms and refugia from predation, increasing heterogeneity, altering hydrodynamic regimes, and altering deposition of sediments and larvae.” A David Suzuki Foundation study found that shoreline and eelgrass planting and beach nourishment can substantially reduce erosion and create other benefits for people and wildlife habitat.

Engineering can take many different forms. The most obvious is structural engineering, in which creatures create or modify elements of their habitat. But, as Berke notes, engineers also modify chemical environments and even the levels of light entering a land or seascape. “In modifying light, plankton and filter feeders are analogous to those terrestrial organisms that cast shade, most if not all of which are structural engineers. In terrestrial systems, then, light engineering entirely overlaps with structural engineering, while in marine systems light is largely controlled by organisms that do not create structure.”

Ultimately, when we lose wildlife populations, we don’t only lose the animals themselves; we also lose the version of the world that was shaped, in part, by their agency. The result, like so many of our impacts, is less healthy, more monocultured ecosystems that reflect back only human enterprise.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Boreal Project Manager Rachel Plotkin. 

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

Researchers only began to understand the “diel migration” a few decades ago. It’s “the largest routine migration of life on Earth,” Scientific American notes.

Around 10 billion tonnes of zooplankton — tiny sea animals like copepods, krill and fish larvae — ascend up to 1,000 metres every night (“diel” is from Latin for “day” — a 24-hour cycle), through varying temperatures, water pressures and other conditions, returning to the depths before daylight. They do it to feed on tiny plants, phytoplankton, under cover of darkness, hiding from predators during the day. Their movements are determined by sun, moon and clouds far above.

The migration is more intricate and complex than first imagined, and has profound implications for understanding climate change and marine processes. Phytoplankton remove enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but they release most of it back. When zooplankton eat phytoplankton, they transport the carbon to the ocean’s depths, where it can be stored for hundreds or thousands of years.

How much gets transported and sequestered remains unknown, but it’s significant. “Better data will improve climate models, which in turn will improve understanding of how climate change will alter these organisms’ behaviors — and, subsequently, the climate again,” Scientific American says.

Western science advances, but in some ways, it’s only starting to catch up to the knowledge of many Indigenous Peoples about ecosystems, including forests. The Western approach has long been to view a forest as a collection of individual trees, ranked according to their value as timber, along with “weed” species, or plants and trees with no economic value.

Thanks to scientists like Suzanne Simard and others, we now understand forests are more like communities, with parent trees, younger trees, other flora and fungi communicating and sharing nutrients and warnings between species and among their own through intricate mycorrhizal networks and other means. As Merlin Sheldrake writes in Entangled Life, some plants even emit chemicals to attract parasitic wasps to prey on attacking aphids.

The science upends the Darwinian notion of nature being about a competitive “survival of the fittest” and confirms knowledge that many Indigenous Peoples have long had, that everything is interconnected.

When Simard discovered alder trees can help pine forests by supplying nitrogen, she met resistance from industry foresters, who were accustomed to spraying alders as a “weed” species.

Beyond their ability to share and communicate through chemical processes and fungal networks, trees “literally hold the world together,” as Wayne Grady and I wrote in Tree: A Life Story. “Their leaves receive the Sun’s energy for the benefit of all terrestrial creatures and transpire torrents of water vapor into the atmosphere. Their branches and trunks provide shelter, food, and habitat for mammals, birds, amphibians, insects, and other plants. And their roots anchor the mysterious underworld of rock and soil.”

Through that rock and soil, the trees connect via fungal networks to other trees and plants. Fungi have been critical to the development of life, aid in decomposition and provide food and medicines. But we still only know of about one per cent of the estimated five million species, and only classified them as a separate “kingdom” from plants in the late 1960s.

We often get ahead of ourselves, viewing things in isolation and acting as if we have enough knowledge to “manage” and exploit forests, marine ecosystems and lands and waterways. But the more we study the complex interconnections within nature and its processes, the more we realize we’ve been missing crucial knowledge about the cascading effects of our actions.

The climate crisis is the most serious, large-scale example. People found coal, oil and gas could be burned in factories, homes and automobiles, making life easier for many and generating massive profits in a consumer-driven system. Although there was some understanding of the “greenhouse effect” and potential to alter climate, many dismissed the idea that burning this carbon, stored and compressed over millennia in plant and animal matter, was anything but good.

We can’t know everything, but we’re learning enough to realize that plundering Earth has consequences. Without plankton or trees or fungi, we wouldn’t have air to breathe. Everything we continue to learn about nature’s intricate balance shows we must recognize our place and care for the planet and its processes as if our lives depended on it. They do.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Canada offers some of the world’s most generous support for the fossil fuel industry, but industry executives want more. Even as they amass record profits, they’ve asked government to pay 75 per cent of the billions for carbon capture facilities that would potentially keep some CO2 emissions from the atmosphere. (Pollutants such as particulate matter, nitrogen oxide and ammonia would still be emitted, increasing health impacts and costs.)

The federal government has announced a tax credit of around 50 to 60 per cent of carbon capture project costs, as well as allowing companies to generate Clean Fuel Standard credits they can sell. Industry representatives estimate zeroing out carbon emissions, mostly through carbon capture, could cost up to C$75 billion.

Critics say the combined tax and clean fuel credit is “double counting.”

“There is no rational way anyone should get a credit for the Clean Fuel Standard, and a 50 per cent tax credit, along with being able to write it off on the royalties, at a time when oil companies are making more money than God,” Greenpeace Canada’s Keith Stewart told the Times Colonist.

There’s a better way to keep not just operating emissions but also emissions from burning fossil fuels out of the atmosphere: stop using coal, oil and gas! Industry executives tout carbon capture, which hasn’t worked that well so far, as proof they’re reducing greenhouse gases. But they fail to account for the far greater source of polluting, climate-altering emissions: burning their products as intended. In many cases, carbon capture is used as an excuse to continue extracting — and burning — more fossil fuels.

That doesn’t mean carbon capture, utilization and storage shouldn’t be pursued as one avenue to reducing emissions. But industry should be required to develop and pay for it — as well as for plugging methane-emitting orphaned and abandoned wells.

Canada now has only three large carbon capture facilities, two in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan — all built with considerable amounts of public money. And they’re not making a huge dent in overall emissions.

According to a Narwhal investigation, Saskatchewan’s $1.5 billion Boundary Dam project — $240 million from the federal government and the rest from Crown corporation SaskPower — has captured just four megatonnes of CO2 since coming online in 2014, far short of its goal of capturing one megatonne per year. The captured carbon is also used for “enhanced oil recovery” — pumped into depleted wells to force more oil to the surface.

In Alberta, Shell’s Quest project was supposed to capture 1.2 megatonnes a year but, as the Narwhal points out, “when the carbon it releases is taken into account, Quest eliminates between 736,000 tonnes and 897,000 tonnes each year in net reductions.”

Canada’s oil and gas industry contributed 191 megatonnes of emissions in 2019 — 26.2 per cent of the country’s total — and wants to continue expanding. Extracting and processing oil and gas is Canada’s single largest and fastest-growing source of emissions overall. Again, that doesn’t include the far greater emissions from burning the fuels.

Carbon capture can be useful in other industries, such as cement, steel and fertilizer production, so there’s a case for pursuing the technology, even as we wind down fossil fuels.

But when oil executives boast about their enormous profits (BP chief financial officer Murray Auchincloss said, “we’re getting more cash than we know what to do with”), while people pay higher prices for gas and everything delivered by gas-fuelled vehicles, it’s appalling that they’re going to governments with their hands out for more tax dollars.

It’s especially galling considering they’ve known for decades that their products are polluting air, water and land and driving the climate crisis, but they’ve continued to downplay and deny the problems while expanding, hoarding trillions of dollars and enriching shareholders. Instead of giving them more, governments should be taxing their windfall profits, as many European countries are doing. Organizations calling for a windfall tax say revenue should be redirected to communities and families most affected by rising prices, and to support workers and communities through a “just transition.”

The science is clear: The world can’t afford to keep building fossil fuel infrastructure and subsidizing the most profitable industry in history. Investments must shift quickly to more efficient and cleaner energy use and sources.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Most of us have seen images of sea turtles malformed by plastic six-pack rings, dead birds with stomachs full of debris, animals smothered by plastic bags…

Our excessive use of disposable plastics is disastrous, not just for wildlife, but for us as well. Canada is starting to take it seriously, with a ban on several single-use plastic items starting in December.

Manufacturing and importing plastic bags, takeout containers, single-use plastic straws, stir sticks, cutlery and six-pack rings will banned by December, sales by the end of next year and exports by the end of 2025. The goal is to keep “15.5 billion plastic grocery bags, 4.5 billion pieces of plastic cutlery, three billion stir sticks, 5.8 billion straws, 183 million six-pack rings and 805 million takeout containers” from littering lands and waters and ending up in landfills every year. (There’s an exception to the straw ban for people who require them for medical or accessibility reasons.)

Although the timeline seems long and the list of items short, government faced enormous pressure from industry, including legal battles. Plastics companies and organizations have challenged the government over jurisdiction, arguing regulation should be left to provinces, and over scientific assessments and classification of plastic manufactured items as “toxic.”

Almost all plastic is a byproduct of the oil industry, which has also pushed back. For example, Imperial Oil filed a notice of objection to the government’s classifying plastics as “toxic substances” under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

The restaurant industry and the provinces of Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec have also pushed back against regulations.

But given the excessive amounts of plastic choking lands, rivers, wetlands, lakes, oceans and even air, industry should work to get ahead of the ban, phasing out the six targeted items and other non-essential plastics sooner rather than later. And the public and governments must get behind the call to expand the ban to more items. Public pressure has already helped, with the ban on exports — originally exempted — added since last December.

The government is starting with the most common and harmful items but isn’t ruling out banning other single-use plastic products. That’s important because those banned make up only about five per cent of Canada’s plastic waste.

Recycling is only a partial solution as less than 10 per cent of plastic waste in Canada is recycled, with 3.3 million tonnes, much of it packaging, thrown out annually, according to the CBC.

With the ban, Canada is catching up to other countries. France banned most of the items last year, and is now phasing in further bans on items such as packaging on fruits, vegetables and newspapers, plastic in tea bags and toys handed out with fast food meals.

Making bans work requires education and ensuring sustainable options are available when needed. Because the ban is limited, it will also mean preventing companies from switching to alternatives that are no better, such as shrink wrap instead of drink container rings.

The greatest challenge is from industry. As the oil industry faces rising concerns about pollution, climate disruption and global instability, it’s been looking to plastics to increase demand. Oil giant BP has predicted plastics will represent 95 per cent of the net growth in oil demand between 2020 and 2040. Because of increasing restrictions and public pressure in the industrialized world, the plans hinge on pushing plastics in places like Africa.

As well as being a major pollution source, plastic is fuelling the climate crisis. Carbon dioxide emissions are produced at every stage of its life cycle, averaging about five tonnes of CO2 per tonne of plastic — more if it’s burned. According to a Vox article, “That’s roughly twice the CO2 produced by a tonne of oil.”

Plastics can be useful, especially in medical and public health settings — although alternatives are increasing. But most of the plastic we use and throw away is unnecessary. Just as we must stop using fossil fuels, we must also move away from their plastic byproducts. Canada’s ban is a good start, but we need to go further, and faster. It’s one area where our personal choices can make a big difference. New government standards make that easier. There’s no future in plastics.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

The lineage of our human species has survived for several million years thanks to a wondrous, interconnected evolution of factors resulting in air to breathe, water to drink and plants, fungi, animals and minerals for food, shelter, tools and clothing.

For most of that time, our ancestors lived in relative harmony with the shared natural world. Life wasn’t always easy, but people lived within the limits of what the planet and its stable cycles of water, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and more could support.

Now, with our accelerating numbers, appetites and hubris, we’ve upset the balance, putting ourselves and most life at risk. We’ve lost our way, our place in nature.

For many years, blinded by rapid technological progress and benefits, we could perhaps be forgiven for our inability to see the true picture, despite warnings from those whose analyses found flaws in our methods and thinking.

But today’s increasing environmental crises were largely preventable. We’ve known about the “greenhouse effect” since at least 1824, when French mathematician Joseph Fourier described the way gases in our atmosphere retain heat that would otherwise be emitted back into space, maintaining relatively stable conditions for life.

Since then, many scientists have demonstrated that pumping increasing amounts of gases like carbon dioxide and methane — mainly by burning coal, oil and gas — would trap even more radiation, heating the atmosphere and planet.

Profit-driven consumerism in the wealthier world, especially North America, spurred a car-centric lifestyle that promoted burning ever greater amounts of valuable carbon stored in coal, oil and gas — as scientists became increasingly alarmed. By 1977, the U.S. Office of Science and Technology Policy sent a memo to President Jimmy Carter titled “Release of Fossil CO2 and the Possibility of a Catastrophic Climate Change.”

Noting that “the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is now 12 percent above the pre-industrial revolution level and may grow to 1.5 to 2.0 times that level within 60 years,” the memo warned that this would “induce a global climatic warming of anywhere from 0.5 to 5°C” which “could be catastrophic and calls for an impact assessment of unprecedented importance and difficulty.”

Some of the memo was based on space, atmospheric and ocean research produced for President Lyndon Johnson in 1965, which found burning fossil fuels was adding “billions of tons” of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

The solution, according to the memo, was to develop a long-term energy strategy that included conservation, nuclear power and, for “insurance against over-reliance on a nuclear-energy economy,” research into solar, biomass and other renewable sources.

Seeing a threat to their enormously lucrative activities, industry executives mounted a full-scale campaign to deny, downplay or cause confusion about the growing evidence that their actions threaten our survival — a campaign that’s ongoing.

With atmospheric CO2 levels now more than 50 per cent higher and global average temperature at least 1.1 C warmer than the pre-industrial era, we’re seeing the impacts: heat domes, extreme weather, droughts, floods, sea level rise, refugee crises, species extinction… the list goes on, and it will get worse unless we stop burning fossil fuels.

Yet, a Guardian investigation shows that, with government complicity, the world’s largest fossil fuel companies are planning scores of major “oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts.” Canada is one of “the countries with the biggest expansion plans and the highest number of carbon bombs” and has some of the highest subsidies for fossil fuel companies.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel executives are gleeful at the massive amounts of money they’re hoarding, even as most people are feeling the pinch of rising fuel prices. BP CEO Bernard Looney — whose pay more than doubled from 2020 to 2021 to almost US$6 million because of rising oil and gas prices — described his company as a “cash machine,” while company chief financial officer Murray Auchincloss said in a February speech, “Certainly, it’s possible that we’re getting more cash than we know what to do with.”

We still have time — and solutions — to slow the consequences of climate disruption and resolve the crisis, but our window of opportunity is getting narrower by the day. We need to put an end to the greed and excess and find our way to a better, safer future for all.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org.

Near the end of the film Don’t Look Up, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, astronomer Randall Mindy, turns to the people around him and says, “We really did have everything, didn’t we?”

Although the “everything” has never been equally distributed, humans really have had all that we need to survive and thrive. If only more people would recognize that everything this small blue planet provides — from food and water to a relatively stable climate — is affected by our actions!

If we care for the natural systems of which we’re a part, they’ll continue to sustain us. If we overwhelm them with destruction, overexploitation, pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, we’ll get increasingly frequent and severe heat waves, droughts, floods and other extreme weather–related events, as well as the food and water shortages, refugee crises and systemic breakdowns they bring.

It’s not too late to turn things around — we’re seeing great progress in many areas — but there’s no time to waste. Europe is reeling under record high temperatures, with massive fires in cities and forests; more than 100 million people in the U.S. are under heat warnings, with wildfires raging; people in India and other Asian countries are dying from sweltering heat; the famed 500-year-old Inca archeological site Macchu Picchu in Peru is threatened by fire; the area around Lytton, B.C., is burning again; parts of Africa have been hit with devastating droughts; and both the Arctic and Antarctic have experienced unprecedented heating.

It’s all taking a toll on people’s physical and mental health, and it’s devastating to all life.

We have to wake up, look up and see that our well-being and survival depend on recognizing the systemic failures causing these massive disruptions. When we upset natural systems — the carbon and hydrologic cycles, forests and other ecosystems — nature responds with a shift to some sort of equilibrium. But nature is indifferent to us; the planet will survive even if we don’t.

There’s no excuse, no reason for this. We know the causes, and we have numerous solutions, with more being developed every day. Technological innovation is advancing faster than expected, with more efficient and cost-effective renewable energy and energy storage methods continuing to come on board. We’re making great leaps in understanding how interconnected ecosystems operate, and how this could help us out of the crises. Governments, industry and people worldwide are moving away from fossil fuels, learning to use energy more efficiently and conservatively and embracing clean energy solutions.

But it will take more. We need a paradigm shift. We need better ways of seeing and thinking. We’re still confronted with distorting disconnects. Major news outlets have touted the recent return to fossil-fuelled, energy-intensive air travel as a “sign of hope.” Media in Canada feature one item about climate chaos and then another about “good news for the economy” as oil and gas extraction pick up.

We’ve been blinded by a system that encourages voracious consumption, waste and growth as the only way forward — even while the benefits of that system accrue disproportionately to wealthy people and nations, and while natural systems are being depleted, many collapsing under the weight of human enterprise.

Most people work long days and weeks, with limited vacation periods, sacrificing time with families and friends, and time in nature or time to relax — all to keep a human-invented, relatively recent economic system chugging.

The U.S. adopted consumerism as official policy after the economic boom of the First World War, and ramped it up after the Second (war helps the economy grow). It soon spread around the world, with some areas exploited for the economic benefit of others. Car culture, especially, took off. More cars burning more fuel is good for the “growing” economy, so automobiles were built big, and given priority over all other transportation modes.

We’re now paying the price, and the bill is getting higher every day. We need governments to do far more than get together every few years and agree to lower emissions and protect natural features that sequester carbon. We need real leadership to usher in systemic changes that allow us to live better, sustainably and more equitably with all we have been given on this beautiful planet.

We need to look up.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org

The five-day workweek is an anachronistic relic of a time when conditions were far different than today.

Back in 1930, renowned economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that technological advances, slowed population growth, increasing capital (or “material things”) and changing economic priorities would make three-hour shifts or a 15-hour workweek possible and desirable within 100 years.

Then, he wrote, “The love of money as a possession — as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life — will be recognised for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semicriminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.”

Keynes cautioned, however, that the “age of leisure and abundance” could be met with dread: “For we have been trained too long to strive and not to enjoy. It is a fearful problem for the ordinary person, with no special talents, to occupy himself, especially if he no longer has roots in the soil or in custom or in the beloved conventions of a traditional society.”

Still, he remained optimistic: “I feel sure that with a little more experience we shall use the new-found bounty of nature quite differently from the way in which the rich use it to-day, and will map out for ourselves a plan of life quite otherwise than theirs.”

We’re eight years from Keynes’s 100-year prediction. Technology has advanced, more than he could have imagined. Population growth has slowed, although not stabilized. Capital has increased, albeit much wealth has been hoarded and monopolized by a few. And environmental and social crises have led many to question economic priorities. So, why are we still working hours similar to 70 years ago?

Part of the answer lies in the postwar adoption of “consumerism” as an economic model. It may also relate to the concern Keynes raised: the “dread” that people won’t know how to occupy their leisure time.

But with so many people feeling overwhelmed by an out-of-whack work-life balance, the latter isn’t an insurmountable problem. Women, especially, are feeling the crunch. Unlike in the 1950s, most have joined the workforce, but as in those days, they still do most of the housekeeping and child care.

Keynes distinguished between “absolute” and “relative” needs. The latter, he argued, “satisfy the desire for superiority,” and “may indeed be insatiable.” But Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz notes that society moulds our choices. We “learn how to consume by consuming,” he writes, and how to “enjoy leisure by enjoying leisure.”

Because we’ve failed to reduce work hours gradually, as Keynes envisioned, we’re unlikely to achieve 15-hour workweeks by 2030. But environmental and social conditions have sparked a move toward a four-day workweek. (David Suzuki Foundation staff have enjoyed a four-day workweek since its founding in 1990.)

The biggest trial is in the U.K., where 3,300 workers at 70 wide-ranging companies, from small to large, recently started working four days a week with no loss in pay. The experiment — led by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the think-tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week Campaign, and researchers at Cambridge and Oxford universities and Boston College — will “measure the impact on productivity in the business and the wellbeing of its workers, as well as the impact on the environment and gender equality,” a Guardian article says.

Governments are also backing trials in Scotland and Spain, and countries like Iceland and Sweden have run successful trials. Along with other benefits like increased vacation time and flexibility, and working from home, shorter workweeks not only give people better lives, they’re also good for the environment. Fewer people commuting means reduced pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion.

The pandemic taught us it’s possible to rapidly shift our ways of thinking and acting, especially as they relate to work. It’s past time to recognize that life isn’t given meaning through excessive consumption and toil, but by having time to spend with friends and families and by pursuing interests outside of work. That will even benefit employers by helping staff be happier, healthier and more productive.

We may not achieve Keynes’s predicted 15-hour workweeks by the end of this decade, but we can surely aim for a better balance.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at davidsuzuki.org

The fossil fuel industry has employed many strategies over the years to keep money flowing. It’s covered up its own science showing that burning its products is heating the world. It’s sowed doubt and confusion about the evidence through front groups and compromised “experts.” And it’s lobbied politicians and contributed generously to their campaigns. Industry executives have consistently put their own interests ahead of the health and survival of humanity.

It’s also used “greenwashing” and misleading language to garner support for its destructive products. One example is the term “natural gas.” As a fossil fuel, it’s no more natural than coal or oil, and just as destructive.

In the face of increasing concern about oil and coal’s pollution and climate impacts, the industry has upped its campaign to promote fossil gas as a cleaner alternative or as a “transition” or “bridge” fuel while the world shifts to renewable energy. A 2011 David Suzuki Foundation and Pembina Institute report detailed the fallacy of the bridge fuel argument, as has more recent research.

My home province’s gas company, FortisBC, has joined others — including Enbridge, TC Energy and ATCO Gas — in Fuelling Canada, an organization created by the Canadian Gas Association. Part of a push by gas companies everywhere, these companies and organizations have been spending enormous amounts on advertising (often designed to appear as journalism) on numerous platforms and outlets.

As Vancouver and Quebec join jurisdictions around the world banning fossil gas in many new building developments, gas companies are fighting back. With ads and articles extolling the virtues of “clean” gas, “bridge” fuels and “renewable natural gas,” the companies want customers to believe they’re part of the environmental solution to climate disruption.

They aren’t. So-called “natural” gas is, in fact, a processed fossil fuel composed almost entirely of methane — a greenhouse gas about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over the short term. Most of it is now obtained by fracking vast landscapes — blasting large volumes of water, chemicals and sand into rock formations to shatter them and allow bubbles of trapped gas to escape and funnel into wells. Methane escapes into the atmosphere in every step of the process — fracking, processing, transporting and burning in homes and buildings — even more than industry and governments have been reporting.

Renewable natural gas is mostly methane obtained from agricultural, landfill or other waste. Although it’s better than fracked gas, as it can utilize some methane that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere, and has applications in hard-to-decarbonize industries, it doesn’t live up to the hype. For example, FortisBC offers customers the option of being supplied with RNG, but it doesn’t mention that existing customers are getting the same gas as everyone else, which is more than 99 per cent fossil gas.

For building cooling and heating, heat pumps are far more efficient, and less expensive, than gas. Gas usage in homes and buildings also causes indoor air pollution, emitting nitrogen oxides, formaldehyde, nitric oxide and carbon monoxide, which can linger for hours. Studies have shown this can cause respiratory ailments like decreased lung function and asthma, especially in children.

University of Saskatchewan chemist Tara Kahan and colleagues measured pollution in homes with gas stoves in 2017 and 2018. “All of the researchers were pretty horrified,” she told CBC, adding that she switched her gas stove to an electric induction appliance. Many chefs are also switching to efficient induction stoves.

Buildings were the third largest greenhouse gas emissions source in Canada in 2019, much of it from space and water heating.

The solution to the climate crisis and to building and home emissions — as scientists and experts worldwide from organizations and institutions ranging from the International Energy Agency to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have shown — is not more fossil fuels; it’s electrification using renewable energy and storage, along with energy efficiency and conservation. As a new David Suzuki Foundation modelling study finds, doing so is entirely possible in Canada by 2035.

As every scientist and energy expert who understands the climate crisis keeps saying, we can’t continue fracking, building pipelines, expanding oilsands and developing oil, gas and coal projects if we want to avoid worsening climate impacts — and we don’t have to.

We have solutions. Fossil gas isn’t one of them.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

Over the decades that I and others have been warning about the consequences of burning coal, oil and gas, we’ve often been told we can’t get off them overnight. That’s served as just one excuse for our collective failure to address the climate crisis, as the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report makes clear.

“Mitigation of Climate Change” is the third of the IPCC’s four-part Sixth Assessment. Part 4, a synthesis report, is scheduled for September. The IPCC states that greenhouse gas emission cuts needed to keep below the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 C warming target are four times higher than they would have been if collective global ambition and mitigation started even as late as 2010.

During that time, fossil fuel development and emissions have skyrocketed. Even under existing national emissions reduction plans, the global average temperature is expected to increase by almost 2.7 C this century, which could be devastating. At current rates, we’ll have used our 1.5 C carbon budget by 2030.

A rational global response would be to do everything to get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible and protect and restore forests, wetlands, kelp beds and other natural “carbon sinks” — especially considering the many available and developing practical, affordable alternatives and solutions! The pandemic showed how governments can act decisively — and spend large amounts — to address a crisis.

Renewable energy development and deployment, including wind and solar, have increased substantially, as costs continue to drop. Battery and other storage technologies also continue to improve, making renewable energy viable for many conditions. As good as that is, we need to double wind and solar PVC to keep the planet from warming more than 1.5 C beyond pre-industrial levels, according to the International Energy Agency. The IPCC notes that will require more investment from the private sector.

Governments appear to be getting serious about the crisis, but they’re facing considerable pressure from the fossil fuel industry and its media and political supporters. Canada recently released a solid emissions reduction plan, yet oilsands emissions are still expected to rise 56 per cent by 2030.

As the Russian attack on Ukraine lays bare the folly of relying on finite, polluting energy sources, calls are coming in to increase production in countries including Canada, the U.S., Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The Alberta government’s Canadian Energy Centre, which rails against “foreign funding” for environmental groups, has even registered as a foreign agent in the U.S. to promote more Canadian bitumen exports. Many pro-oil and gas organizations are pushing for pipelines.

But the IPCC reports show we can’t keep building fossil fuel infrastructure if we want to prevent the worst of global heating. In fact, we must start getting rid of or transforming existing infrastructure. Instead, every year the world has been adding more carbon-intensive infrastructure than it’s been decommissioning.

The report also shows we’ve reached a critical point where slowing and stopping emissions isn’t enough; we also have to remove some of what we’ve already pumped into the atmosphere, using natural methods like forest protection and planting as well as technologies like direct air capture. But we can’t use technology as an excuse to continue burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases.

Procrastination is no longer an option. The longer we delay, the more disruption we’ll cause, and the costlier it will become. Shifting away from coal, oil and gas and protecting nature will generate numerous benefits, from cleaner air and water to better jobs, health and economies.

The IPCC report shows that governments, businesses, industry and financial institutions must all significantly up their game. We must stop funding and building fossil fuel infrastructure and shift our resources into cleaner, healthier ways of powering societies. That means electrifying almost everything and using renewable energy, but it also means conserving more and wasting less.

This is especially true in wealthy countries, where waste and unnecessary energy use are rampant. The wealthiest one per cent worldwide emit more than twice the combined share of greenhouse gases as the poorest 50 per cent, with activities such as flying and driving SUVs — which emit a lot but only benefit a few — contributing to the imbalance.

Every IPCC report since the First Assessment in 1990 has been a wake-up call. We can’t keep hitting “snooze.”

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment shows the world is unnecessarily headed toward climate catastrophe, and all it would take to resolve the crisis is decisive global action. That means no new fossil fuel development or infrastructure.

How has the world responded? With lots of talk and inadequate, often counterproductive measures. Banks continue to pump billions into coal, oil and gas development, governments are ramping up production and wars are being fought to keep the polluting, climate-altering fuels flowing.

UN secretary general António Guterres called the IPCC report “a litany of broken climate promises.” Within days of the release of Part 3 of the four-part assessment, as well as Canada’s emissions reduction plan, our federal government approved the Bay du Nord offshore oil megaproject in Newfoundland and Labrador — albeit with 137 conditions.

Banks have been increasing investments in fossil fuel developments and infrastructure, and industry lobbyists are using Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to justify calls for ramping up oil and gas production.

A report by Oil Change International found, “fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks has reached nearly USD $4.6 trillion in the six years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $742 billion in 2021 alone.” Alberta oilsands financing jumped 51 per cent from 2020 to 2021, to $23.3 billion, much of it from Canadian banks RBC and TD Canada Trust. Banks have also invested heavily in Arctic and offshore oil and gas, fracking, liquefied fossil gas and coal mining and power.

Meanwhile, estimated costs for the Trans Mountain pipeline project, which Canada’s government bought in 2018 for US$4.5 billion, have ballooned by 70 per cent, to $21.4 billion!

Think of what that money could do invested in energy efficiency, renewable sources and protection and restoration of natural areas that sequester carbon.

As Guterres wrote, “So far, high-emitting governments and corporations are not just turning a blind eye; they are adding fuel to the flames by continuing to invest in climate-choking industries. Scientists warn that we are already perilously close to tipping points that could lead to cascading and irreversible climate effects.”

It doesn’t have to be this way. The recent IPCC report, “Mitigation of Climate Change,” lays out a viable plan to reduce emissions and forestall the worst impacts of a rapidly heating world. It wouldn’t cost much more than we’re now spending to keep burning fossil fuels. We’d also save enormous amounts by avoiding the health care and infrastructure costs of pollution and extreme weather-related events such as floods, droughts, heat domes and storms.

Along with improved energy efficiency, renewable energy is now the most cost-effective way to power societies. Costs of wind and solar power and battery storage have dropped by up to 85 per cent since 2010.

“It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F),” said IPCC Working Group III co-chair Jim Skea in a news release. “Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.”

We have important choices to make, choices that will determine the future for us, our children and grandchildren and those yet to be born. Although much of the onus is on governments, banks and industry to take the big steps, individuals have a role. Ensuring your investments aren’t fuelling the climate crisis is a start, by divesting from funds and banks that support the industry and switching to non-fossil funds.

People can also join the growing movement calling for change, through activism, community engagement, political pressure and voting. Reducing meat consumption, avoiding flying and relying less on private automobiles will also help.

As Guterres said, “Climate activists are sometimes depicted as dangerous radicals. But the truly dangerous radicals are the countries that are increasing the production of fossil fuels. Investing in new fossil fuels infrastructure is moral and economic madness.”

The Sixth Assessment consists of four parts, based on thousands of studies representing the most up-to-date climate science from around the world, with the final part, a synthesis, to be released in September. The first assessment was released in 1990, and the world has since consistently failed to heed the increasingly urgent warnings.

In the face of overwhelming evidence, ignoring the world’s scientists or believing they’re somehow mistaken is an unnecessary, suicidal gamble.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

When I was a boy, my father’s biggest threat was not physical punishment, but pulling me out of school. Like many families, ours viewed education as key to success. But what does “success” mean?

For most, it’s a job or career, economic security, maybe a home — all laudable pursuits requiring some schooling. But education’s goal must surely be more than merely providing information and skills to help people find their place in society. It must give insight into the society or country, its people, its claims and aspirations and how those fit into the global community. This is crucial as we confront the catastrophic crises of climate change and mass species extinction.

In that regard, our school systems are failing. Institutionalized education often ignores our connection to nature.

When the Pleistocene epoch ended more than 11,000 years ago, ice sheets that had covered the Northern Hemisphere began to recede, and plants and animals moved in to repopulate the newly exposed land. Humans followed and, like all life that came to occupy these territories, were invasive species seeking out niches. Many, including human families and groups, no doubt failed to survive, but as the mix of flora and fauna found equilibrium, so did humans. Throughout what we now call “Canada,” people were remarkably successful in adapting to new circumstances and developing a diversity of rich cultures.

We owe our survival to our brains, which enable curiosity, keen observational skills, inventiveness and memory. Because we could communicate through language, each generation was able to pass on vital lessons from observation, mistakes, failures and successes. This was critical for survival and became the foundation of Indigenous knowledge.

Human cultural evolution advanced orders of magnitude faster than biological evolution in most other animal and plant species — which depends on rare mutations, gene shuffling and reorganizing from generation to generation. Yet despite the wide linguistic, cultural and historic diversity among tribal groups, humans remained biological beings of a single species.

Invaders and colonizers throughout history have regarded Indigenous Peoples and their cultures as “primitive,” paying little attention to the worthiness of their knowledge, values and beliefs. Europeans felt confident in their superiority, and were driven by “resourcism,” which viewed everything in what they saw as the “New World” as “opportunity” and “resources” to extract.

In the perspective of many Indigenous Peoples, earth (soil), air (atmosphere), fire (sunlight) and water are sacred gifts, and other species are biological kin that generously allow themselves to be taken and used by people. In ceremony that persists, Indigenous Peoples celebrate and give thanks for nature’s abundance and generosity while acknowledging a responsibility to act properly so it can continue. This reciprocity includes the idea of generations — usually seven — of ancestors and those to come. Canada was not founded on this perspective, so it hasn’t been part of formal education here.

Today, most children grow up in cities where their parents’ highest priorities are money, jobs and security, so politicians value the economy above all. But the economy isn’t something that emerges from nature; it’s a human construct created by exploiting nature.

Many urban kids grow up thinking nature is somewhere else, separate from them. But the atmosphere gives us air to breathe and weather, climate and seasons. It surrounds us and is inseparably within us. All our cells are inflated by water, enabling metabolic reactions. Every bit of our nutrition comes from animals and plants, most grown in soil that’s a living mix of organic and inorganic material. Every bit of energy released by burning fuels and in our bodies — allowing us to move, grow, work and play — is sunlight captured through photosynthesis in plants. These sacred elements are cleansed, replenished and created by the web of living things we call “biodiversity.”

The failure of education systems to incorporate the Indigenous perspective is evident in recent events, such as the small group of dissident truckers in Canada and the U.S. honking about “freedom.” We can’t free ourselves from responsibility when the air in our lungs is part of the matrix shared by all other human and non-human animals, and plants.

Freedom without responsibility creates chaos. It’s ludicrous and dangerous. Education is critical at this moment, but it has to go beyond the narrow lessons taught in schools.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

When bumper-to-bumper traffic chokes roads and SUVs fill urban parking lots, we can’t say we’re taking the climate crisis seriously. But it’s more than a question of consumer choice. The issue is systemic.

The auto industry spends enormous sums to convince people they need massive SUVs and trucks to haul themselves to work and the grocery store — as if two tonnes of car weren’t enough. The slick ads paint pictures of freedom and active lifestyles, of getting out into nature, failing to mention that their existence is putting nature and human survival at risk. Most aren’t being used as work vehicles or in rural areas.

Those ads work. During 2020, global energy-related carbon emissions fell by seven per cent, partly because of the pandemic, but emissions from SUVs rose, as did sales — growing to 42 per cent of the global auto market. The five most popular vehicles sold in Canada in 2021 were SUVs and trucks.

According to the International Energy Agency, “Emissions from SUVs have nearly tripled over the past decade, owing to their increasing popularity around the world, which has outpaced the growth of other segments of the auto market. Today, SUV emissions are comparable to those of the entire maritime industry, including international shipping.”

Cars spew enormous amounts of polluting, climate-altering emissions to mostly transport just one or two people. SUVs consume about 20 per cent more energy globally than medium-sized cars over the same distance — 30 per cent in the U.S., where they like them big!

A recent study for the David Suzuki Foundation by the Sustainable Transportation Action Research Team (START) and Navius Research examined this destructive demand for SUVs: “From 1990 to 2018 in Canada, the number of cars on the road went up by 10 per cent, while the number of light-duty trucks went up by a factor of three (from 3.4 million to 13 million).” That added about nine megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere over the same period.

Buyers reported that environmental and public safety impacts didn’t factor greatly in their purchasing decisions. Most SUV drivers downplayed environmental effects, claiming their vehicles aren’t much worse than cars, and that they need them for space or safety.

As for the latter, the study found SUV drivers prioritized their own safety regarding accidents and difficult weather conditions but expressed little concern about known impacts on others — pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and passengers in other vehicles. Half said they wouldn’t downsize under any conditions. Given the pervasiveness of highly effective advertising, it’s no surprise people have become so attached to these behemoths.

Vehicle electrification, including SUVs, will help, but it’s not the solution — especially as SUVs and trucks require more raw materials and use considerably more battery power than standard cars. It will never be environmentally sound to use two or more tonnes of materials to transport less than a hundred kilos of human.

Vehicle electrification isn’t happening quickly enough anyway. As an upcoming START research report for Équiterre and the Foundation found, Canada has an electric vehicle supply problem, especially outside of Quebec and B.C., which have mandates to shift to zero-emissions vehicles. It found that without a federal mandate requiring manufacturers to produce and sell a growing proportion of ZEVs, an increasingly stringent vehicle emissions standard, a “feebate” that adds a premium to polluting vehicles and uses the money to reduce electric vehicle prices, or a combination, Canada won’t meet its ZEV or greenhouse gas targets.

The real solution is to change how we get around, and to reimagine our living spaces to reduce reliance on private automobiles. We must expand public transit, taking advantage of new and emerging technologies in electrification, autonomous vehicles, system efficiencies and more. We need to make it easier and safer for people to cycle and walk, and to choose other transport options, from electric scooters to skateboards. We need to develop walkable, livable neighbourhoods with easy transit access.

Many are also calling for tighter regulations or a ban on advertising for fossil-fuelled cars, as was done for cigarettes.

Face it: most people aren’t out exploring, or even ripping up, nature in their SUVs; often, they’re sitting in gridlocked traffic, pumping out pollution. That isn’t the road to well-being. We must do better.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.          

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

The longer we put off seriously addressing climate disruption’s causes, the more we’ll have to adapt to unavoidable consequences. Those who have been bleating that getting off fossil fuels will be too expensive are in for a surprise: adaptation can be far costlier than mitigation, and without the latter, we’ll have to accelerate the former — and we still can’t avoid doing what we should have started 35 years ago: quitting coal, oil and gas.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment report, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, shows we’re at a point when the choice isn’t between one or the other. We must do everything to reduce the worst effects of climate disruption and adapt to the damage we’ve already locked in with our profligate burning of fossil fuels and destruction of carbon sinks like forests, wetlands and peatlands.

This is the second of three working group reports, which — along with three special reports and a synthesis report — make up the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. The first section, released in August 2021, assessed the physical science and provided overwhelming evidence that “climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying.” The third, expected in March, will be on climate change mitigation.

As the IPCC shows — and as anyone can see — we’re already living with impacts, and they’ll worsen if we fail to change: more heat domes, wildfires, intense weather events, flooding, drought and extreme heat.

As for “vulnerability,” we know the climate crisis is disproportionately affecting those who have contributed to it the least. Through excess consumption and unsustainable lifestyles, wealthy people and nations continue to speed the trajectory to climate chaos. They also have more resources to insulate themselves from the impacts, although no one will be immune to the mounting consequences.

The report contains slivers of hope, though. One is that some key methods of adapting to climate disruption will also help prevent it from accelerating beyond our control. That’s because a major contributor to climate change, outside of burning fossil fuels, is destruction of natural systems that sequester carbon and help keep the carbon cycle balanced so human and other life can flourish. Protecting and restoring terrestrial, freshwater, ocean and coastal ecosystems can help draw out and keep carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and protect against now-unavoidable impacts.

For example, although adapting to sea level rise sometimes means employing strategies like “managed retreat” or building infrastructure such as seawalls, it can also include restoring coastal ecosystems to absorb the impacts of events like storm surges and flooding.

Adaptation also means ensuring strategies don’t disproportionately affect the most vulnerable people and communities. The IPCC report notes this includes economic diversification, technologies and strategies that strengthen resilience, reduce inequalities and improve climate-related human well-being.

It’s not just about addressing an existential crisis. Adapting to and preventing the worst impacts of climate disruption will create a better society for everyone everywhere, with less inequality and waste, and with recognition of and respect for the importance of nature, of which we’re a part.

A world with billionaires, let alone those who can rocket into space — or worse, start planet-threatening wars — while so many people lack life’s basic necessities, is a world out of whack. When we evaluate human “progress” according to how much we spend and consume, with little or no thought to actual well-being, something isn’t right. When we view economic and population growth as necessary and good, even though our planet and all it has to offer are finite, it’s impossible to imagine a sustainable future.

The climate scientists and experts who compile the IPCC assessments examine the current and most relevant science regarding all aspects of the crisis. Assessments must then be agreed upon by the 195 member countries and jurisdictions (only a few countries have not formally signed the IPCC’s 2015 Paris Agreement). Final reports tend to be conservative and watered down in order to garner agreement.

Since the first assessment in 1990, evidence and certainty have become incontrovertible. This report, and the Sixth Assessment as a whole, show that we have no time to lose, that we must employ the many available and emerging solutions before it’s too late. Doing so will usher in a better world for all.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.          

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

When politicians and fossil-fuelled media seize on a few ill-chosen words I or other environmental advocates blurt out, while ignoring our overall messages, it’s usually because they have no real counter-arguments.

I’m just a messenger, presenting science and solutions in accessible ways. And, like anyone who has worked on climate issues for any length of time, I get frustrated at the lethal lack of political and societal action.

But it’s rare to see these politicians, media and businesspeople present a rational argument as to why we shouldn’t be doing everything we can to forestall the climate catastrophe scientists worldwide are warning will be our future if we don’t act now.

Instead, they ignore the science, or pay lip service to it, while trying to demonize people who devote their lives to ensuring humanity has a healthy future. They take quotes out of context to rile others who fear change and refuse to accept we’re in a crisis. They ignore the heat domes, droughts and floods, or act as if those have nothing to do with rampant, wasteful fossil fuel exploitation.

If governments and media truly wanted to stand up for oil, gas and coal workers, they’d create and promote opportunities and help them transition to new employment. Instead, they blame environmentalists for job losses even as corporate bosses talk about continued — and eventually full — automation of their industry and while the world turns to cleaner energy.

They care as little for the workers as those who rake in massive profits while pushing employees out through automation and in response to market forces. Meanwhile, environmental organizations worldwide are calling for a “just transition” to ensure affected people and their families don’t get left behind in the necessary shift to cleaner energy and less waste.

Why can’t they come up with honest arguments? If they believe climate disruption is not upon us and not serious enough to compel us to change our ways, that we can continue to exploit and burn fossil fuels until they’re gone, then it’s up to them to present their rationale. If they disagree with our communications about climate and other environmental subjects, they should respond with logical arguments.

The Alberta government’s recent response doesn’t meet that bar. It spent $3.5 million (along with a $30-million/year “war room”) on a “public inquiry into anti-Alberta energy campaigns” to defend the most profitable industry in history from plucky environmental groups. It was beset with delays, cost increases and embarrassments before concluding there was no “wrongdoing on the part of any individual or organization” and that campaigns have not spread misinformation.

Instead of accepting this and moving on, the government and some media spun it to imply it concluded the opposite. We in the environmental movement remain transparent about our communications, funding and aims, and if we make mistakes, we correct them. After all, our goal is a healthier planet for all.

Those who worship money and power will happily manipulate and dupe others to obtain and maintain it. Look at the spew of constant misinformation from U.S. media outlets like Fox, or the ongoing climate science rejection by opinion writers for Canada’s PostMedia chain — in service of the fossil fuel industry’s continued environmental devastation.

They’re holding us back. We’ve known about the greenhouse effect for almost 200 years and been certain about human climate impacts for more than 30, but the fossil fuel industry and its captured politicians, lobbyists, front groups and media have convinced many to continue on as if everything is fine.

We’ve wasted the past 30 years and we’re seeing the consequences. All I and others have been conveying for decades is coming to pass. Just ask the people of Abbotsford or Lytton. Look at the billions of intertidal plants and animals wiped out in the summer heat dome. Canadian canola and wheat production are down more than 35 per cent this year because of drought, yet I still hear the anti-environmentalists arguing that more CO2 is good for plant growth, or that warmer temperatures will be good for Canada.

I’d love to be proven wrong, as would, I suspect, every climate scientist and activist in the world. But there’s no denying our predicament, so let’s work together to resolve it.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.          

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

When people do things they shouldn’t, they often try to distract attention from their actions. Guardian writer George Monbiot notes that many corporations fuelling the planet’s destruction spend significant resources to shift attention away from themselves and onto us.

“The deliberate effort to stop us seeing the bigger picture began in 1953 with a campaign called Keep America Beautiful. It was founded by packaging manufacturers, motivated by the profits they could make by replacing reusable containers with disposable plastic,” he writes. “In 2004, the advertising company Ogilvy & Mather, working for the oil giant BP, took this blame-shifting a step further by inventing the personal carbon footprint. It was a useful innovation, but it also had the effect of diverting political pressure from the producers of fossil fuels to consumers.”

“Greenwashing” is another way corporations divert attention from their true ecological impacts. As British psychology professor Steven Reicher points out, “One recent McDonald’s spot boasts of the way the company is recycling cooking oil into truck fuel, coffee cups into greetings cards, and plastic toys into children’s playgrounds. The problem is that it makes no mention of the fact that McDonald’s beef footprint alone constitutes 22m metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year.”

Facing the real issues often leaves us feeling anger, anxiety and despair. While these are reasonable responses to the environmental crises engulfing us, the multi-billion-dollar self-help industry has profited enormously by convincing us that fixing ourselves is the priority.

How do we balance the need for personal change with systemic change, when both are necessary?

Personal actions can create consumer demand for sustainably made products, model greener behaviours and foster empowerment. But focusing on the personal runs the risk of eclipsing our responsibility to also marshal systemic change.

As Reichler notes, “McDonald’s advertising approach is emblematic of the way in which companies seek to continue with business as usual, by distracting us from where the real problems lie. Its adverts represent just one of many strategies by which this is accomplished. One of the most common methods is to turn the climate crisis from a systemic into an individual issue.”

It’s hard to take on systems, but until we do, they’ll continue to grind up nature and spit out profit where rivers, forests and meadows once stood.

Systemic and environmental racism underpin these systems.

Systemic racism provides advantages (and inheritances), privileging white people in employment, education, justice and social standing. It enabled the mandate under which colonizers have invaded lands, occupied Indigenous territories and exploited nature for financial gain.

As a result of environmental racism, Indigenous and racialized communities have been placed at greater risk of living adjacent to land degradation and pollution from industrial activities and waste disposal.

Our economic system has strong hands upon the bellows. It promotes growth with no limits, which leads to such degradation of nature that around a million species are at risk of extinction — more than ever in human history.

This economic system also results in gross inequities. It’s possible for one person to make $36 billion in a day — more than the yearly gross domestic product of some countries. As Monbiot writes, “The richest 1% of the world’s people (those earning more than $172,000 a year) produce 15% of the world’s carbon emissions: twice the combined impact of the poorest 50%.” He proposes “a new system, in which there is ‘private sufficiency and public luxury.’“

In his words, “While there is not enough ecological or even physical space on Earth for everyone to enjoy private luxury, there is enough to provide everyone with public luxury: magnificent parks, hospitals, swimming pools, art galleries, tennis courts and transport systems, playgrounds and community centres.”

It’s a lot to take on, and it’s good to check out at times — to find respite in binge-watching, books, self-care routines or nature — as long as we check back in. Change won’t happen until we demand it, and unless we face the flames (metaphorically and, increasingly, literally), there is little chance we’ll be sufficiently motivated to put them out.

It’s not all work. Joy can be found in dreaming up creative responses (think of the many clever protest signs!) and joining in community. To paraphrase Joan Baez, activism is the best antidote to despair.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Boreal Project Manager Rachel Plotkin. 

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org

As light slowly returns to the Northern Hemisphere, we anticipate brighter days ahead. It’s a good time to consider the wondrous combination of forces that make life on Earth possible.

Above all is the sun — the ultimate source of all our energy. But we rely on plants, algae and some bacteria to obtain this energy through photosynthesis. According to a Lumen Learning article, “It is the only biological process that can capture energy that originates in outer space (sunlight) and convert it into chemical compounds (carbohydrates) that every organism uses to power its metabolism.”

Photosynthesis uses solar energy to convert water and atmospheric carbon dioxide into organic compounds such as sugars. “These sugars are then used to make complex carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins, as well as the wood, leaves, and roots of plants,” University of California’s Understanding Global Change website says. As an added bonus, we get oxygen.

Photosynthesis powers 99 per cent of Earth’s ecosystems. Even coal, oil and gas were created when plants (and sometimes the animals that ate them) were buried, their captured solar energy transformed and concentrated though heat, pressure and hundreds of millions of years.

Although it’s tempting to see this massive, fiery, life-giving entity as some kind of deity, we have to remember the sun is indifferent. What it does to or for us is up to us. If we choose to go out into its heat unprotected, we’ll burn and possibly get skin cancer. If we put solar panels on our home or office building, we’ll capture its energy.

Existing and new ways to use its power more directly, perhaps even through artificial photosynthesis, are clearly better than wasting the valuable, concentrated stores that have taken more than 300 million years to form. But unlike solar radiation, coal, oil and gas can be “commodities.” Under our human systems, someone can “own” these and exploit, trade, sell and profit from them. As profit and wealth concentration became primary drivers of economic agendas in the industrialized world, rampant exploitation and waste became the norm, rather than careful and beneficial use.

Most early automobiles used plant-based ethanol for fuel, but as more oil was discovered, the two industries worked together to create a sprawling car culture that would deliberately burn and waste excessive amounts of fuels to keep profits flowing. It was likely the biggest overall mistake humans have ever made.

For a time, it worked like a dream — the American Dream perhaps — increased prosperity and mobility, shopping malls, drive-throughs, suburbs, middle class jobs, a wide variety of food and products and consumerism as a virtue. We can see now that we’ve been borrowing from the future to pay for our excessive lifestyles, and the bill has come due.

It never made sense to burn precious energy stores in such a wasteful and polluting way, to put enormous amounts of money and energy into developing a culture and infrastructure around empowering and encouraging a massive number of people to each have a two-tonne machine to move them around.

To resolve the climate and related crises, we have to change our ways. And we have to help those who haven’t enjoyed the same privileges and benefits of our fossil-fuelled economies to ensure they can prosper without contributing more to the damage.

I once asked renowned ecologist E.O. Wilson, who died on December 26, how many people the planet could sustain indefinitely. He responded, “If you want to live like North Americans, 200 million.” That’s because North Americans, Europeans, Japanese and Australians, who make up 20 percent of the world’s population, are consuming more than 80 percent of its resources.

So maybe we shouldn’t think of transformative change as sacrifice. It’s more about realizing what’s truly important, that the persistent race to acquire more stuff or more money is an illusory path to well-being. We simply can’t continue consuming in the same way we have been for the past hundred years or so. Freed from those pointless pursuits, we might actually discover that family, friends, community and nature bring us more happiness and satisfaction than any material goods.

So, as the days grow longer with the promise of the sun, let’s all do what we can to spread light and joy in the world.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.          

Learn more at http://www.davidsuzuki.org

According to philosopher-historian Yuval Noah Harari, “Homo sapiens conquered this planet thanks above all to the unique human ability to create and spread fictions. We are the only mammals that can cooperate with numerous strangers because only we can invent fictional stories, spread them around, and convince millions of others to believe in them. As long as everybody believes in the same fictions, we all obey the same laws, and can thereby cooperate effectively.”

In his book, Sapiens, Harari explains that 1,000 humans can peacefully occupy a large room if it’s for a common purpose — to attend a lecture, say, or church. But if you put 1,000 non-human animals into a room, chaos would likely ensue. (Of course, human gatherings can also end in chaos.)

This is the most convincing theory to date of a distinction between humans and non-human animals — a distinction we’re so heavily invested in that we’ve told ourselves numerous stories to uphold the concept. Most of these stories have been debunked.

In the 1960s, Jane Goodall rocked the scientific world by reporting that David Greybeard, a chimp she was observing, used grass stalks to collect termites from a termite mound. Until then, tool use was thought to be a defining quality of humanity. In subsequent observations, she noticed chimps shaping tools to increase their efficiency. In response, her sponsor Louis Leakey exclaimed, “Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as humans.”

Instead, we shifted the goalposts, and asserted that while other animals might make and use tools, only humans had a sense of self. This theory was discounted by the “mirror test,” first conducted in 1970, in which Gordon Gallup Jr. anesthetized apes, painted a red spot on their foreheads, and placed a mirror in their cage. When they came to, the apes responded by touching the spot and inspecting their fingers, much as humans would do.

While American linguist and social activist Noam Chomsky and his supporters assert that language differentiates humans from other animals, and while humans have never successfully taught other animals to communicate in complete sentences, there’s little question that animals communicate. Honeybees dance out directions to nearby nectar. Vervet monkeys use different alarm calls to alert fellow monkeys to the presence of leopards, eagles and snakes. 

Researcher W. Tecumseh Fich says animals communicate complicated ideas within their communities, but this “cognitive sophistication” isn’t detectable in their vocal communication systems.

The assertion that only humans can think abstractedly has also been debunked, as has the notion that only humans have culture and shared learning.

There’s no question that non-human animals are different from humans in many ways. But although we can’t teach a chimpanzee how to communicate with us in sign language as a human could, nor can we learn how to communicate within non-human animal societies. While we might glean the meaning of some of their signals and cries, many concepts they comprehend are collectively understood in ways we’ll likely never know.

As our stories evolve or are replaced as we learn from the world around us, we must find narratives that better equip us to meet the challenges of our times. Our current preferred plot lines potentially hinder our ability to fully come to terms with risks such as those posed by climate change and the steps needed to address them. Harari writes, “It’s important to have human enemies in order to have a catchy story. With climate change, you don’t. Our minds didn’t evolve for this kind of story.”

As dictators have shown throughout history, collective narratives are often successful when they have a bad guy, someone or something that is “other.” That’s why seeing nature as a “resource” rather than “kin” or something we are a part of has made ecosystems easy to exploit.

Ultimately, humans have the ability to shift our narratives, create wider circles of caring and revel in the wonders of non-human animals’ abilities instead of comparing them to ourselves and finding them lacking.

It’s not too late to set ourselves up to be the story’s heroes who finally take responsibility for our ailing planet. In the most pressing story facing our planet today, the ending has yet to be written.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Boreal Project Manager Rachel Plotkin. 

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

The planet and its miraculous nature will go on with or without us. After all, extinction is an essential part of life’s history on the planet, and we humans seem determined to fuel our own demise through unsustainable exploitation and destruction of the natural world that makes human life and flourishing possible.

In the 3.9 billion years we think life has existed on Earth, immense changes have occurred. The sun is 30 per cent warmer today, great continental plates have pulled apart and smashed together, mountains have risen up, oceans filled then emptied. Magnetic poles have reversed then switched back. Ice ages have punctuated warm periods.

After life invented photosynthesis, the atmosphere was transformed by removal of carbon dioxide and addition of oxygen. Those life forms were fixed by their heredity to specific habitats and needs, so when environmental conditions changed, they were displaced by others better suited to the new state. More than 99.99 per cent of all species that have ever existed are extinct, and that is how life has persisted.

The fossil record indicates five mass extinction episodes have occurred, defined by disappearance of more than 75 per cent of all species within 2.8 million years, a mere blink in evolutionary time. In the five great extinctions, 75 to 90 per cent of terrestrial and marine plants and animals vanished.

Despite these enormous disruptions, life recovered in diversity and abundance, although radically different in makeup. In the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction 66 million years ago, when dinosaurs disappeared after ruling the planet for 180 million years, mammals took advantage and thrived.

On average, an invertebrate species’ lifespan is about 11 million years, and a mammalian species lasts between one and two million years. After a mass extinction, ecosystems recover after two million years, while the biosphere takes about 10 million years to fully flourish again. These numbers and time frames are inferred from the fossil record and geology, and can provide a framework within which to assess the current epoch, often called the Anthropocene.

The explosive growth of human numbers, technological innovation and demands of the global economy have amplified our species’ ecological footprint so greatly that we have triggered another mass extinction episode. Unlike the previous five, this sixth extinction is the direct consequence of one species, us — an infant species that has only been around for 300,000 years.

Although I have faith that nature will continue on despite all we’ve done, whether or not we’re around for it, it will take millions of years for the biosphere to equilibrate again with another array of unimaginable and wondrous biodiversity.

It’s as if we’ve sped up time. Many plant and animal species we care about were destined to be here for a few million years at most, but now they’re disappearing at unimaginable rates, often within our lifetimes. We’re the first species to have caused rapid extinction and to be aware of what we’re doing. We have spread across the planet and become a geological force, reshaping the land and water according to our demands.

But as the top planetary predator, we’re one of the species most vulnerable to extinction — of other species and our own. If the plants and animals we rely on for food and more become extinct, we’re in trouble.

We have the intelligence to recognize the crisis and resolve it by pulling back, ceasing activities that contribute to extinctions, and encouraging nature. Nature always bats last, and wins. That’s because it sets the rules. And nature has an ace up its sleeve: time, all the time in the world until the sun burns out and is no more.

We have become the impatient species, too busy to let nature replenish itself and too puffed up with our own sense of importance to acknowledge our utter dependence on its generosity. Instead, we steal from our children and future generations by extinguishing so many species that could have been here for them too.

We have many reasons to change our destructive ways, to show greater respect to nature. Above all, we have to think of the world we’re leaving to our children and grandchildren and those yet to be born. We must do it for love.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

Most of us believe wild animals such as tigers and wolves shouldn’t be kept in basements or backyards as pets — even if we haven’t seen Tiger King! Fortunately, most municipalities have bylaws to prevent this.

Those laws don’t extend to all wildlife, though. People can still own “exotic” wild animals, including all shapes and sizes of reptiles and amphibians — lizards, snakes, turtles, tortoises, frogs, salamanders. Animals deprived of their natural habitat are no longer “wild,” though; they’re artifacts.

Some Canadian provinces, such as Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan, have exotic animal laws and regulations, but in many, the responsibility for regulation lies primarily with municipalities. More than 200 municipalities in Canada have prohibited-animal lists. Most are mammal-centric and feature relatively few birds, even fewer reptiles and amphibians and, only rarely, any fish or invertebrates. The vast majority of non-mammal species are under- or unregulated.

Life isn’t fun for animals confined or alone in small cages in someone’s home, imprisoned for human enjoyment. But what most pet owners don’t realize is that the exotic pet trade also has significant ecological impacts.

A serious environmental problem is created when exotic pets are released or dumped into natural environments by people who never realized how big they’d grow, how long they’d live or how expensive they’d be to keep. Some take the time to look up adoption facilities, but there are few for exotic animals. Many naively think that releasing their pet into the wild is a humane option.

Ontario conservation biologist Marc Dupuis-Desormeaux said, of 1,000 turtles he’s trapped for study — often working with the Toronto and Regional Conservation Authority — five to six per cent were non-native red-eared sliders released by pet owners (or were descendants of discarded pets). Red-eared sliders are more frequently found in urban centres (where people are also more often found).

Released non-native species such as red-eared sliders can compete with native turtle species for prime habitat, like basking sites, and have the potential to modify natural environments. Released goldfish and koi have also wreaked ecological havoc in waterways. The pervasiveness of invasive species, including those from the pet trade, is one of the drivers of wildlife decline in Canada.

Collecting animals from the wild for commercial use, including for sale as food or pets, is also a factor in depletion of wildlife populations, most of which are already facing a variety of threats to their numbers and habitats. Legal and illegal collection from the wild for the pet trade is a pressure few species can tolerate. In Ontario, for example, six out of seven native turtle populations are already at risk. Further, many wild creatures die during capture or while being transported for sale as pets.

Exotic wild animals can also be disease vectors. Wildlife in Canada are already stressed by multiple infectious diseases transmitted by invasive species, such as the ranavirus and the fungus-borne chytridiomycosis, which is affecting amphibian populations globally. With increased numbers of exotic pet animals, both wild-caught and captive-bred, come increased chances of their being released into the wild and new diseases being transferred to native wildlife species, as well as to humans (particularly if there is physical contact). The risk of new epidemics or pandemics of animal origin is also increased — a Pandora’s box we all surely want to keep the lid on.

Exotic pets have become normalized — as have exotic petting zoos and birthday party appearances — but they don’t make sense. Turtles, snakes, lizards, amphibians and other wild animals are amazing creatures worthy of our admiration and wonder, but they should not be taken from their homes for our entertainment, to keep us company or as status symbols.

These creatures have evolved physical and behavioural attributes over thousands or millions of years that allow them to survive in specific habitats and conditions that can’t be replicated in a glass or plastic container in someone’s home. And they are essential components to the functioning of natural ecosystems. If they are removed, the environment is diminished.

If you have patience and, ideally, a pair of rubber boots, you can fairly easily spot and appreciate many snakes, turtles and frogs even in our cities and towns — in the local meadows, ponds, rivers, fields, forests, lakes and streams, where they belong.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Boreal Project Manager Rachel Plotkin. 

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org

Resolving the climate crisis isn’t just about shifting from one technology to another; it’s about shifting our ways of thinking and being. It’s a point that often gets missed in conversations about major greenhouse gas emission sources.

That was illustrated at the recent 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) climate summit, in Glasgow, where governments, automakers and airlines worked on deals to cut global transport emissions. Because transportation is responsible for one-fifth to one-quarter of global emissions, that seems like a good step.

But there are problems.

With aviation and shipping, the main idea is to switch from polluting fossil fuels to “biofuels.” But with expected increases in both sectors, that could mean destroying more natural areas or displacing food-growing lands with crops for fuel production.

And as George Monbiot points out, “Flying accounts for most of the greenhouse gas emissions of the super-rich, which is why the wealthiest 1% generate roughly half the world’s aviation emissions. If everyone lived as they do, aviation would be the biggest of all the causes of climate breakdown.” Finding better fuels is important, but cutting back on flying — which would mostly affect the affluent — is just as critical. But, of course, that doesn’t fit with the current growth-and-profit economic paradigm.

As for shipping, Reuters notes around 90 per cent of traded goods travel by sea, and shipping accounts for about three per cent of global emissions. Our current global economic system encourages corporations to go where resources and labour are cheap and standards are often low to maximize profits. Shifting away from consumerism and supporting local businesses and production would go as far or farther in reducing shipping emissions, although cleaner ways to fuel ships are needed.

With the automobile industry, it’s all about electric vehicles. And the focus is on direct emissions rather than the many other environmental impacts, from production to massive infrastructure requirements. Few people even question car culture — why we’ve decided so many people should each have large machines to transport them in isolation. And why they should be provided with the massive infrastructure to make it possible, from roads and parking to malls and drive-throughs.

This idea of constant economic growth — with the excessive consumption and waste required to fuel it — has become so ingrained that we resort to incremental measures in the midst of a crisis. We just can’t imagine different ways of seeing, and so we try to shoehorn solutions into an outdated system that wasn’t designed to be sustainable.

Again, electric vehicles are important. They pollute far less than internal combustion engine vehicles and can last longer. But what we should really focus on is reducing private automobile use, through good public transit, active transport like cycling and walking, increasingly popular modes like e-bikes and scooters, better urban planning and design, and new technologies like self-driving vehicles that can facilitate car sharing and efficient ride-hailing services. All this would dramatically reduce congestion and pollution, and would even make it possible to convert massive amounts of road and parking to green space.

And while electric vehicle sales are increasing rapidly, they’re still far outnumbered by gasoline and diesel car sales.

As for the COP26 automakers’ pledge — which would require all cars and vans sold to be zero-emission by 2040 — as inadequate as it is, not everyone is on board. Even though Volkswagen and Toyota are major electric and hybrid vehicle manufacturers, they didn’t back the commitment. The U.S., China and Germany also refused to support the pledge.

According to Reuters, “The wider lesson is that private players can’t be relied on to stick their necks out if public action is absent.” This shows how essential it is for society to get involved. It’s mainly up to governments, business, industry and international agencies to resolve the climate crisis, but without massive public pressure, they’ll continue down the status quo road until it’s too late to keep the planet from heating to catastrophic levels.

Climate conferences such as COP are important, and perhaps they’re more than just “blah, blah, blah,” but until we replace the outdated human-invented systems that got us into this mess, we’ll only be downshifting rather than putting on the brakes. That’s not good enough.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.          

Learn more at http://www.davidsuzuki.org

What’s the best way to respond to a “code red”? Recent research is testing us on that. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis” — the first part of its sixth assessment — confirms we’ll continue accelerating on a terrible trajectory if we don’t rein in greenhouse gas emissions and protect natural areas that absorb and store carbon.

An earlier International Energy Agency report said keeping the world from catastrophic heating and meeting global net-zero emissions goals by 2050 requires ending new oil and gas exploration and development and not building coal-fired power plants.

A “code red for humanity,” as the IPCC report has been called, should be met with a united, effective, ambitious response — as with COVID-19. With so much evidence that humanity faces a collective existential threat, one would expect governments, industry and civil society to come together to resolve the crisis, especially given the many available and emerging solutions. To be fair, we’ve seen some effort at global climate summits and such, but still more talk than urgently needed action — “blah blah blah,” as Greta Thunberg aptly put it.

As many experts point out, we’re “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis when we should be doing everything possible to extinguish it. According to the International Monetary Fund, world governments are subsidizing coal, oil and gas to the tune of US$11 million every minute! That amounted to almost $6 trillion in 2020. Canada was especially generous, giving the industry close to $64 billion.

The IMF breaks down subsidies into those that cut fuel prices (eight per cent), tax breaks (six per cent), failing to make polluters pay for deaths and poor health caused by air pollution (42 per cent) and for heat waves and other impacts of global heating (29 per cent).

In other words, although subsidies through royalty concessions, tax breaks, infrastructure purchases and such are significant, many are derived from the fact that industries like coal, oil and gas don’t account for the costly damage they cause to society. Their price does not reflect their full societal costs.

Using calculations that didn’t include externalities such as damage to health, infrastructure and the environment, an Environmental Defence report estimated Canada’s subsidies at about $18 billion, with $3.28 billion in direct spending and $13.6 billion in public financing for oil and gas companies. The report notes the total “is an underestimation, as we’re missing a lot of public transparency from the government and oil companies around this financial support, especially tax breaks.”

Some subsidies were for pipelines. “In 2020, Export Development Canada provided up to $5.25 billion in financing renewals for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, a publicly owned project that will cost at least $12.6 billion and comes with a hefty carbon footprint,” a Narwhal article says.

ED notes that the federal government has committed just $15 billion — over 10 years! — for climate initiatives.

G7 countries, including Canada, have been promising to phase out fossil fuel subsidies since 1990, and in 2016 set a deadline of 2025! They’ve made little progress. According to ED, “Canada ranks second worst of the G20 countries for public finance to oil and gas” (behind China) and is the worst per capita.

The IPCC report confirms that burning fossil fuels and destroying natural carbon sinks are heating the planet at unprecedented and accelerating rates, that warming will continue at least until mid-century no matter what because of the gases we’ve already emitted and that global warming will exceed 1.5 or 2 C this century unless we rapidly reduce emissions.

We understand the problem, and we have solutions. But we can’t shake the myths of constant growth and fossil-fuelled economic engines. And so, the world continues to prop up a wasteful, archaic, destructive industry simply because it has fuelled our consumer society and its economy for decades.

Giving trillions of dollars to a dying industry that all evidence says must be stopped is not the proper response to a code red. With the world’s nations meeting in Glasgow for the UN climate conference until November 12, they must recognize that the time for incrementalism has long passed.

As Greta Thunberg says, we’ve had enough “blah blah blah.” It’s time for real, transformative change.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Writer and Editor Ian Hanington.          

Learn more at http://www.davidsuzuki.org

If world representatives at the UN climate conference in Glasgow put talk into action, we could forestall the worst impacts of the rapidly accelerating climate crisis. But we have to look beyond the Conference of the Parties — COP26 this year. If agreements under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change are undermined through other international structures, we could face a grim future.

Negotiations at COP26 — from October 31 to November 12 — are critical to building on and strengthening measures set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement. They include raising climate finance and finalizing rules on international carbon markets, agreeing on transparency and a global goal for adaptation and more.

One shortcoming of the COP process, though, is that the Paris Agreement’s system of accountability doesn’t allow for enforcement of “nationally determined contributions,” which spell out each country’s plans to reduce emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. Many countries are filling this gap through national climate laws and litigation.

But climate plans and initiatives can sometimes bring nations into dispute with other international bodies and agreements.

Even though the UNFCCC is the primary arena for global climate co-operation, other international instruments could play a greater role in our climate future. Rules accepted under World Trade Organization and various other trade and investment agreements often benefit destructive, extractive industries to the detriment of national and international climate goals and ambitions.

Multilateral and bilateral trade and investment agreements facilitate the flow of commodities, services, intellectual property and foreign investments between nations. Under these, private corporations and national governments have been able to sue countries, including Canada, for enacting public-interest environmental regulations that could affect the companies’ monetary interests.

Citing the example of a U.K. oil company suing the Italian government for loss of “future anticipated profits” after Italy banned new oil drilling in coastal waters, Guardian writer George Monbiot says the widely adopted “investor-state dispute settlement” process “makes effective action against climate breakdown almost impossible.”

Canada’s approach to global trade and investment has immensely benefited extractive and petrochemical industries and worked against our national climate ambitions. Moreover, under the WTO dispute system, governments have systematically challenged one another’s renewable energy subsidies. For example, in response to complaints from Japan and the European Union, the WTO ruled in 2013 that Ontario’s “feed-in tariff” program for renewable energy discriminated against foreign suppliers by requiring a percentage of materials and services be from Ontario.

While trade obligations and legal action around subsidies for renewable energy slow the urgent global energy transition, subsidies for oil, gas and coal — even some that could be considered illegal under WTO rules — haven’t been subjected to much scrutiny. G7 nations have been promising to phase out fossil fuel subsidies since 1990 but have made little progress.

As long as the world has been crafting climate rules under the UNFCCC, we’ve also been creating climate-destroying rules at the WTO and other spheres of economic “co-operation.”

It’s not that we weren’t warned. Before the 2015 Paris COP21 summit, the European Parliament seized on a solution proposed by Canadian professor and investment and trade law expert Gus Van Harten for a “legal carve-out” that could be put into the Paris Agreement to ensure investor-state dispute settlement claims against countries wouldn’t apply to climate change measures. Despite a European Parliament resolution, it wasn’t included.

James Bacchus, former chairman and chief judge of the WTO appellate body, has also proposed a WTO climate waiver to harmonize the international trade regime with UNFCCC commitments.

Climate diplomacy has been going on for decades. Since the Paris Agreement was adopted, it’s enjoyed enormous popularity. In light of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, expectations are high for ambitious government action at COP26.

But it’s crucial to ensure that progress on the climate crisis isn’t being undermined by trade and investment bodies and agreements, and other international entities, that promote continuous growth, consumerism, fossil fuels and extraction at the expense of our collective health and survival.

Above all, COP26 delegates must understand and impress upon the world and all its organizations that it’s time to leave coal, oil and gas in the ground and quickly transition to better energy sources, regardless of challenges from those who profit by fuelling the climate crisis.

David Suzuki is a scientist, broadcaster, author and co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation. Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Quebec and Atlantic Canada Director Sabaa Khan.          

Learn more at https://www.davidsuzuki.org