Dec 2, 2025
“As societies grow more unequal and extractive, decision making becomes worse… Warlordism, statehood, and organized crime all have similar ingredients: a hierarchy that coercively extracts resources from a territory and population.” —Luke Kemp, Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse The 2009 film The Age of Stupid examines, from the not-so-distant vantage point of 2055, a wrenching question: if humans were able to see the devastation caused by human-induced climate change in the beginning years of the 21st century, why did they do nothing to stop it? The answer can perhaps be found in the ways oligarchs, plutocrats, psychopaths and autocrats nourish inequality. If rich societies since 1850 could extract and then dump their carbon, plastic and pesticide waste around the world, why not continue and basically refuse to help others adapt to their created mess? While climate justice is all about stopping societal collapse by not being ransomed by deliberate under-education and abject greed, an extractive patriarchal and hierarchical society will always collapse, historians and archaeologists tell us. Profit-driven groups can’t possibly contemplate a degrowth template for turning away from the precipice. One way in which we can address the inequities of human-induced climate breakdown is by considering the food on our plates. Long-standing campaign group Compassion in World Farming states: “Over the last half a century, factory farming has risen to become one of the major issues affecting the future of our planet. It is the world’s biggest cause of animal cruelty and a primary driver of wildlife declines. At the same time, it is a serious pollutant, contributing to climate change and marine dead zones, and a potent source of disease that risks future pandemics. In a world of growing climate, Nature collapse, and pandemic emergencies, ending factory farming has never been more urgent.” https://tinyurl.com/factory-industrial-animals When speaking about the enormous concerns regarding industrial farming, individuals, companies and governments are often both afraid to act to bring about the urgent change needed and unwilling to be the first to enact that change. Industrial agriculture’s megalithic status quo will eventually fail, but until then what is left to spring the Earth’s biosphere back to health? Last month’s climate summit (COP30) in Belém, Brazil should have been a place to start this conversation. The ecologically destabilizing deforestation taking place in Brazil has forged Indigenous alliances. They have been shut out of past climate conferences, but at COP30 they were easily heard, even if it meant breaking down the barriers. And encouragingly, just prior to the summit, the Brazilian government launched a vital new project, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which aims to reverse tropical deforestation, with a US$1 billion seed fund. The fund rose to 5.5 billion dollars during the conference and will hopefully reach 125 billion. https://tinyurl.com/TFFF-seed-fund However, pressed by agriculture conglomerates, Brazil has permitted more Amazon and Cerrado clearance, primarily for soybean cultivation and animal farming, and there are also plenty of illegal operations. All this is playing havoc with the country’s water reserves, and on top of this Brazil’s jaguars, half
Nov 10, 2025
“The climate crisis is tied to the ways fossil fuels are baked into our lives, belongings, and occupations. It thrives on how our fractured societies justify the mistreatment of ourselves and our resources.” —Extinction Rebellion Scientists are raising the alarm that the global impact of humanity’s relentless push against Nature’s integrity will drive our species over the precipice as is already happening for many of the other life forms. The famed biologist E.O. Wilson put it succinctly: “The human impact on biodiversity…is an attack on ourselves.” He expressed doubt that humans would survive for more than a few months if we continue to eradicate our insect populations. We are afraid of insects and unwarrantedly pesticide them to death, but love the honey that bees provide us with. Although Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring became the launchpad for action against the destruction of Nature through the use of pesticides 60-plus years ago, her book is not considered mandatory reading in schools and might even be part of the ritual of book prohibitions that festers throughout many US school systems. At the same time, herbicides and pesticides are an ever-increasing multi-billion-dollar ecocidal industry. Is it any wonder that the well-known word “Anthropocene,” which denotes the predatory ascent of humans over all ecological systems as well as our climate through industrial society’s commodification of Nature, is now joined by other words that describe humanity’s destructive preoccupation since the Holocene? Increasingly Wilson’s term “Eremocene” (the age of loneliness) fits our predicament, as humankind over this century sends thousands of species to their extinction, leaving us with far fewer fellow Earthly creatures and ultimately leading to our doom. The Plantationocene speaks of the runaway colonization of the planet’s forests, such as in the Amazon for industrial cattle farming or expanding agribusinesses for soya bean production, in Indonesia for palm oil monoculture, or in Canada’s boreal forests, which have been converted into the enormous polluter that is the Alberta tar sands. In fact, for many historians the word “civilization” can no longer characterize or be the narrator of a shift away from mindless obsessed capitalism, as civilization and colonialism have been inextricably linked for too long and there are too many negative consequences associated with both. Then there is the Pyrocene: the age of unstoppable wildfires unquestionably caused by fossil fuels. The list goes on. Our epoch has created the age of solastalgia, which is a homesickness that permeates societies without our leaving our homes: the memories of a better place where we have lived. “Solastalgia” describes a dread for where our beloved local spaces will eventually rupture to, or, even more encompassing, for the slow untangling fate of the Earth’s biosphere. Glenn Albrecht, writing in The Conversation, warned: “Either we face a pandemic of solastalgia and related negative psychoterratic syndromes as a result of the havoc created by unsustainable development and climate change, or we use our intelligence and creativity to give rise to a world where our positive psychoterratic emotions can thrive.” https://tinyurl.com/home-anxiety The word “psychoterratic” joins two ideas: “psyche,”
Nov 10, 2025
“The truth is that we have failed to avoid an overshooting above 1.5C in the next few years. And that going above 1.5C has devastating consequences. Some of these devastating consequences are tipping points, be it in the Amazon, be it in Greenland, or western Antarctica or the coral reefs.”—António Guterres, UN Secretary General By bluntly stating what is at stake prior to the UN conference on climate change, and the failure of the Paris 2015 conference’s aspiration to stop a global temperature rise of 1.5 Celsius, António Guterres is publicly demanding that next week’s gathering of nations in Belém, Brazil vigorously negotiate in good faith to curb further lapses of climate action. This will not be easily achieved, particularly since billionaire Bill Gates recently threw a wrench into COP30 negotiations by declaring that while climate concerns are real, the world should—bizarrely—separate the impact of climate realities such as intensified droughts and floods from ongoing work that raises the levels of health and overall economic prosperity of the poorest people. Climate-carbon mitigation technology will come in due time, Gates proclaimed. Suggesting that we must choose either climate programmes or poverty alleviation is a false dichotomy. Gates says, “Our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries.” Has he not watched with horror what has happened to the Caribbean island of Jamaica as a consequence of Hurricane Melissa and rising ocean temperatures, or Vietnam receiving 5 feet of rain recently in 24 hours? Health is directly impacted by climate. Gates’ term “Green Premium” means, in his own words, “the difference in cost between a product that involves emitting carbon and an alternative that doesn’t.” To bring that premium to zero, as for example electric vehicles costing the same as internal combustion vehicles and thus eliminating the extra cost—the “green premium”—of buying an electric one, will initiate a far better prospect for climate stability because the electric car pollutes far less. Until that happens, self-proclaimed “climate activist” Gates believes we must prioritize general poverty issues and cool our heels until green technology costs the same as the old fossil fuel technologies. He says, “This is a chance to refocus on the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change: improving lives… But remember that climate change is not the biggest threat to the lives and livelihoods of people in poor countries, and it won’t be in the future.” https://www.gatesnotes.com/ Yet the opposite is true: it is precisely the unprecedented temperature increase in the last 100 years that is preventing people in the poorest countries from transitioning to a better future. Colonialism’s handmaiden, fossil fuel, frustrates people’s aspirations for a just society. The Guardian newspaper covers climate regularly and reported recently on a study from respected medical journal The Lancet: “Rising global heat is now killing one person a minute around the world, a major report on the health impact of the climate crisis has revealed. It
Sep 28, 2025
“If we truly put a value on biodiversity, we would live in a really, really different world.”—Clover Hogan, youth climate activist and founder of Force of Nature “Azzam Alwash’s stubborn persistence that proved experts wrong is needed everywhere, he believes. For our civilization to continue—if not our very existence—will demand vision that transcends conventional wisdom and boundaries.” —Alan Weisman A blue jay’s wing feather is a remarkable sight. Finding one and using it as a bookmark for Alan Weisman’s new book, Hope Dies Last: Visionary People Across the World, Fighting to Find Us a Future, I was taken aback by its subtle blue and black pattern of colours that end with a flourish of striking white. Of course, countless animals have such odes to beauty, but this feather is one more proof of the inexhaustible creativity found throughout the natural world. Yet most humans fail to celebrate the stunning imagination of Nature, and indeed many have a reckless disregard for it. Fortunately, others are working tirelessly to give Nature the help it needs. One such person is Azzam Alwash, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize for his invaluable contribution with other community members to bring back the fabled Mesopotamian Marshes in southern Iraq after Saddam Hussein diverted the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in his bid to destroy the enemies he believed were hiding in the marshes. This happened in 1993, and 20 years later, after an ecocide that seemed irreversible, Alwash’s headstrong commitment to replenish the Middle East’s largest wetland had already begun to bring back the impossible: water flowed once more, and to everyone’s astonishment myriad forms of life re-emerged. Many years previously I had read Wilfred Thesiger’s fabulous book The Marsh Arabs, which speaks so passionately about life in the Mesopotamian Marshes, so I was particularly interested in learning about the area’s resilience to the ecocide. Another Earth hero, Rob Hopkins, a cofounder of the Transition Network, has striven to protect communities around the world that are threatened by climate breakdown caused by the burning of fossil fuels, by bringing people into community groups that provide inspiration to succeed locally. I have witnessed first-hand how these groups are able to make huge contributions to community involvement and resilience. Hopkins’ recent work focussing on the vital role of imagination to make our world truly a place of celebration is also an inspiration for many. https://transitionnetwork.org/ An extraordinary endeavour to bring before the world the plight of animals was initiated this year by THE HERDS. Setting out from Kinshasa, DRC in April to walk the 20,000km to the Arctic Circle with life-size articulated sculptured figures that mimic real animals in both appearance and mannerisms, the participants engaged thousands of people in an invigorating conversation and educational project. The work continues with Let the Wildness in, THE HERDS’ dynamic interactive education programme “designed to connect young minds with the wonders of Nature and the urgent need for climate action.” Visiting many diverse habitats, it takes students on “a journey through the world’s ecosystems, exploring the wildlife, challenges,
Jul 30, 2025
“Nature has a lot to say, and it has long been time for us, her children, to stop playing deaf.” —Eduardo Galeano, Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist Since 1989, UN World Population Day on July 11 has been an occasion to contemplate how humans can work together to forge a more just society. Earth’s 8.2 billion people must come together as never before to create an equitable planetary peace—a treaty, if you will—with all of Nature’s inhabitants. The world’s approximately 476 million Indigenous people are critical partners in that rising consciousness. They manage or hold tenure rights to approximately a quarter of the world’s surface area, accounting for a significant portion of the world’s biodiversity, nearly half of the protected areas, and over half of the remaining intact forests. Despite their vital role in conservation, Indigenous people experience disproportionately high levels of poverty. It is also not uncommon for Indigenous groups to bear the brunt of toxins and elevated air pollution. As is the case for many marginalized people, toxic industries can be found close by. For decades the Aamjiwnaang First Nation community in Ontario’s Sarina “chemical valley” has been subjected to emissions of the carcinogen benzene from the INEOS Styrolution petrochemical plant, despite the Ontario government’s acknowledgement of the dangers present. Sulphur dioxide is also a problem in Sarnia, because it irritates the human respiratory system. Environmental racism is a curse that visits groups of people who are vulnerable to the vagaries of justice. tinyurl.com/sarnia-pollution Rights of Nature first came into focus with Christopher Stone’s Should Trees Have Standing? Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects, published in 1972. He wrote: “Each time there is a movement to confer rights onto some new ‘entity,’ the proposal is bound to sound odd or frightening or laughable. This is partly because until the rightless thing receives its rights, we cannot see it as anything but a thing for the use of ‘us’—those who are holding rights at the time.” You can read this groundbreaking essay at tinyurl.com/trees-have-rights Robert Macfarlane’s recent book Is a River Alive? was born from the 50-year debate described in Stone’s essay, but it finds affinity with deeply rooted legal, scientific, poetic and both Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural stances—the bedrock of inspiration that encouraged him to write. Macfarlane’s undeniable passion and conviction bring Nature’s obvious centrality and necessary inclusivity into all primordial human relationships. Is a River Alive? is unquestionably a book we should all savour. One of the areas Macfarlane visits is Ecuador, which, along with Colombia, has the world’s greatest biodiversity. In one section of the book he describes the process whereby Ecuador’s constitution incorporated a Rights of Nature manifesto, through which Indigenous people have been successful in pushing back the oil and mining companies’ rapacious appetite for destroying the country’s most biodiverse areas. including cloud forests such as the area known as Los Cedros. Two of the judges who enabled the transformation of the Ecuadorian constitution into a pro-Nature legal document accompanied Macfarlane on his journey to the headwaters of the Los Cedros river system. Elsewhere in the book,
Jul 30, 2025
“The ocean is the cornerstone of Earth’s support system. It shapes climate and weather. It holds the key to our future.” —Sylvia Earle, marine biologist and oceanographer “We need to stop toxic chemical, plastic, and partially combusted carbon pollution now. Along with ocean acidification, nothing else really matters.” —GOES Foundation To celebrate World Ocean Day on June 8, here are 13 wonderful photos that will entice you to care about protecting our ocean: https://tinyurl.com/13-photos These images are an inspiration for people to do more for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), but in reality most of these areas are only protected on paper. The goal set out at the biodiversity COP15 in Montreal in 2022 and eventually agreed by 188 nations is to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030, but little progress has been made and indeed some of the larger areas deemed under protection are still subject to commercial fishing and proposed mining. https://tinyurl.com/marine-unprotected The reduced protections in the US, which has abandoned MPAs under the Trump administration, have made the likelihood of achieving the goal even slimmer. https://therevelator.org/trump-marine-protection Eighty percent of the planet’s biodiversity is found in the ocean. Scientists have so far identified 250,000 marine species but estimate that this covers only two-thirds of the life that exists there. More than half the oxygen production for Earth originates in the ocean. Yet humanity continues to orchestrate the ocean’s demise, even though 3 billion people depend on the ocean for their survival and livelihood. The ocean is a huge carbon sink, but the constant rise in greenhouse gas emissions is acidifying the water and making it difficult to absorb and sequester all the carbon. The ocean also soaks up about 90% of the excess heat generated by climate breakdown. The rise in temperature is already pushing the great coral reefs to their limit of tolerance and are threatening fish with extinction. Many fish are moving further north to escape this and lower oxygen levels. Predators don’t necessarily follow the migrating fish, and the fine balance that defines biodiversity is interrupted. And what happens to all the marine species who are unable to move to escape their drastically changing environment? Every year 11 million tonnes of plastic find their way into the ocean and have now reached even the deepest trenches, polluting the seas from the Arctic to the Antarctic and every species of marine wildlife, and thus entering the food chain on which billions of humans depend. These plastics include lost and abandoned fishing lines and nets, which entangle creatures from seabirds to giant whales. https://tinyurl.com/ocean-planetary The rapid melting of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic is of critical concern as sea level rises threaten so many coastal communities. Small island states are now in jeopardy of disappearing entirely. Furthermore, a warming ocean fuels stronger hurricanes that bring more heavy rainfall and higher storm surge when they make landfall. The Copernicus Ocean State Report lays out the multi-level crises that now plague the global ocean. https://tinyurl.com/ocean-report One of the greatest threats to
