May 19, 2026
Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter. If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,this is the best season of your life. —Wumen Huikai (1183–1260), translated by Stephen Mitchell “Our countryside is being drenched in pesticides, with devastating consequences for bees, birds, butterflies, rivers and the soil.” —Nina Schrank, campaigner with Greenpeace UK Adam Weymouth’s Lone Wolf: Walking the Line between Civilization and Wildness takes us on the journey of a wolf’s travels 1,600 kilometres through Europe in search of a mate. Guided by an electronic tracking device, Weymouth follows the wolf’s path through mountains and forests and along rivers. But this is more than a simple travelogue. We are privy to a history of grotesque wolf mythologies and witness the conversations of mountain farmers who for the most part would be more than pleased to kill the last European wolf. Here in North America ranchers even use helicopters and snowmobiles to kill these majestic and socially involved animals if traps and poison don’t find them first. Why, through many centuries, are we so obsessed with falsely believing wolves are Satan incarnate? Alaska’s bears are now sharing the same fate: no limits are placed on how many animals can be killed. There is no appreciation by Alaska’s government that the extermination of a local apex predator has catastrophic implications for a host of other species that rely on an intricate web of interactions. Well, of course they are well aware of the consequences, just as we are in our area when we witness deer populations rising due to a lack of predators. Scientists sometimes refer to the slow decline of a species to extinction as “death by 1,000 cuts.” This expression is more gruesome and graphic than you might expect. It links back to a centuries-old method of torture and execution in China that was practised until it was banned in 1905. The outcome of methodically cutting off portions of the body was a slow and excruciating death, but it was no particular cut that caused this. The expression as it is now used conveys just how difficult it is to know precisely the reasons for a species’ demise. The natural world is slowly being butchered at around 1.5 percent each year—and it is you and I who are doing the cutting. The planetary boundaries framework tells us what happens when humanity knowingly goes beyond what one analysis calls a “safe” threshold for “biotic intactness”—a measure of functional and genetic diversity (biodiversity). Biotic intactness has declined across at least 65% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface.https://tinyurl.com/world-boundaries Much has been written on this grim passage of the living to the dead. Insects in particular have been flagged as being on a life/death precipice. Because of their massive agricultural significance, bee species have come under immense scrutiny. Between pesticides and habitat destruction, bees are universally acknowledged as being endangered. https://tinyurl.com/1000-cuts-biodiversity On May 15, the 21st Endangered Species Day provided a global conversation to end the drivers of ecological
May 6, 2026
“There is a straight line of connection between the fossil fuel economy and armed conflicts at the global scale.” —Irene Vélez Torres, Colombia’s environment minister “To robbery, butchery and rapine, they give the lying name of government; they create a desolation and call it peace…” —Tacitus, Roman historian AD 56 to c.120 “Somehow, I think, we need to find new kinds of imagining, new ways of being that will leave us less alone in this world, less the desolate lords of Tacitus’ victory field. Our aliveness, as well as all life that lies beyond the human, is at stake in this.” —Robert Macfarlane, Is a River Alive? For three decades Indigenous groups and the global south have been sidelined in favour of an industrial-based hegemony whereby the words “fossil fuels” never appeared (except at COP28 in 2023) in the final texts of UN COP summits, rendering the entire process farcical as well as profoundly flawed and tragic. The hopes of many at the COP30 in Brazil last November that fossil fuels would be vigorously exposed and repudiated for what they are were dashed. The frustration and disappointment voiced created a concrete demand for viable solutions on climate warming, and the despair changed to positivity and optimism last month when the first historically important Transition Away from Fossil Fuels conference took place in the city of Santa Marta, Colombia. https://transitionawayconference.com/home Jointly hosted with the Netherlands, it was attended by almost 60 countries as well as organizations such as the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative—which is a coalition of 18 countries, civil society organisations, 195 sub-national governments, 101 Nobel Laureates, 3,000 scientists and more than a million individuals. https://www.fossilfueltreaty.org/ The conference signals that the decades-long outrage about the disastrous effects of oil, gas and coal has finally borne fruit. Transition Away from Fossil Fuels actively aims to move us towards a renewable-energy-based future. Regarded as a breath of fresh air, the Santa Marta meeting focused on overcoming economic dependence on fossil fuels, transforming energy supply and demand, and advancing international cooperation and climate diplomacy. https://tinyurl.com/transition-away The debilitating consensus process that enables countries like Saudi Arabia and the accompanying oil lobbyists to sabotage the UN summits—and means that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has monumentally failed to steer the world away from a fossil-fuel-induced collision with climate breakdown—was duly eschewed by the Colombia/Netherlands initiative in favour of a system of decision-making that enabled the conference to come up with a clean, just and equitable way forward. There was no binding agreement on a specific time frame for action, but the attendees agreed to put into play climate frameworks that will bring the world closer to an end of fossil fuel dependency. The biggest immediate achievement at the conference was France’s commitment to implement a national roadmap to phase out its fossil fuels. Alongside the official programme, social movements and communities from across Latin America convened a two-day Conference for Fossil Fuel-Free Territories. This parallel process brought together Indigenous peoples, rural communities, Afro-descendant organizations, and environmental
Mar 26, 2026
“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” —W.H. Auden “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” —attributed to Benjamin Franklin “Overdrafts on aquifers are one reason some of our geologist colleagues are convinced that water shortages will bring the human population explosion to a halt. There are substitutes for oil; there is no substitute for fresh water.” —Paul R. Ehrlich “Where water flows, equality grows.” —UN World Water Day International Day of Forests is marked on March 21, and World Water Day on March 22. Water and forests are critically intertwined. When there is deforestation of large tracts of primeval forest, a steady decline in water accessibility takes hold. The land heats up and biodiversity languishes. An article in ScienceDirect,“Trees, Forest and Water: cool insights for a hot world,” points out that a solution for our forests and water conservation is reachable:“Forests and trees must be recognized as prime regulators within the water, energy and carbon cycles. If these functions are ignored, planners will be unable to assess, adapt to or mitigate the impacts of changing land cover and climate. Our call to action targets a reversal of paradigms, from a carbon-centric model to one that treats the hydrologic and climate-cooling effects of trees and forests as the first order of priority.” https://tinyurl.com/water-trees-and-forests Women and girls are the first to experience water scarcity. UN World Water Day 2026 looks at how gender inequality affects women’s lives. In a powerful TED Talk titled “Water is a women’s issue. Here’s why,” water and sanitation campaigner Eleanor Allen focuses on how it is vital for communities to have clean drinking water and sanitation near their homes, schools and places of work. When this happens in areas of clean water scarcity or inadequate sanitation, women’s and girls’ lives are almost magically transformed, enabling them to pursue education and be free of the scourge of waterborne diseases as well as violence perpetrated against them. As a result, men’s lives are also vastly improved. https://tinyurl.com/eleanor-allen-water The UN World Water Day website elaborates: “Where people lack safe drinking water and sanitation close to home, inequalities increase, with women and girls bearing the brunt. They collect water. They manage water. They care for people made sick by unsafe water. They lose time, health, safety, and opportunities. And too often, the systems that govern water leave women and girls out of decision-making, leadership, funding and representation. This makes the water crisis a women’s crisis. We need a transformative, rights-based approach to solving these challenges, where women’s voices are heard and their agency recognized. All women must be equitably represented at all levels of water leadership – helping design every pipe and policy. And women must drive change in water as engineers, farmers, scientists, sanitation workers and community leaders.” https://tinyurl.com/observing-water-day The great biologist, Nature activist and may I say soothsayer (who sometimes predicted wrongly) Paul R. Ehrlich died this month. Over the last 30 years I have had the good fortune to read his books on overpopulation, consumption and
Dec 20, 2025
“Close your eyes, prick up your ears, and from the softest sound to the wildest noise, from the simplest tone to the highest harmony, from the most violent, passionate scream to the gentlest words of sweet reason, it is Nature who speaks, revealing her being, her power, her life, and her relatedness.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe “Humanity now faces perhaps the biggest choice it will ever make: continue down the road to a future devastated by climate change, dwindling Nature, degraded land, and polluted air, land and water, or change direction to secure a healthy planet, healthy people, and prosperity for all.” —Inger Anderson, Executive Director, UN Environment Programme “Cruelty to animals is one of the most significant vices of a low and ignoble people. Wherever one notices them, they constitute a sign of ignorance and brutality.” —Alexander von Humboldt The recent launch of a major UN report on Nature assesses global crises and spells out how our urgent need to look for unconventional non-status-quo solutions translates into doable actions that then become a catalyst for a transformation Nature can then thrive on. By looking at such topics as climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and waste and land degradation, as well as desertification issues, we can find equitable responses. Over three years the UN’s Environment Programme brought together nearly 300 scientists to create the Global Environment Outlook (GEO). This is the seventh edition under that endeavour—hence the name GEO-7. The report is 1242 pages long. There are multiple chapters covering food, oceans and coasts, freshwater, land and soil, Indigenous and local knowledge, and the social, ecological and economic goals of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but also financial systems solutions are explored to underscore solid successes. https://tinyurl.com/unep-geo-7 After assessing present worldwide on-the-ground situations, the report delves deeper into the critical transformations needed for a resilient functioning global society. It even looks at how beneficial a circular economy (as opposed to an economy based on extractivism, like ours) can be by limiting everything from plastic waste to agricultural pollution. GEO-7 tells us: “A global shift to a circular economy is a leading solution to the interconnected environmental crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation, and pollution and waste… A circular flow of resources in the economy will also contribute positively to socioeconomic development while safeguarding Nature and people.” A Future We Choose: Why investing in Earth now can lead to a trillion-dollar benefit for all is GEO-7’s title for remaking in many instances the global north’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples, the global south and the biosphere. Diversity and inclusiveness are necessary if the tapestry of society is to be equitable, and social and ecological justice to have a fair chance of success. GEO-7’s raison d’être is based on detailing our largest human-created planetary problems and asking the difficult questions regarding the outlook for transformation towards a more just future. It “calls on all actors, governments, nongovernmental and multilateral organizations, the public, including Indigenous Peoples, civil society, academia and professional organizations, as well
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,”
