Either we start paying the full cost of our depredations on the planet’s ecological systems and natural resources, or our children and grandchildren will be paying the price

Dr. Trevor Hancock

17 September 2024

697 words

By proclaiming the carbon tax “is an existential threat to our economy and our way of life” and that it threatens a “nuclear winter” for the economy, Pierre Poilievre has entered the world of full-on craziness and inverted logic.

The reality is exactly the opposite. The ‘carbon tax’ – actually, a form of pollution pricing, as the Supreme Court has confirmed – is not an existential threat to our economy and way of life. On the contrary, it is our economy and way of life that poses an existential threat to large parts of humanity, other species, and global and regional ecosystems.

The pursuit of endless economic growth – a ridiculous concept on a finite planet – to support a way of life that generally makes us greedy for more stuff, undermines the very fundamentals of human existence and wellbeing; the Earth’s natural systems.

Moreover, far from causing a nuclear winter – an absurd and vastly over-reaching analogy anyway – carbon pricing is one way to prevent the ongoing over-heating of the planet, with dire consequences for future generations.

Of course, Poilievre is not alone – although his idiotic ‘axe the tax’ slogan and his desire to label the next election a ‘carbon tax election’ is especially perfidious. Getting rid of carbon pricing has now been cravenly embraced by the federal NDP and numerous provincial premiers, including David Eby here in B.C., prompting B.C. Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau to state “This is a government with no principles and no direction.”

Furthermore, because there is a federal carbon pricing system in place, upheld by the Supreme Court, dropping the tax in B.C will have no effect, since the federal system will kick in, as it does in other provinces.

A helpful explainer in The Narwhal points out “the pool of money the federal government collects through the price on carbon is redistributed to all Canadians” via the Canada Carbon Rebate, while “Money collected through carbon levies for industrial emitters are returned to the provinces and territories and are meant to fund greener technologies.”

In abandoning the NDP’s support for carbon pricing, Zero Carbon columnist Chris Hatch noted last week in Canada’s National Observer, Jagmeet Singh completely ignored the benefits of the rebate to working people; the same applies to David Eby.

Eby’s chief rival, Conservative Party leader John Rustad, is even worse. He appears to remain at heart a climate change denier, downplaying the importance of climate change, suggesting that scientists are still debating whether humans contribute to climate change and denying it’s a crisis. He says, wrongly, that carbon pricing is “an economic disaster and an environmental failure”, that it drives up prices while failing to lower emissions.

However, Canada’s independent Ecofiscal Commission, in an open letter in March signed by 335 leading economists from across Canada, stated “Not only does carbon pricing reduce emissions, but it does so at a lower cost than other approaches.” Moreover, the evidence shows it “has a negligible impact on overall inflation.”

So what exactly is carbon pricing? Well, it’s a form of pollution pricing, a small step on the way to all of us paying the full cost for the natural resources we use, the environmental harms we cause and the health and social damage currently accruing to future generations.

But the sad reality is that politicians of all stripes have little or no concern for the wellbeing of future generations, or even of today’s young people, for one simple reason: The future doesn’t have a vote. And so we get empty and idiotic slogans masquerading as policy.

So in the spirit of these times, I propose another slogan to counter Poilievre’s foolish ‘axe the tax’ – “Pay the price”. Either we start paying the full price of our depredations on the planet’s ecological systems and natural resources, or our children and grandchildren will be paying the price in societal disruption, decline and possible collapse, with all its attendant misery, illness, injuries and premature deaths.

Paying the full price seems like a bargain to me, and certainly it will seem that way to our descendants, while failing to do so will be seen as a craven abandonment of future generations by our current so-called leaders.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

On Oct. 1, I will be joining hundreds of seniors at the B.C. legislature in Victoria to call for immediate and serious action on climate change

Dr. Trevor Hancock

10 September 2024

702 words

I was born in 1948, when the average annual atmospheric CO2 level was about 311 ppm. When I started writing this column in December 2014, average annual CO2 was 399 ppm; today it is 422 ppm. The impacts of these heightened CO2 levels, as well as increased levels of methane, nitrous oxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs), are already glaringly obvious.

According to NASA, the global temperature is about 1.2°C above the long-term average from 1951 to 1980, but about 1.4°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average. Globally, the World Meteorological Organization has reported, 2023 was the hottest year on record. Copernicus, the European Union’s Earth Observation Programme, reported this week that this summer has been the hottest on record, while the past 13 months have all been ones “in which the global-average surface air temperature exceeded 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”

The Canadian Climate Institute notes: “Canada is warming twice as fast as the global average, and Canada’s Arctic is warming nearly four times as fast.” It goes on to note that climate change fuels heatwaves, which make wildfires worse – and that in turn causes increased illness and deaths from heat and smoke pollution.

And it’s only going to get worse. In fact, bizarrely – and unacceptably – the global commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 means that “the official plan for the planet is to keep making climate change worse well into the second half of this century”, as Chris Hatch wrote in his Zero Carbon column in Canada’s National Observer in June.

Yet as a leading climate action organization, 350.org, puts it (while acknowledging Dr. Kimberly Nicholas as the source): “It’s warming. It’s us. We’re sure. It’s bad. We can fix it.” Fixing it means not only stopping the inexorable rise in CO2 levels (and other GHGs) since the 1950s, but reversing it, bringing CO2 levels down to 350 ppm.

The name 350.org is a direct reference to the assertion by James Hansen – one of the world’s leading atmospheric scientists – and his colleagues in a 2008 paper that “If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced . . . to at most 350 ppm.”

We passed that benchmark in 1988 and seemed destined to reach a disastrous 2 – 3 degrees of heating by the end of the century – when most of today’s infants will likely still be alive.

Which is why on October 1st – Canada’s National Seniors Day and the International Day of Older Persons – I will be joining hundreds of seniors in Victoria – and hopefully tens of thousands across Canada – to call for immediate and serious action on climate change that reflects both the immediacy and the severity of the challenge we face.

The event is organised by Seniors for Climate – an alliance of six seniors’ climate organizations – Suzuki Elders, Climate Action for Lifelong Learners (CALL), Grandmothers Act to Save the Planet (GASP), Climate Legacy, Seniors for Climate Action Now! (SCAN) and For Our Grandchildren (4RG) – see https://seniorsforclimate.org/.

Their agenda is straightforward, anchored in the theme that we need action on the climate emergency now: “Later is too late.” They want a stringent cap on emissions, followed by a phasing out of fossil fuels; a halt to the financial sector investing in fossil fuels, which accelerates climate breakdown, and a speeding up of the transition to renewable power and clean energy.

The event is a demonstration of the concern seniors have “about climate breakdown and our desire to rebuild a healthy environment for future generations.” It is thus a reflection of the growing concern for intergenerational equity that I have been writing about in recent weeks, a concern that will be highlighted next week at the UN Summit of the Future. The Summit will be adopting a Pact for the Future and a Declaration on Future Generations

The Victoria rally is at 2 PM on October 1^st at the BC Legislature. If you care about our children, grandchildren and generations yet unborn, be there to lend your presence and your voice to this vitally important issue.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

• Published as  “Environmental resilience requires robust governance at regional level”

While I would not argue for one large regional government, having 13 separate municipal governments for a region of 400,000 people seems excessive

Dr. Trevor Hancock

3 September 2024

701 words

Last week I noted the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), in its ‘Navigating New Horizons’ report, had made the case that “Cities and communities have an essential role in achieving sustainability transitions. They are often places of learning, innovation and creativity, enabling the potential for systemic change at the local level.”

The report goes on to note: “Strong cities and local communities that are supported by robust local leadership and governance are the bedrock of environmental resilience in a complex world.” What that might mean locally?

A good place to begin is with the need for robust local leadership and governance at the regional level. Back in March 2017 I wrote a column titled “Thirteen municipalities, but only one planet” – the title says it all! While I would not argue for one large regional government, having thirteen separate municipal governments for a region of 400,000 people seems excessive. Of course, the suggestion of amalgamating Victoria and Saanich, the two largest municipalities with half the regional population, while leaving all the others alone, makes no sense whatsoever.

Moreover, when a single municipality can disrupt a policy for its own parochial reasons, we lack robust government at the regional level. The most egregious example was when Langford, under its previous regime, set the municipal boundary as the urban containment boundary, thus negating the very idea of urban containment and encouraging urban sprawl.

Multiple police and fire departments and the lack of a regional transportation authority are other examples of a less-than-robust regional government. In the area of transportation, the CRD notes, “The current role of the CRD is limited to planning and policy support”, although the CRD is considering changes to governance that include a possible transportation authority.

So the first step towards a new social contract might be to consider whether the present system of governance in this region is fit for purpose in the 21^st century. Governance, of course, is more than just government, so any such process should look at a broad-based approach that brings together the public, private, labour, non-profit, academic and faith leadership in some form of regional leadership council. It seems to me the Victoria Foundation, in partnership with the CRD and others, would be the natural convenor of such a Council, as they already bring all these sectors together.

Such a Council, which would also need to represent the diversity of the region’s population, could lead the process to engage widely with the community to craft a vision of the region as a place where all people thrive and reach their maximum potential within the ecological boundaries of the planet. Part of that process should be a consideration of what reforms of municipal government and governance – both in structure and in process – are needed to operate effectively in the 21^st century and to pursue that vision.

Some direction on the changes needed in the process of governance may be found in a 2020 report from Nesta, the UK’s independent innovation agency, on new operating models for local government. The project brought together “practitioners and partners from twenty pioneering local authorities” that were working “upstream of service delivery, focusing on creating the economic, social and community conditions that enable citizens to thrive.” Faced with “a decade of austerity-driven budget cuts from central government”, they had to innovate and adapt.

The report notes the common features of these new ways of working, the first of which is “A renewed sense of purposeorientated around thriving communities and places.” This is coupled with a focus on moving upstream, dealing with problems before they become crises and recognizing the complexity and inter-connectedness of issues; a collaborative approach that is systemic and long-term and that sees local government as a platform for the action of citizens and partners; and a willingness to experiment and adapt.

This latter point requires utilizing an asset-based community development (ABCD) approach in building relationships with the community and key partners, recognizing and working to harness the knowledge, skills, experience and capacities of all segments of the community. Indeed, “Many councils have worked to develop a new, informal ‘contract’ with citizens, reframing their mutual responsibilities”, a local expression of the new social contract the UNEP report proposes.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

It was local governments that led the charge — well ahead of the federal and provincial governments — on regulating smoking in public places and in taking action on climate change, to name but two examples.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

27 August 2024

702 words

Recently I have been discussing the large-scale changes we need to make in the face of the eight critical shifts identified in the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report ‘Navigating New Horizons’.  Those changes are a focus on intergenerational equity; a new social contract that reinforces shared values about how we relate not only to each other but to nature; and focusing on and measuring wellbeing rather than just the economy.

While this may all seem large-scale and global – as indeed it is, given this is a UN report – the final critical shift identified is towards polycentric and diffused governance. In discussing this, the report identifies a ‘signal of change’ that brings it all back to the local level: Local, network-driven resilience.  “Frustrated by the failures of national governments and enabled by digital technologies”, the report notes, “networks of local communities become the primary driving force behind global actions to increase resilience.”

The report goes on to note: “Cities and communities have an essential role in achieving sustainability transitions. They are often places of learning, innovation and creativity, enabling the potential for systemic change at the local level.”

It is worth remembering that while there is only one federal government, ten provincial and three territorial governments, there are over 5,000 municipalities in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. This means there are many more opportunities for innovation and creativity at the local level, something that I have seen and been part of in my public health career.

It was local governments that led the charge – well ahead of the federal and provincial governments – on regulating smoking in public places and in taking action on climate change, to name but two examples.

Part of the advantage local governments have, to quote the Vinyl Café, is that they may not be big, but they are small. This often means they lack resources and have to do more with less, but that can trigger creative responses. Moreover, local governments, because they are smaller, can be more agile – their bureaucracies are smaller.

In addition, local governments are closer to the citizenry, and both the civic servants and political representatives and their families and friends are likely to be living in the place where their decisions have effect, which may have a beneficial impact on their decision-making.

This is not to say that local governments are always agile, efficient and effective, just that the potential is there. Nonetheless, the UNEP report talks about “promoting agile, adaptive governance, which puts an emphasis on empowering communities and fostering innovation across society, while using long-term targets and visions to guide these dispersed processes.”

So what would that mean locally? Well, a place to begin, I suggest, is to create a shared vision of our shared future. What would the Greater Victoria Region be like if collectively we lived within our planet’s ecological boundaries while ensuring that everyone thrives and achieves the fullest potential they are capable of? If we could jointly craft such a vision – a vision of a ‘One Planet’ wellbeing community – that could inspire decades of work together.

I know this can work, because I have seen it, and indeed have helped make it happen. I recall in particular the vision workshop I facilitated in 1991 for Woolwich Healthy Communities (WHC), a rural community of 23,000 people in the region of Waterloo. Thirty-three years later WHC remains active, inspiring and coordinating a wide variety of activities focused on quality of life and the local environment.

Crafting such a vision will require a joint effort of all sectors of our community – public, private and civil society organisations and citizens from all walks of life. Given the UNEP report’s focus on intergenerational equity, it will be particularly important to ensure young people have a strong voice. After all, it is their future we are talking about.

But creating a shared vision together is just the beginning; it can be a model for “the active participation of individuals and groups in the decision-making processes that affect their lives” that the UNEP report calls for. 

Next week I will look at what a new social contract might mean locally, one that includes nature, and what it means to measure wellbeing locally.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy