Peace with the Earth, goodwill to all our relations

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Dr. Trevor Hancock

21 December 2025

703 words

Today is the Winter Solstice, an auspicious time for humankind for millennia, long before Christianity, ever since we first learned to keep track of the seasons and the sun. The turning of the year, when the sun in the northern hemisphere stops trending southwards, stands still, and then turns and heads back north, heralding a new year, spring, a new crop, new animals to add to the flock.

Solstice thus reminds us of our close relationship with and dependence upon nature, which my title also emphasises. It is of course a variant of the proclamation of the angels appearing to the shepherds: “on earth peace, goodwill toward men” (Luke 2:14). My version, however, speaks to a wider ecological perspective, eco-centric rather than anthropocentric.

The idea of making peace with nature has been championed in recent years by the United Nations. And the idea of ‘all our relations’ is a powerful way that Indigenous people think about our place in nature and our links to all the other species in the web of life to whom we are linked and on whom we depend.

Five years ago, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres gave an important speech on “The State of the Planet”. Mr Guterres was blunt: “To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken”, he said; “humanity is waging war on nature” – and that “is suicidal”. But, he went on to say, “Making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century. It must be the top, top priority for everyone, everywhere.”

An extraordinary and largely overlooked speech by David McGuinty, Canada’s Minister of Defence, at the 4th Montreal Climate Security Summit in early October is consistent with this idea. (If you want a clear distinction between Canada and Trump’s USA, read this speech and compare it to the brutal words that come out of the mouth of Pete Hegseth,  US Secretary of Defence.) Mr McGuinty’s speech has had me reflecting on making peace with nature, in the context of enhanced military expenditures and preparations for war.

Mr. McGuinty, an environmental lawyer and former head of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, was clear: “Our security and our prosperity are fully dependent on a healthy and functioning environment.” He went on to state “To truly safeguard Canada’s future, all our futures, it’s time to stop the fiction that our planet’s carrying capacity is unlimited . . .  that species aren’t being depleted and rendered extinct, that we’re not compromising the planet’s ability to restore itself.”

Mr. McGuinty very explicitly linked Canada’s national security to what he called our ‘natural security’: ““Investing in and restoring our ecosystems and natural capital is strategic preparedness. It is national defence. And it’s natural security.”


I found much the same sentiment at a provincial level in a commentary by Jim Pine (Times Colonist, 12 December). Mr Pine, who worked in the forest industry for 15 years “and has been advocating for systemic change in forest practices since 1988”, in essence calls for us to make peace with nature, specifically the temperate rainforest in which we live.

He points out: “These magnificent forests have evolved here for the last 10,000 years” and that “their life cycle is around 750 years.” But, he laments, “we will never, under current management, leave forests for 500 years to replace what we have clear-cut” and replaced with “monoculture fibre farms with 50 -100 year harvest targets.”

In a yet to be published article I have written with my friend and colleague Dr. Tim Takaro, a long-time environment and health activist who is committed to non-violent action, we have noted that Canada has a proud history of peace keeping and used to have a reputation as good environmental stewards.

So we propose Canada recognize that our security includes a livable planet and invest accordingly. Some of the 5 percent of GDP that is being committed to preparing for war should instead be diverted to reviving and expanding Canada’s peace-keeping role by creating a Canadian Environmental Peace Corps,

Making peace with nature would truly enhance our security. That is a thought to cherish and act upon at this time of peace, this turning of the year.

© Trevor Hancock, 2025

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

What part of ‘global ecological crisis’ do they not get?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Most countries, especially the largest, the richest and the petro-states (which include Canada), continue to put their own national interests ahead of global concerns.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

25 November 2025

700 words

Another COP, another cop-out! As anyone who pays the slightest attention to the news must know by now, COP30 – the annual global climate change jamboree, this year in Belem, Brazil, ended, yet again, more with a whimper than a bang. The fact that the words ‘fossil fuel’ did not even appear in the final statement exemplifies that failure.

In an interview with The Guardian before COP30, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had said “we have failed to avoid an overshooting above 1.5C in the next few years”. Said Simon Stiehl, the UN’s climate chief, after the final plenary “I’m not saying we’re winning the climate fight”, while Mr. Guterres stated “The gap between where we are and what science demands remains dangerously wide.”

COP30 was particularly embarrassing for Mark Carney and for Canada. Carney had once been the darling of the climate action community, as the UN’s Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance. But the UN-backed Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which he co-founded in 2021 and co-led, and which was supposed to find $100 trillion – yes trillion – to finance the transition away from fossil fuels, voted to shut down in October.

As for Canada, on November 18th, at COP30, Climate Action International (CAI) awarded us the ‘Fossil of the Day’ dishonour “because the new government of Prime Minister Mark Carney has flushed years of climate policies down the drain, and is completely ‘Missing In Action’ at a COP”. Moreover, added CAI, “in addition to the backsliding on policies tackling Canada’s climate-destroying pollution, his Environment Minister Julie Dabrusin has chosen inaction and silence where leadership was urgently needed.” 

The core problem is this: The world’s leaders – whether elected, inherited, self-appointed or corporate – simply do not get any part of ‘global ecological crisis’, never mind take it seriously.

Let’s start with global. Most countries, especially the largest, the richest and the petro-states (which includes Canada), put their own national interests ahead of global concerns. In the case of Canada, it’s not unusual to hear fossil fuel apologists argue that since we are so small – only 1.5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions – nothing we do makes much difference, so why bother.

But only 8 countries – led by China, the USA, India and Russia – emit more than 2 percent of global emissions – although admittedly they emit about 60 percent of total emissions; we are 10th, by the way, on a par with Germany and South Korea. So if the all the other countries in the world took the view that they are too small to matter, we would fail to take action on 40 percent of emissions – not small at all.

Second, let’s think about ecological. It seems governments have trouble even thinking about ‘environment’, never mind ecological. The Carney government is a case in point. His mandate letter to his Cabinet does not identify any aspect of the environment as either a challenge for Canada or a priority for his government; indeed the letter doesn’t even mention the word. As for ecological, forget it. The environment seems to be seen largely as a resource to be exploited, something over which we exert dominion. In reality, as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) wisely put it in 2014: “Ecosystems sustain societies that create economies. It does not work any other way round.” In other words, ecosystems exert dominion over humans, a reality that is largely ignored.

Third, we are in crisis. Climate change, bad as it is, is just one of the seven (out of nine) Earth system boundaries we have already crossed. And the crossing of multiple planetary boundaries is just one of a multitude of crises that together constitute the polycrisis.

Back in 2020, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said “Humanity is waging war on nature. This is suicidal.” It seems the memo did not arrive in the minds of those who are supposed to be our leaders. Well, they are leaders, in the same way that the lemming at the front of the pack is a leader, heading over the cliff. We need to stop being lemmings. And they need to recognise we face a global ecological crisis.

© Trevor Hancock, 2025

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