As the cliff edge looms, governments hit the accelerator

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Ensuring the stability of society and the wellbeing of its members means ensuring that the ecosystems that support us are in good shape — and they are not.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

23 June 2025

701 words

Some may consider Prime Minister Mark Carney to be an economic guru but he is either ignorant of or chooses to ignore two fundamental truths in his rush to build the nation by growing the economy.

First, as the World Wide Fund for Nature eloquently put it in 2014, “Ecosystems sustain societies that create economies. It does not work the other way around.” Second, as Kenneth Boulding – a former President of both the American Economic Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science – stated way back in 1973: “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”

So ensuring the stability of society and the wellbeing of its members means ensuring that the ecosystems that support us are in good shape – and they are not. A couple of centuries of industrialism, and 80 years of massive and rapid economic growth since the Second World War – referred to as ‘The Great Acceleration’ – have taken their toll, pushing us close to the cliff edge.

Let me be clear what I mean by the cliff edge. Earth scientists have just concluded that we have crossed the seventh of nine planetary boundaries they have identified. The latest is ocean acidification, sometimes called ‘osteoporosis of the sea’ because it thins the shells of calcifying species such as corals, oysters, mussels, clams, and pteropods (tiny sea snails). It has also been called  the ‘evil twin’ of climate change because it too is largely the result of carbon dioxide emissions.

In fact, a study published this month in Global Change Biology finds, based on revised and updated models, that the entire surface ocean crossed that boundary in 2000. As a result there are “significant declines in suitable habitats for important calcifying species”, particularly in the polar regions.

Add to that recent reports on catastrophic declines in insect species, even in protected forest areas, and in the birds, frogs, lizards and other species that eat them. An article in the Guardian in June quotes a prominent US entomologist, David Wagner, who documents insects all over the USA. Speaking of a recent trip to Texas  he said “There just wasn’t any insect life to speak of”, adding “I want to do what I can with my last decade to chronicle the last days for many of these creatures.”

Climate change underlies both ocean acidification and insect declines – and climate change is rapidly worsening. We see the evidence of this in Canada, with the early arrival of wildfires and extreme heat events in June this year. In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported, global average concentrations of carbon dioxide exceeded 430 ppm for the first time in some 30 million years. A recent article on indicators of global climate change found human-induced warming has been increasing at an unprecedented rate in the past decade, due to “greenhouse gas emissions being at an all-time high” this decade “as well as reductions in the strength of aerosol cooling”.

And yet, Carney and his government ignore all this, egged on by corporate spin-masters who are using Trump’s dangerous actions as cover to push for the reversal of health and environmental protections and respect for the rights of Indigenous people in the name of ‘nation-building’.

The evidence of Carney’s ignorance – or ignore-ance – is clear in the mandate letter he gave to his Cabinet on May 21st. Not only is the environment not one of the seven priorities for the government, there is not a single use of the word ‘environment’ anywhere in this letter, and only a passing reference to climate change right at the end: “We will fight climate change”. Big hairy deal!

Nor is there any reference to wellbeing or quality of life in the Mandate letter, which is quite ironic, given that Carney has established a new Cabinet Committee on quality of life and wellbeing. Yet both are threatened by further harm to the Earth’s natural systems, and by riding roughshod over Indigenous peoples’ rights and health and environmental protections.

The unseemly rush to further exploit nature, and especially to make Canada a conventional energy superpower, merely accelerates us towards the cliff edge.

© 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

Making Canada better means focusing on wellbeing, happiness and quality of life

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

  • Published as ‘Canada could learn from Nordic countries about well-being.’)

Dr. Trevor Hancock

20 May 2025

702 words

It is to be hoped that the new cabinet committee on quality of life and well-being will look at lessons to be learned from the World Happiness Report, and in particular from the Nordic countries.

The 2025 World Happiness Report, with data from 2024, was released in March. As the 2023 Report noted, people “increasingly think of well-being as the ultimate good”, and “more and more people have come to believe that our success as countries should be judged by the happiness of our people.” That report went on to discuss how to measure a nation’s happiness and the factors that lead to increased happiness.

At its simplest, the authors noted, “the natural way to measure a nation’s happiness is to ask a nationally representative sample of people how satisfied they are with their lives these days.” More particularly, they add, countries will only achieve high levels of overall life satisfaction “if its people are also pro-social, healthy, and prosperous.” (By ‘pro-social’, they mean “the outward- facing virtues of friendship and citizenship.”)

But they cautioned that it is not enough to just look at average happiness, but at who has low life satisfaction (or misery) and “to consider well-being and environmental policy dimensions jointly in order to ensure the happiness of future generations.” The way to prevent misery and protect the quality of life of future generations, they suggest, is to establish and implement human rights, including the rights of future generations.

The 2023 report noted that the key factors that “explain the differences in well-being around the world, both within and among countries, . . . include physical and mental health, human relationships (in the family, at work and in the community), income and employment, character virtues including pro-sociality and trust, social support, personal freedom, lack of corruption, and effective government.”

Notably missing from this list is the environment, but nobody who has been following the growing crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, and the links between poverty and unhealthy environments can be in any doubt that our wellbeing and quality of life is also linked to the quality of our natural and built environments. Hence the urging, noted above, to jointly consider well-being and environmental policy.

All this is particularly important right now because the new Liberal Government has just established a Cabinet Committee on Quality of Life and Wellbeing. Its mandate is to consider “ways to improve community safety and health, advance reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, and augment the overall quality of life and well-being of Canadians.” So what can Canada learn from other countries about achieving wellbeing, happiness and a good quality of life?

The obvious place to start is the Nordic countries. Once again, the 2025 Report finds, they “lead the happiness rankings. Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden are still the top four and in the same order.”  In comparison, Canada ranks 18th – down from 6th in 2013 – and the USA 24th.

This situation is so clear and consistent that in the 2020 report the authors devoted a whole chapter to exploring what they called Nordic exceptionalism. What they found is that “the most prominent explanations include factors related to the quality of institutions, such as reliable and extensive welfare benefits, low corruption, and well-functioning democracy and state institutions. Furthermore, Nordic citizens experience a high sense of autonomy and freedom, as well as high levels of social trust towards each other.”

Contrast that with what is happening in the USA, which seems to perfectly fit the 2020 Report’s description of a low trust society trapped in “a vicious cycle where low levels of trust in corrupt institutions lead to low willingness to pay taxes and low support for reforms that would allow the state to take better care of its citizens.”

It is to be hoped that the new Cabinet Committee on Quality of Life and Wellbeing will look at the lessons to be learned from the World Happiness Report, and in particular from the Nordic countries. They – and the government as a whole – should take a lesson from Thomas Jefferson, who noted in 1809, “The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” In the 21st century, that also means ensuring the sustainability of the Earth’s natural systems that are threatened by our pursuit of economic growth rather than quality of life, wellbeing and happiness.

© 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

Eco-anxiety is rational, business-as-usual is insane

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

We must avoid the temptation to label eco-anxiety a mental-health problem. It is, in fact, a perfectly rational and normal response to the situation we face

Dr. Trevor Hancock

15 April 2025

701 words

From Mother Nature’s perspective, the results of next week’s election are largely irrelevant – and that should worry us. The two main contenders, as well as the NDP, are just proposing slightly different variants of business as usual.

Their focus is on more economic growth, more resource extraction and consumption and – although not formally part of their platforms – more resultant pollution. All they really differ about is how the spoils will be divided between the public and private sectors.

In fact, the environment, including climate change, has pretty much fallen off the public and political agenda. CBC News recently reported “In 2021, 24 per cent named the environment as their most important issue. But in this campaign, the environment is eighth on the list, at about five per cent.”

This has enabled governments in Ottawa and BC to back off from carbon pricing, having failed to vigorously defend it in the face of a powerful fossil fuel lobby. So we have lost an effective tool to reduce fossil fuel consumption, at the expense of the wellbeing of future generations and a myriad of other species. The fossil fuel robber barons must be rubbing their hands in glee.

But even though it may not be not top of mind in terms of current electoral concerns, there is a great deal of ‘eco-anxiety’ out there.  A recent survey of 1000 young people (aged 16–25) across Canada found “78 percent reported that climate change impacts their overall mental health.” But we must avoid the temptation to label eco-anxiety a mental health problem. It is in fact a perfectly rational and normal response to the situation we face.

Consider for a moment that we have now crossed six of nine planetary boundaries, of which climate change is but one, and are approaching a seventh. We just had the first year where the average global temperature was more than 1.50C above the pre-industrial level, and it’s only going to get worse. Moreover, Canada is warming at twice and the Canadian North at three times the global average, the federal government has warned.

On top of that, the loss of biodiversity accelerates, as does the level of pollution. The latest Living Planet Index report, with data to 2020, shows that the population counts for almost 35,000 monitored populations covering 5,495 vertebrate species (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians) around the world had declined 73 percent since 1970. Meanwhile the IUCN’s Red List reports that “More than 47,000 species are threatened with extinction. That is 28 percent of all assessed species.”

When it comes to pollution, it’s important to note that six of the nine planetary boundaries that have been established involve some form of pollution – and we have crossed three of them: Climate change (greenhouse gas emissions), nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from agricultural and other wastes that pollute our lands and waters (in particular creating marine and freshwater dead zones), and novel entities.

The latter are new substances such as synthetic chemicals, pesticides and plastic nano-particles, “not previously known to the Earth system” that are produced in numbers that exceed our ability to properly assess their impacts. In addition, we are approaching a fourth boundary, ocean acidification, that results from carbon dioxide and other acidifying emissions.

So does it make sense to be worried about the state of the environment? Absolutely it does. Does it make sense to largely ignore this issue, to fail to treat it as an absolutely vital priority, as an existential concern? It does not.

It is not eco-anxiety that is the problem, it is the failure to feel eco-anxiety and to respond appropriately. Albert Einstein once said “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Those among our business and political elite that continue to promote and pursue economic growth as a solution, with all its attendant problems, who continue to advocate for and implement policies and practices that push us further beyond planetary boundaries, are acting irrationally.

I would go further. It has been said that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In the face of the global ecological crises we face, business as usual is insane.

© 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

With cruelty reigning to the south, Canada needs to keep flame of kindness burning

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Who can forget Elon Musk’s disgusting celebration of the destruction of U.S. AID. How can anyone other than a psychopath celebrate the destruction of the lives and health of millions of people?

Dr. Trevor Hancock

25 March 2025

699 words

Back in the late-1980s the first President Bush expressed a wish for a kinder, gentler nation. A joke going round at the time, I recall, was that he had found it, it was called Canada, and now he was going to buy it.

Fast forward almost 40 years and we have a President whose whole approach seems based in nastiness and cruelty, the very opposite of kindness and gentleness. Indeed, I am struck by how often in the past couple of weeks I have heard the word cruel used in describing Trump, Musk and the US government as a whole.

We see that cruelty in Trump’s childish name-calling and belittling of people, his attack on the federal work force, his crushing of policies and entire agencies intended to protect and lift up the weak and disadvantaged. 

Who can forget Elon Musk’s disgusting celebration of the destruction of the US Agency for International Development, the largest single aid program in the world? We fed it into the wood-chipper, he exulted – chainsaw in hand. How can anyone other than a psychopath celebrate the destruction of the lives and health of millions of people that will result from such cruelty.

We also see it in Trump’s bullying not just of President Zelensky but of the entire nation of Ukraine, or his contempt for entire peoples and nations, be they Palestinians or Lesotho or Canada. We see it in his heartless and racist attitude towards immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers. He has not yet got around to proposing a final solution, but I won’t be surprised if he does.

That cruelty extends beyond humanity to the planet as a whole. We see it in his rejection of the reality of human induced climate change and his commitment to expanding fossil fuel use, as well as in the wholesale abolition of environmental protections and the slashing of environmental science staff. Indeed George Monbiot, a renowned environmental writer, wrote in the Guardian recently that Trump, Musk and their followers are waging war against life on Earth.

As James Parker wrote recently in The Atlantic, it seems as if “kindness has become countercultural”. So perhaps Trump sees Canada as a threat because we are proof, right on his border, that it is possible to be kinder, gentler, more caring, more committed to the rule of law. 

If so, he intends to eliminate that threat by taking us over, crushing our economy, our independence, our sovereignty, our culture, our very existence.  And if that sounds like Putin’s attitude towards Ukraine – well, bingo, two peas in a pod! 

Now I am not suggesting we are a beacon of rectitude, there is plenty of cruelty and nastiness here in Canada. But the big difference is that as a nation, kindness, caring and gentleness towards others is still an underlying, if at times somewhat threatened, motivating force. 

We see it in our social programs, which are a social contract expressing solidarity and caring for each other. We see it in the mosaic of multi-culturalism that doesn’t just recognise but celebrates diversity. We see it in our proud, if now somewhat tattered but still extant commitment to peace-keeping – and the same could be said of our commitment to protecting the environment. We see it in our slow groping towards truth-telling in the history of our relationship with Indigenous people and our moves towards recognition and reconciliation.

Kindness, gentleness and consideration towards others has also been the underlying rationale for a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, which Trump and his fellow-travellers contemptuously dismiss as ‘woke’.

Now I am not going to defend every aspect of ‘wokeness’, there are times I too find it silly, irritating, performative and exasperating. But what I see at its heart is an attempt to recognise, protect and promote the inherent worth, dignity and rights of individuals, and that is a good thing.

Given we have a cruel tyrant to our south, maybe our most important job right now as Canadians  is to keep alive the flame of kindness, gentleness and caring, of compassion towards others, no matter whom or where they are, of respecting and protecting our environment. That must be Canada’s response to Trump.

© 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

From centre of shopping to Centre for Dialogue: A new role for the Bay?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

The soon-to-be-vacated Hudson’s Bay store in downtown Victoria could become a civic forum where people could gather to discuss, debate and engage

Trevor Hancock and Gene Miller

23 March 2025

701 words

With the presumed closing soon of the Hudson’s Bay store at Government and Fort, it seems we are about to lose a key anchor of the Bay Centre. We will be left with a large empty space on a prime corner at the heart of downtown.

But in every crisis lies an opportunity, and we see one in this closure. As readers of our columns will know, an important part of what binds the two of us together is an interest in the need for engaging people in co-designing our shared future.

For Trevor, this is embodied in the idea of Conversations for a One Planet Region (COPR). In the past COPR organised an ongoing series of monthly conversations on various aspects of the concept of a One Planet region – that is, a region with an ecological footprint around 75 – 80 percent smaller than our current footprint.

For Gene, this is embodied in his thoughts about a Centre for Co-design of the Future, which he discussed in a recent Sunday Islander column. One of the Centre’s purposes would be to conceive and disseminate fresh models of mutually beneficial “partnerships” between official municipal interests and citizens promoting community-driven initiatives. He reasons this makes particular sense in tough financial and social times, like our own.

Together we are committed to finding a way to engage people across the Greater Victoria Region in conversations about the future, about creating the sort of place, the sort of community we want this region to be, about governance for wellbeing for this and future generations. 

These are much more significant discussions than those underway right now about the possible amalgamation of Victoria and Saanich. They need to take account of a number of “long emergencies”—trends and their eventualities that receive little attention in the busy short term and then, at some point, show up with enormous force. “Why,” we wonder, “didn’t we do a better job of planning for this?”

So instead of discussing amalgamation of just a couple of municipalities, what if we were to take a big breath and a big step back and have conversations about how a region like ours should be managed in the 21st  century? What if our aim, separate from matters of political jurisdiction, was to ensure everyone, including future generations, has a good quality of life while we restore our environment and live within planetary boundaries? What should the structure and process of “wellbeing governance” be for the region as a whole if this was our goal? Shouldn’t we be talking about this?

This is where the soon-to-be-vacated Bay comes in. The Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Vancouver opened in 2000 with a mandate to foster shared understanding and positive action through dialogue and engagement. It has sparked interest in and supported participatory and deliberative democracy that “has the potential to renew democracy in the 21st Century” – exactly what we want to happen here in this region.

So why not re-purpose the former Hudson’s Bay as a Centre for Dialogue. It could be the hub for Conversations, a Centre for the Co-design of the Future, a base for the Victoria Forum (a joint initiative of the Senate of Canada and UVic) and others. The ground floor in particular, with access to Government and Fort, would be a great venue for a sort of civic forum or agora where people could come together to discuss, debate and engage in making this a region where everyone can enjoy a good quality of life while respecting nature and living within the Earth’s limits.

Who would fund it? We don’t know, but there is wealth in this city looking for a significant cause or project, and sponsorship of this proposal would create a great legacy, perhaps a gift through the Victoria Foundation. Or maybe LaSalle Investment Management, the owners of the Bay Centre, could earn a large charitable tax credit by leasing all or part of it to the region for $1 a year. We are sure there are many good ideas and potential contributors out there. We are just planting the seed to attract interest.

Who wants to help us grow the Victoria Centre for Dialogue?

© Trevor Hancock, 2025

© Gene Miller, 2025

thancock@uvic.ca

genekmiller@gmail.com

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the                                            University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

Gene Miller is the founder of Open Space, founding publisher of Monday Magazine, originator of the Gaining Ground urban sustainability conferences and founder/developer of ASH houseplexes

We do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

  • Published as “We need to take steps to be better ancestors”

At a time when Trump, Putin and many others are doing everything they can to jeopardize the wellbeing of future generations, we need to work to protect them

Dr. Trevor Hancock

18 February 2025

701 words

Last month I began to explore a set of aphorisms that I find helpful in addressing the immense challenges of the 21st century. This month, I turn to an aphorism that became popular in the 1970s – “we do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our chldren”.

Often attributed to Duwamish Chief Seattle in the 19th century and seemingly popularised by Wendell Berry in the early 1970s, this is, simply put, the embodiment of the principle of inter-generational rights and justice.

That is, of course, hardly a new idea; as the attribution to Chief Seattle suggests, it is rooted in Indigenous values and beliefs. Many claim it goes back to the ‘Seventh Generation’ way of thinking attributed to the Great Law of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy. Since a generation is roughly 20 – 25 years, seven generations takes us out about 150 years.

A modern wording of this concept forms the fundamental principle of sustainable development put forward in 1987 by the Brundtland Commission: To meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

These ideas are now – finally – beginning to find their way into public policy and even in to law. Wales led the way a decade ago, introducing a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. The Act requires public bodies in Wales – including government ministries, local authorities, local Health Boards and a number of other public authorities – to think about and report on the long-term impact of their decisions.

In addition, the Act established the position of Commissioner for Future Generations. The Commissioner describes his role as “to be the guardian of future generations” and to “provide advice and support to government and public bodies”, as well as to report on progress.

These ideas have also been taken up at the UN, with the Secretary General, Antinio Guterres,  championing the focus on future generations. His 2021 report ‘Our Common Agenda’ highlighted the importance of considering the needs and perspectives of future generations in shaping the future of global governance. Then in 2023 he released a series of Policy Briefs, the first of which was entitled ‘To Think and Act for Future Generations’, and established the UN Futures Lab. It is a global network that helps the UN system use futures thinking and strategic foresight in planning, policymaking, and decision-making.

In September 2024 the UN hosted a Summit of the Future which, among other things, resulted in a Pact for the Future and a Declaration for Future Generations. The Pact committed the international community to “protect the needs and interests of present and future generations.” After the Summit, Mr. Guterres announced he would soon be creating the position of a UN Envoy for Future Generations. 

Meanwhile, on the legal front, Ecojustice noted in an October 2024 press release that the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University reported that 630 new climate lawsuits were filed around the world between July 2020 and December 2022. “Courts around the world”, Ecojustice noted, “are increasingly ruling that climate change poses an existential threat to our most cherished human rights and ordering governments to set and implement science-based reductions targets.”

Indeed, the International Court of Justice just completed hearings on the obligations of states in respect of climate change, while here in Canada, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled in October 2024 that Ontario’s actions to weaken its climate targets are subject to challenge under the constitutional rights of Ontario youth and future generations to life, security of the person, and equality. 

At a time when Trump, Putin and many others are doing everything they can to jeopardise the wellbeing of future generations, particularly by prioritising fossil fuel use, there is no more important task than working to protect future generations. We need to demand that both the federal and the B.C. governments pass a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act and appoint a Commissioner for Future Generations.

At a local level, the CRD  and local municipalities should commit to working with young people to help shape the policies they need for a healthy, just and sustainable future. As Jonas Salk once noted, “our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors.”

© 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

There is only one Earth: Deal with it

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Despite the fevered dreams of Elon Musk and others, there is no ‘Planet B,’ which means we need to drastically reduce our ecological footprint

Dr. Trevor Hancock

21 January 2025

694 words

I have spent much of my life working as an educator, whether as a professor teaching graduate students or as an in international consultant working with communities, organisations and governments around the world. Over the years I have come across a number of aphorisms that I turn to again and again to make important points.

An aphorism, the dictionaries tell us, is a short saying that is memorable and embodies a general truth, astute observation or principle. So in my monthly columns I will explore some of those aphorisms that provide important guidance as we address together the many challenges of the 21st century.

Following one of those aphorisms (think globally, act locally), wherever possible I will link the broader dimensions of the issue to local action, with examples from elsewhere as well as examples or implications for action here in the Greater Victoria Region.

The first aphorism is one that really started my journey into population health and ecological activism. In 1972, the first UN Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, and Maurice Strong, the Canadian Secretary-General of the Conference, commissioned Barbara Ward and René Dubos to produce what became the unofficial conference book – ‘Only One Earth’.

That title really says it all. Despite the fevered dreams of Elon Musk and others of his ilk, there is no ‘Planet B’. There is just this one Earth, our only home, which Carl Sagan memorably described as a pale blue dot hanging in the immensity of space. So we had better learn how to deal with that reality, we had better learn how to live within the limits of this one Earth.

And yet that is not how we live today, neither globally nor, especially, in Canada. The Global Footprint Network tells us that globally we have an Ecological Footprint equivalent to 1.7 Earths. In other words, we use the equivalent of 1.7  planet’s worth of bioproductive capacity every year (and note this does not even take into account the loss of biodiversity or the impact of persistent organic pollutants or plastic nano-particles that are are not included in the calculation of the Footprint).

This is clearly unsustainable, as evidenced by the fact that we have already passed the planetary boundary for six of the nine key Earth systems needed to sustain life on Earth.

Canada, as a high-income country, has a far greater Footprint, around five Earths; if every country lived as we do, we would need four more Earths. That is clearly not going to happen, so we need to become what can be called a ‘One Planet’ country, taking only our fair share of the Earth’s bioproductive capacity and resources.

Think of that for a moment: This means we need to reduce our ecological footprint by 80 percent, as rapidly as possible. Now the good news, in a sense, is that our carbon footprint, largely the result of fossil fuel consumption, accounts for more than 60 percent of both the global and the Canadian Footprint. Which means if we can address that issue, we can markedly reduce our Footprint.

That is why it is particularly stupid, at a time when the UN Secretary General has said that our current climate path is “a road to ruin”, that the fossil fuel industry and its supporters in Canada are calling for an expansion of fossil fuel extraction and export (and thus consumption) to counter Trump’s attacks on Canada and on the environment.

The really good news is that there is a growing movement to reduce our Footprint. The Global Footprint Network works with countries, regions and cities to reduce their footprints; if you go to their website you can find case studies under the ‘Our Work’ tab, all of which begin with measuring the Ecological Footprint.

That has also been done right here in Saanich, as part of the One Planet Saanich project initiated by Bioregional, a UK-based non-profit. (Our footprint, using a somewhat different methodology, is about four planets, still way too big.) That work is now being championed in BC by One Earth Living (https://oneplanetbc.com/), which is helping communities deal with the fact that there is only one Earth.

© 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

Towards a Wellbeing society and a healthy One Planet community

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

I have written just over 500 columns over the past 10 years.This is my last weekly column, from now on I will be writing monthly colums, the last Sunday of each month

A goal worth pursuing: “achieving equitable health now and for future generations without breaching ecological limits.”

Dr. Trevor Hancock

23 December 2024

701 words

Throughout my career I have focused on the wellbeing of people in our communities and around the world, and on the state of the Earth’s ecological systems, which are the bedrock of our wellbeing. Recently, this has been encapsulated in the World Health Organization’s concept of a Wellbeing society, one that is “committed to achieving equitable health now and for future generations without breaching ecological limits.”

I strongly believe that this should be the highest aspiration of a society and the central purpose of governance.  As I noted in last week’s column, this requires a shift in the core values that underpin our modern society, and in particular our economy.

An important part of that shift is to re-align the private sector from its focus on making money to a focus on its role in achieving the societal purpose of wellbeing. In part that requires changing the purpose of a corporation. In a 2002 opinion piece in the independent news outlet Common Dreams, Robert Hinkley, an American corporate securities lawyer, wrote that after 23 years he realized that corporate law, “in its current form, actually inhibits executives and corporations from being socially responsible.”

His proposed remedy was simple; he suggests adding “26 words to corporate law”, which would create a “Code for Corporate Citizenship.” While a corporation “would still have a duty to make money for shareholders”, he would add “but not at the expense of the environment, human rights, the public safety, the communities in which the corporation operates or the dignity of its employees.”

But more broadly it also means changing the purpose of government and the broader process of societal and community governance, where governance, as UN Habitat puts it, is the “the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, plan and manage the common affairs of the city” – or any other level of society.

Recently the International Standards Organization created “the first ever international benchmark for good governance.” Applicable to all organisations, including governments and corporations, it is intended to ensure that “organizations act with purpose, sustainability and society in mind.” It should be made a requirement for all governments and corporations in Canada.

The federal, provincial and territorial Cabinets should take as their central purpose the role of ensuring sustainable and equitable wellbeing for current and future generations. They should establish SHE (sustainable, healthy, equitable) policy units at the Cabinet level and in each Ministry to guide wellbeing policy – including a Wellbeing budget – and follow the lead of Wales by adopting a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act.

This Act establishes the right of future generations and puts planetary health and human wellbeing at the heart of governance. It requires ministries and national, regional and local authorities to establish and report on their sustainability goals, and creates the position of a Commissioner of Future Wellbeing to monitor and report on progress.

However, I am not confident that we can expect action will be led from the top, given the close ties between business and government. Much of my work has focused on the local level, on helping communities across Canada and around the world think about how to become healthy and sustainable.

Locally we have the example of One Planet Saanich, which works with organisations in Saanich on ways to reduce their ecological footprint to be equivalent to one planet’s worth of biocapacity, instead of the approximately four planets we use today, and to meet the ten criteria for One Planet Living established by Bioregional, a UK-based non-profit consultancy. But we are not really talking seriously about this.

At the regional level, here and across Canada and around the world, we need a well-organized and ongoing community-wide conversation about the future we want. What do we have to change to ensure a healthy, just and sustainable future for all who live here, for our descendants and for others around the world?

That is the aim of a small local NGO I have established, Conversations for a One Planet Region, and it is one of the areas I will focus on in my monthly columns. I can think of no more worthwhile and important task, and invite you to contribute to that work.

© 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

We need a society in which people, communities and the planet are valued

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

  • Published as ‘True wealth is much more than money and material goods

It includes the richness of our collective human development, the strength of our social capital and the health of our planetary systems

Dr. Trevor Hancock

17 December 2024

703 words

Last week I pointed to neoliberal ideology and economics as the fundamental flaw that has led us to ignore all the warning signs – in particular, that there are limits to growth – and instead pursue economic growth and increased wealth at all costs. That ideology also leads to a hyper-individualized, hyper-competitive, dog-eat-dog society that denies the benefits of community, the public sector, the environment and the common good.

Unfortunately, our current economic system is rooted in a narrow, short-sighted and incomplete understanding of what constitutes wealth. True wealth is not just the money and the stuff we accumulate, but three other forms of wealth or capital – human, social and natural capital. Together, they form what the UN calls inclusive wealth.

Human capital is the sum of our individual capacities, which includes not only our health status but our knowledge, skills and experience, our capacity for innovation and creativity, our capacity for caring and compassion. But while human capital is important, it does not stand alone, any more than individuals stand alone. We are a social species, and that sociability has been a key factor in our evolutionary success.

So a second form of wealth, closely linked to human capital, is social capital. While human capital is vested in individuals, social capital is all about the connections between us. Those connections begin with the informal web of social ties to family, friends, neighbours, work-mates and others that knit us together into communities.

There are also more formal forms of social capital: The massive investments we make in social programs – education, health, social services, unemployment insurance, recreation services and so on – that underpin our daily lives. Then there is what I call ‘invisible’ social capital’; the legal, political and constitutional infrastructure that previous generations spent centuries creating, helping us govern ourselves largely peacefully.

But all of this is underpinned by what is beyond doubt the most important form of wealth: the Earth’s natural systems that are the bedrock not just of our existence, but of life on Earth.  Scientists have identified nine Earth systems that are critical to life, but have also found we have crossed six of the nine planetary boundaries, meaning we have been depleting this vital form of wealth.

So our true wealth is much more than money and stuff, the stunted, distorted, narrow understanding of wealth extolled by neoliberalism. It includes the richness of our collective human development, the strength of our social capital and the health of our planetary systems. Real capitalists don’t just build one form of wealth – economic capital – by exploiting and harming the other forms of capital; they build all four forms of capital – human, social, natural and economic – simultaneously. Unfortunately, there are not many real capitalists out there.

But a healthy future for all requires us to reject the harmful values and ideology of neoliberalism and find alternative values and a way of life that is fit for purpose in the 21st century. We need to recognize and apply the wisdom and truth of these words from the World Wide Fund for Nature, in their 2014 Living Planet Report: “Ecosystems sustain societies that create economies. It does not work the other way around.”

Living in accord with this simple principle will require a transformation in the distorted core values that underpin our modern economy, society and way of life, as I noted in a series of columns in June and July. The core values we need are, first, a reverence for the Earth and all it contains, an awareness of a connection to nature that is, at its heart, spiritual.

Second, we need a re-awakening of our sense of kinship with and shared responsibility for our fellow humans, a renewed sense of community. Third, we needto recognise that the economy is subservient to and in service to people and the planet, not the other way around.

These are the value shifts we need if we are to achieve a wellbeing society in which everyone thrives while we remain within planetary boundaries. Next week, in my final weekly column before I transition to a monthly column, I will look at how that might be achieved as a society and locally, here in the Greater Victoria Region.

© 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

What stands in the way of a healthy future for all?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

This is my 500th column After 10 years of weekly columns, I will switch to writing a monthly column in the New Year.

  • Published as “Life expectancy has grown since 1970, but so has inequality”

In 2023, the bottom half of the world’s population got less than 10 per cent of global income, while the richest 10 per cent captured more than half

Dr. Trevor Hancock

10 December 2024

701 words

As I noted last week, I am committed to helping to create a healthy future for all. But I am greatly concerned that we are not on the right path to do that.

When I look back over the length of my career, it is clear that in many ways we have created a healthier future. One important indicator is life expectancy. According to Our World in Data, in 1970, when I was still in medical school, life expectancy at birth was 56.3 years globally and 72.6 years in Canada. Just over fifty years later, in 2023, it was 73.2 years globally, a gain of almost 17 years, while it was 10 years longer, at 82.6 years, in Canada.

While some of that gain is due to better health care – especially, globally, in improved maternal and child health – most of that gain is due to other factors: Improved sanitation, clean drinking water, adequate, safe and healthy food, improved education, better housing and so on. Together, these factors constitute the social determinants of health.

These gains largely result from economic development. World Bank data, cited by Our World in Data, shows the world GDP (in constant 2017 dollars) grew from $26.23 trillion in 1970 to $139.26 trillion in 2022, a 5.3-fold increase. So even though the world’s population roughly doubled over that period, from 4 billion in 1974 to 8 billion in 2023, global average GDP per person nonetheless grew; from $7,100 in 1970 to to $17,527 in 2022, an increase of almost 2.5 times.

But while this meant that many people, communities and nations could afford the better food, housing and education they needed, it has also resulted in a great increase in demand for those and other products. As a result, economic development has been an uneven two-edged sword – we have reaped the benefits, but we have sown a set of costs for future generations. Or as the Rockefeller-Lancet Commission on Planetary Health put it, we have “mortgaged the health of future generations to realise economic and development gains in the present.”

One of those costs has been high levels of inequality, both between and within countries. The latest data from the World Inequality Lab (WIL) shows that in 2023 the bottom half of the world’s population got less than 10 percent of global income, while the richest 10 percent captured more than half. In regional terms, the average income in North America is fifteen times greater than in Sub-Saharan Africa,

In Canada, the WIL reports, the top 10 percent earned 36 percent of national income in 2023.  While better than the global average, that level of inequality is “far higher than during the 1970s and even into the mid-1980s”; In 1985, for example, “the top 10 percent of earners earned 29 percent of national income.” So there has been a marked concentration of income – and thus of wealth and power – in the past 40 years or so.

Another important consequence of both population and economic growth and the resultant increase in demand is what the UN calls a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. That is in turn part of a wider crisis in which, leading Earth systems scientists tell us, we have crossed planetary boundaries for six of nine key Earth systems (including the three in the triple crisis) and are approaching two of the remaining three.

Moreover, the world’s Ecological Footprint, which was equivalent to one Earth’s worth of annual bio-productive capacity in 1972, had risen to an un sustainable demand for 1.7 Earth’s worth by 2022.

So while economic development and growth have been a great benefit in many ways, that is no longer the case except in low-income countries, where many people still live in poverty, with their basic needs unmet. Indeed, what now stands in the way of a healthy future for all is continued old-school economic development in high and middle-income countries, and the distorted societal values that underlie this unhealthy neoliberal economic system.

That, and the creation of a positive alternative society and economy, is my focus for the next couple of weeks, and in the monthly columns that I will be writing, starting in the New Year.

© 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