Ottawa needs to wake up to the planetary health crisis

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

·      Published as “When it comes to sustainability, Ottawa ignores an inconvenient truth”

The federal government’s draft Federal Sustainable Development Strategy somehow fails to mention planetary boundaries or our ecological footprint, or to recognize ecological limits.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

13 April 2026

699 words

Last week I began an analysis of the federal government’s draft Federal Sustainable Development Strategy, which somehow manages to ignore planet Earth, fails to mention planetary boundaries or our ecological footprint or to recognise ecological limits and the need to invest in restoring our ecosystems and natural capital as a matter of national security.

So the question is – are these omissions a case of ignorance – have the federal scientists and others involved in developing this strategy never heard of planetary boundaries and ecological footprints? That seems pretty unlikely. How about their political masters – have they never heard of any of this?  That also seems pretty unlikely, they only have to follow the news, and presumably they do that, so they can’t be entirely ignorant.

It’s much more likely that this is a case of ‘ignore-ance’, the political and corporate act of knowing but ignoring what Al Gore many years ago called an inconvenient truth. When the  government’s priority is to grow the economy, “build an enormous amount of new infrastructure at speeds not seen in generations” and be a conventional energy superpower that exports fossil fuels, concern for the environment is an inconvenient truth that might get in the way.

That ‘ignore-ance’ is on full display in Prime Minister Carney’s Mandate letter to his Cabinet last May. Not only is the environment not one of the government’s seven priorities, the words ‘environment’ and ‘planet’ are not even mentioned, although the mandate letter says the Cabinet “must meet a series of unprecedented challenges”.  In what possible way can an ecological footprint equivalent to using five planets worth of biocapacity and the ongoing transgression of seven of nine planetary boundaries not be considered an unprecedented challenge?

The harsh truth is that we are exceeding the Earth’s limits, transgressing the boundaries of multiple Earth systems, and that this poses an existential risk to our society, our communities, our families, future generations and many of the millions of species with whom we share the Earth.

So a real sustainable development strategy would begin there, with a commitment to move swiftly towards a ‘One Planet’ Canada that operates within planetary boundaries. That would mean spelling out:

  • The extent to which Canada currently operates beyond planetary boundaries and takes more than its fair share of the Earth’s biocapacity and resources.
  • The environmental, social, health and economic implications of this in Canada and globally.
  • The transformation needed in our way of life and our economy in order to become a ‘One Planet’ Canada that not only does not transgress planetary boundaries but restores the damage we have done to the natural systems, in Canada and globally, that underpin our societies and our wellbeing.
  • The environmental, social, health and economic benefits and costs of doing so.

The strategy would also need to lay out broad initiatives needed to get us there, as well as specific sectoral policies consistent with creating a ‘One Planet’ Canada. The broad initiatives might include:

  • An ongoing process of nation-wide, community-based conversations about the situation we face and the future we want for our descendants, a process I have previously described as a People’s Commission on Wellbeing (24 August 2025).
  • A Parliamentary Standing Committee on a ‘One Planet’ Canada to hear and make public the evidence on the challenges we face and the progress we are making on an ongoing basis, and a Cabinet Committee on a ‘One Planet’ Canada to guide us there.
  • Follow the lead of Wales in passing a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act that establishes “a legally-binding common purpose – the seven well-being goals – for national government, local government, local health boards and other specified public bodies” and a Future Generations Commissioner ““to act as a guardian for the interests of future generations “(see my 18 August 2024 column).

Specific sectoral policies would need to be prioritised based on the contribution of the sector to planetary boundary transgressions, but would include at least the energy, agriculture, fisheries and food, built environment and transportation and the chemicals and extractive industries sectors.

Moreover, as a federation, all of these initiatives would need to be replicated at a provincial level and supported and implemented locally. Our descendants will thank us.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

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

Hello Ottawa, please recognise we live on planet Earth

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

  • Published as “Draft Sustainable Development Strategy misses the mark”

In the entire 74-page, 22,000-word document, the word “Earth” does not appear once and the word “planet” appears just a single time.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

6 April 2026

706 words

Thirty-nine years ago, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway and Chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development, presented their report to the United Nations. The Commission’s report, Our Common Future, widely referred to as the Brundtland Report, proposed the concept of sustainable development, which it defined as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The Commission’s title and mandate was clearly and explicitly to link environment and development and the Commissioners shared “a common concern for the planet and the interlocked ecological and economic threats with which its people, institutions, and governments now grapple”; remember, this was four decades ago.

So you would think that the federal government, in advancing its draft Sustainable Development Strategy, would provide a clear analysis of the state of the planet today and the challenges of sustainable development in the 21st century. And you would be completely wrong.

If you want a sense of just how out of touch this draft strategy is, consider this: In the entire 74-page, 22,000-word document, the word ‘Earth’ does not appear once – not once! – and the word ‘planet’ appears just once, and that only in a reference to the purpose of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Hello Ottawa! – it’s the 21st century out here, we live on planet Earth, sustainability is all about living within the limits of the Earth.

Oh, and you won’t find the word ‘limit’ used in reference to natural systems, only in reference to limited access and/or opportunity for people, and a brief reference to limiting global warming. This despite the fact that The Limits to Growth was published by the Club of Rome 54 years ago, warning of ecological and social decline or collapse by the mid-21st century – just 24 years or one generation away – and that the Brundtland Report identified “the idea of limitations” as one of two key concepts, adding  later that “ultimate limits there are”.

You also might have thought that one quarter of the way through the 21st century, and almost 20 years after the concept was first launched, there would be some reference to planetary boundaries. Earth system scientists have identified “nine Earth system processes essential for maintaining global stability, resilience and life-support functions” and have identified boundaries for each, “thresholds that keep life on Earth within a safe operating zone”, boundaries which we should not transgress.

As of 2025, we have crossed seven of those nine boundaries, one of which is climate change – and for all seven, the trend is worsening. But search the Strategy and you will find no reference whatsoever to planetary boundaries. Yes, climate change is a focus of attention, as is biodiversity loss, as too is pollution. But the latter is restricted to broad and conventional references to air, water and waste pollution; there is no reference to ‘novel entities’ such as nano-particles of plastic or food-chain contaminants. And don’t look for a reference to other key Earth systems of concern; ozone layer depletion, biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus and ocean acidification are not mentioned at all.

How about the ecological footprint, which measures “the ecological resource use and resource capacity of nations over time”? Globally, we are now using the equivalent of 1.7 planet’s worth of biocapacity every year; in Canada, we use around 5 planet’s worth. In other words, if everyone lives the way we live, we would need four more planets, but there is no Planet B, never mind Planets C, D and E. Again, you would think the Strategy would say something about this: Guess again – not a single mention.

Then there is national security – or rather, there isn’t!

In a notable speech in October 2025, Defence Minister David McGuinty 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”, while the government’s own report, ‘Disruptions on the Horizon 2024’, identified biodiversity loss and ecosystems collapse as the second most likely and second most impactful of 35disruptions for which Canada may need to prepare.

More on this, and on what the strategy should say, next week.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

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 does it mean that “environmentalists have lost, big time”?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Environmentalists are in the business of human survival and wellbeing, so if they’ve lost, humanity has lost.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

22 March 2026

702 words

In an interview in the Times Colonist (21 March 2026) marking his approaching 90th birthday, David Suzuki said “we’ve lost, environmentalists have lost, big time”. But what does it mean that environmentalists have lost? Who is we? What have we lost? And if we have lost, who has won, and what does winning mean?

First, let’s be clear what business environmentalists are in. We – and I count myself an environmentalist – are in the business of protecting and restoring nature, both for the protection of nature itself as something with inherent worth and for the protection of both human and non-human life on Earth. That is to say, environmentalists are both bio- or eco-centric and – for the most part – anthropocentric.

In being bio- or eco-centric, we are saying that nature is of value in its own right. As far as we know, we are the only planet in the universe that has life, which makes it precious beyond measure. (I agree there could be life elsewhere, but we have yet to find it, and it’s probably too far away, in other solar systems or other galaxies, for us to have meaningful interaction with it.)

That also means that the myriad of other species with whom we share this one small planet have inherent worth (although as a public health physician I might draw the line at the smallpox, Ebola, Covid and other deadly viruses). That is why we seek to protect ecosystems and different species from harm.

Now admittedly, there are some, known as deep ecologists, at the edges of eco-centric philosophy and ecology, who might argue that the Earth would be better off without humans, or with a much smaller and less technologically powerful population of humans.

But while I can sort of understand that viewpoint – well, here we are! And as a physician, I am of course interested in the wellbeing of people, of humanity as a whole. So I guess you could call me eco-anthropocentric.

What brings these viewpoints together is that humanity springs from nature, is part of and entirely embedded within nature, and completely dependent upon nature for our very survival, never mind our health and wellbeing. Every breath we take, every drop we drink, every mouthful we eat comes from nature; all the materials and fuels we use and depend upon come from nature.

Nature removes, decontaminates and recycles many of our wastes, protects us from UV solar radiation and, for the past 12,000 years, has provided a generally benign, warm and stable climate that has enabled the development of agriculture and civilisations around the world.

In a very profound sense, then, environmentalists are in the business of human survival and wellbeing, in balance with nature.  We should all be environmentalists!

So if we say environmentalists have lost, we are really saying humanity has lost. Now we haven’t quite lost yet, but we are in serious danger of undermining the most fundamental systems that are essential for life on Earth – all life, not just humanity. As I have repeatedly stressed in this column, we have crossed planetary boundaries for seven of nine key Earth systems, just one of which is global over-heating.

Now I don’t think we need worry about the planet, it’s been around 4.5 billion years. Nor do we need to worry about saving life on Earth; although we are creating a sixth great extinction, life has survived five previous extinction events. I am not even sure we need to worry about humanity; we are a tough, resilient and highly adaptable species, able to survive in some form almost anywhere.

But society – well, that is much more vulnerable. In 2014 the Worldwide Fund for Nature observed that “ecosystems sustain societies that create economies. It does not work any other way round.” So when ecosystems decline or collapse so too do the societies that depend upon them and the economic systems they have created.

Then who exactly can be said to be the winners here? The wealthy corporations and people who are inflicting damage on nature and trying to defeat environmentalists? And what exactly have they ‘won’? Short-term gain for long-term devastation? Think their grandchildren will be thanking them?

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

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

Yes, there is a problem with our economic system – it’s unfit for purpose

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

The geopolitical state of the world is a minor inconvenience compared to the rupture we are creating in the ecological condition of the world.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

23 February 2026

701 words

In a recent article in the Hill Times, for which the prime audience is the federal government and Parliament, I noted that while Mr. Carney was right to identify a rupture in the world in his recent Davos speech, he focused on the wrong rupture. The rupture he focused on – the geo-political state of the world – is a minor inconvenience compared to the drastic impact of the rupture we are creating in the ecological condition of the world.

I have noted repeatedly in these columns that we have transgressed seven of the nine planetary boundaries identified by leading Earth scientists – and the trend for those seven is in the wrong direction and in many cases is accelerating. I have also noted that these changes are driven by a set of values that are not aligned with the realities of the finite planet on which we live, and that in turn drive an economic system that is not fit for purpose in the 21st century.

For example, when Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, says that a 3.3 percent global growth forecast is “beautiful but not enough“, this is clearly someone who does not understand what 3.3 per cent growth means. The doubling time is a bit over 21 years, so in a typical Canadian lifespan of about 80 years the global economy would grow more than 13 times.

How does anyone in their right mind, never mind a senior global economics leader, think the planet could sustain such growth when it’s already failing under present conditions.

But several reports from the UN, UN-related organisations and others in the first couple of months of 2026 have begun spelling out how unfit our economic system is. We should not be surprised that this chorus of voices is arising from the United Nations and its agencies. After all, their task is not to protect the economic and other interests of any particular nation, but to stand back and view the big global picture and protect the interests of humanity as a whole, which includes protecting the Earth on which we utterly depend.

First, in January, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) published its seventh Global Environmental Outlook (GEO 7). Climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation and desertification, and pollution and waste, the report warned, are undermining human wellbeing and “already costing trillions of dollars each year” – yes, trillions!

Climate change alone is estimated to have cost US$2 trillion over the decade from 2014 – 2023, and we know it’s only just beginning! Add to that the US$10 to $44 trillion cost annually attributable to the degradation of ecosystems and “the economic losses, exceeding US$8.1 trillion per year, associated with environmental pollution”. Moreover, the UNEP report states, “the damages from the global environmental crises will become increasingly severe over the coming decades”.

And yet, disturbingly, a group of researchers from the University of Exeter and the Carbon Tracker Initiative noted in early February that “Economic damages from climate change have long been underestimated and inconsistently represented in policy and financial decision-making.” In other words, governments, banks and other financial decision-makers are not properly taking into account the accelerating economic impacts of climate change and the potential for sudden and dramatic changes as we hit tipping points.

Until governments and investors take this into account, the report warns, “financial institutions will continue to chronically under-price climate risks, and pension funds and taxpayers will remain dangerously exposed.” And remember, this is only for climate change, never mind all the other ecological changes underway

The broad conclusion of the UNEP report is that these crises “are primarily caused by unsustainable systems of production and consumption”, so the UNEP recommends investing in the transformation of our societies and economies.

An investment now of less than US$10 trillion per year will begin to yield annual benefits by around 2050, UNEP estimates. These overall benefits are expected to “increase to approximately US$20 trillion per year by 2070, and over US$100 trillion per year by 2100, accounting for more than 25 per cent of projected global GDP in 2100.”

Other recent reports add weight to these arguments. They will be the focus of my next column.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

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

The real rupture we face: What Mark Carney’s next speech needs to say

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Published in the Hill Times, 13 Feb 2026

The real rupture we face: what Carney’s next speech needs to say

A recent report from the United Kingdom warns that ‘critical ecosystems are at risk of collapsing,’ and if ‘current rates of biodiversity loss continue, every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse.’

Dr. Trevor Hancock

1 February 2026

696 words

In his much-lauded Davos speech, Mark Carney talked of “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality”. He was referring to power and geopolitics, and more specifically – although without naming him – to Donald Trump. All well and good, as far as it went – but it did not go far enough.

For while there is much that might be praised in Carney’s speech, and much that might be debated, what is really significant is what he failed to address. Consider that the following words did not appear once in his entire speech: Environment, ecology, ecosystem, climate, biodiversity, pollution, planet, boundary, limit.

And yet we face a much more profound and significant rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and beginning of a harsh reality than anything, short of nuclear war, that Trump may visit upon us.

  • Here is a real rupture in the world order: The accelerating transgression of planetary boundaries for seven of the nine Earth systems considered vital to the stability of our societies, to our wellbeing and indeed to our very existence.
  • Here is the end of a pleasant fiction: That life can go on much as it is, that economic growth can continue for ever in the finite system of the Earth, that everyone, everywhere, can have more stuff.
  • Here is a harsh reality, courtesy of the World Wide Fund for Nature: “Ecosystems sustain societies that create economies. It does not work any other way round.”

“The power of the less powerful”, said Carney, “starts with honesty.” Fine, so let’s start with some honesty about what our current economic system is doing to the planet, and what that means for our wellbeing, the wellbeing of future generations and the myriad species with whom we share the Earth.

Mr. Carney might want to read the October 2025 speech by his Minister of Defence, David McGuinty, at the 4th Montreal Climate Security Summit. “Our security and our prosperity are fully dependent on a healthy and functioning environment”, he said. And he 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.”


He might want to read his own government’s report ‘Disruptions on the Horizon 2024’, which identified biodiversity loss and ecosystems collapse as the second most likely and second most impactful of 35disruptions for which Canada may need to prepare.

He might want to look at the UK Government’s national security assessment of global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, released January 20th. Noting that “Nature is a foundation of national security”, the report stated: “Critical ecosystems are at risk of collapsing. If current rates of biodiversity loss continue, every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse”.

Finally, as an economist, he might like to look at the UN Environment Programme’s ‘Global Ecological Outlook’, also released in January 2026. Among its key messages: “The scientific consensus is that following current development pathways will bring catastrophic climate change, devastation to nature and biodiversity, debilitating land degradation and desertification, and lingering deadly pollution – all at a huge cost to people, planet and economies.”

But the report, sub-titled “Why investing in Earth now can lead to a trillion-dollar benefit for all”, has another key message: “investing in a stable climate, healthy nature and land, and a pollution-free planet can deliver trillions of dollars each year in additional global GDP, avoid millions of deaths, and lift hundreds of millions of people out of hunger and poverty in the coming decades.”

Quoting Vaclav Havel, Mr. Carney cautioned we can’t live within a lie. Perhaps the biggest lie is that we can continue on our way pretty much in a ‘business as usual’ mode, with some adjustments. But the facts don’t bear this out, we can’t keep living this lie. So Mr. Carney can add to his growing international stature by delivering another speech, perhaps at the UN this time, about this much greater and more profound rupture we face, and what we need to do about it.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

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

Reclaim the economy for people and the planet

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

We too often prioritize the economy over people and the planet, putting both in service of the economy.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

19 January 2026

699 words

As readers of this column know, I often refer to a piece of wisdom put forth by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in 2014: “Ecosystems sustain societies that create economies. It does not work any other way round.” The root of many of our problems, of course, is that we keep trying to make it work the other way round. Our current society and economy too often prioritise the economy over people and the planet, putting both in service of the economy.

But as the WWF notes, it is society that creates the economy, which is – or should be – a tool to improve the wellbeing of all, now and in the future, while also ensuring we remain within planetary boundaries. That, not coincidentally, is pretty much the definition of a Wellbeing society put forward by the World Health Organization.

So it is not surprising that the second of five action areas identified in WHO’s Geneva Charter for Wellbeing is to design an equitable economy that serves human development within planetary and local ecological boundaries – what increasingly is being called a ‘wellbeing economy’.

Which brings me to ‘Reclaim the Economy Week’, which runs from January 26th to February 1st. Organised by the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and Earth4All, two global organisations, the week focuses on two of the largest problems we face: “Our economies are driving inequality and environmental devastation.”

With respect to inequality, the latest World Inequality Report (WIR) noted: “Inequality has long been a defining feature of the global economy, but by 2025, it has reached levels that demand urgent attention.” The concentration of wealth has become extreme and it “is not only persistent, but it is also accelerating”.

In Canada, Statistics Canada reported in July 2025, “The income gap reached a record high in the first quarter of 2025; the highest income households gained from investments, while the lowest income households’ wages declined.”

Such inequality is not just about poverty, it has significant social implications, notes the WIR: “it reshapes democracies, fragmenting coalitions and eroding political consensus.” Importantly, they concluded: “These divides are not inevitable. They are the outcome of political and institutional choices.”

Extreme wealth also has ecological implications. A January 9th news release from Oxfam found that someone from the top 1 percent of the world’s population used their fair share of the world’s carbon budget – the amount of CO2 that can be emitted while staying within 1.5 degrees of warming – in the first 10 days of the year. It would take an individual from the poorest half of humanity three years to generate an equivalent amount.

These impacts of greed apply across all aspects of the natural systems that are our life support system. And yet we continue to urge economic growth, extol conspicuous consumption and market a high-consumption lifestyle.

The growing ecological disaster we face, driven by these forces, comes with a staggering economic impact, measured in the trillions of dollars, as the UN Environment Programme’s just-released report ‘Global Environmental Outlook – 7’ report makes clear:

  • The global cost of climate-induced extreme weather events in the past 20 years is estimated at US$143 billion per year . . . Costs have increased exponentially over the last five years, and cumulative costs from 2014–2023 are estimated at US$2 trillion, affecting 1.6 billion people.
  • Globally, the degradation of ecosystems will lead to a loss of services worth between US$10 trillion and US$44 trillion annually.
  • Globally, the estimated annual costs of land degradation are large, but uncertain, and range between US$18 billion and US$20 trillion.
  • The effect on global food production is a key concern, with a potential reduction of up to 33.7 million tons and a corresponding 30 per cent increase in world food prices by 2040.

Small wonder the report’s sub-title is “Why investing in Earth now can lead to a trillion-dollar benefit for all” – and actually, that should be ‘multi-trillion’.

Just as poverty and inequality are not inevitable, but “are the outcome of political and institutional choices”, so too is ecological devastation. As the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and Earth4All state, it is time “to unite to demand an economy that puts people and planet first.”

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

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

Why become an UNESCO Urban Biosphere Region?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Movement toward designating Greater Victoria a UNESCO urban biosphere region is a sign of hope in challenging times

Dr. Trevor Hancock

6 January 2026

698 words

Largely lost in the flurry of pre-Christmas distraction was a December 10th announcement from the Greater Victoria NatureHood (GVNH) that the Capital Regional District (CRD) Board had approved a staff recommendation to prepare nomination documents designating Greater Victoria an UNESCO Urban Biosphere Region.  This followed several years of work led by Martin Segger, an architectural historian and coordinator of the UNESCO Victoria World Heritage Project, together with the GVNH.

There are a several things here that need unpacking. First, what is the Greater Victoria NatureHood? And for that matter, what is a naturehood? Also, what is UNESCO, what is an Urban Biosphere Region and why does any of this matter? 

The concept of a ‘naturehood’ was developed by Nature Canada in 2012; it is “any place you go to connect with the earth’s natural wonders”, including “any green space in your neighbourhood . . .  an overlooked urban forest, a community garden, the park at the end of your street, or your backyard.”

The main point of a Naturehood initiative is to connect people of all ages – but especially children and youth – with nature so they are more inclined to protect and restore it. Here in Victoria, the Lieutenant Governor officially designated the grounds of Government House a NatureHood site in July 2017 and from this has grown the Greater Victoria NatureHood as a collaborative effort by a number of not-for-profit, public and private organizations.

That Vice-Regal interest was continued when, in August 2024, Government House hosted a Forum that unanimously endorsed a proposal to ask the CRD to prepare the supporting documents required to nominate the Victoria Region as an UNESCO Urban Biosphere Region. 

UNESCO is the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and its purpose is to strengthen ties between people, building peace through the promotion of education, science, culture, and communication. One of its major programs is a World Network of Biosphere Reserves – 784 of them to date, in 124 countries, with 19 in Canada, 3 of which are in B.C.: Clayoquot Sound, Howe Sound and Mt. Arrowsmith.

These Biosphere Reserves are “sites of excellence that foster harmony between people and nature for sustainable development through participatory dialogue; knowledge sharing; poverty reduction and human well-being improvements; respect for cultural values and society’s ability to cope with change.” What’s not to like?

A small number of these are Urban Biospheres, a subcategory defined as a biosphere “where the natural, socio-economic and cultural environments are shaped by urban influences and pressures, and are set up and managed to mitigate these pressures for improved urban and regional sustainability.” Several other Canadian municipalities – Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal – are pursuing the idea.

So why does this matter? Because, in a nutshell, I see it as an important vehicle for bringing together people and organisations from all sectors – public, private, NGO, community and faith sectors and local First Nations – to address the greatest challenge of our age: How do we make peace with nature?

And what better place to do so than here? A November CRD staff report notes we live in a region that comprises over 300 watersheds, includes three federal Migratory Bird Sanctuaries and nine Key Biodiversity Areas. The natural environment “is constantly voted as the best thing about living in the region by the Victoria Foundation’s annual Vital Signs survey”; indeed, there are as many as “400 habitat conservation groups working in Greater Victoria.” Furthermore, the report adds, biodiversity is an important driver of the regional economy through tourism, outdoor recreation, and educational institutions, bringing millions of dollars and over 60,000 jobs to the local economy. 

Also, given the long history of Indigenous peoples as stewards of these lands and waters before colonization, and given that one criterion for designation is “Significant Indigenous representation in biosphere governance and management”, this initiative is an opportunity to further deepen Reconciliation locally.

The next phase of proposal development involves extensive community engagement which hopefully will spark a region-wide conversation about what it means to live well and sustainably within the limits of this one small planet, within the local bioregion that is our home. It is a welcome sign of hope in challenging times.

© Trevor Hancock, 2026

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

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

Carney offers 20th century responses to 21st century challenges

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Both people and the planet are largely missing from the Carney budget. Instead, the government seems to be following the old Bill Clinton maxim: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’

Dr. Trevor Hancock

11 November 2025

698 words

It is said that during World War I, French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau remarked that generals always prepare to fight the last war. Regrettably, it seems that this also applies to governments trying to manage our society. That seems evident from the Carney budget and his overall agenda, which propose a set of approaches more suited to the 19th and 20th centuries than to the new realities of the 21st century, focusing on infrastructure projects.  

As Ecojustice lawyer Melissa Gorrie and I pointed out in a recent article in the Hill Times “this government’s old-school idea of nation-building is focused on new infrastructure, as if Canada is just a construction company, not a society. But a nation is much more than a collection of infrastructure projects.”  

We went on to suggest that if Mr. Carney really wants a nation-building project he consider the task of making Canada a Wellbeing society. Such a society, according to the World Health Organization’s Geneva Charter for Well-being is one that is “committed to achieving equitable health now and for future generations without breaching ecological limits.”.

That focus on people and planet seems to me to be both a simple and profound statement of what should be the central purpose of government and the broader task of societal governance. As Dr. Theresa Tam noted recently in her final report before stepping down as Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer: “Well-being is gaining momentum globally as a shared policy goal and approach, focused on creating the conditions for current and future generations to thrive on a healthy planet”.

Yet both people and the planet are largely missing from the Carney budget. Instead, the government seems to be following the old Bill Clinton maxim: “It’s the economy, stupid”. I suppose if you hire an economist – a central banker, no less – as your Prime Minister, that’s what you should expect to get. But at this time of multiple crises, it’s not what is needed.

With respect to people, the Maytree Foundation, an organisation “committed to advancing systemic solutions to poverty and strengthening civic communities”, noted in its analysis of the budget: “The missing ingredient in the government’s nation-building recipe is people, especially those who live on low incomes and who continue to struggle with the high cost of living.”

Moreover, their analysis continued, “we had hoped the federal budget would acknowledge the growing crises of poverty, homelessness, food insecurity, and inequality, seeing them not just as social challenges, but as economic liabilities that undermine both productivity and cohesion.” Sadly, that is not the case, leaving Maytree to express the hope that as the government “finds its footing” it will come to realise that “For a true ‘Canada Strong’ approach, the government needs to start seeing social programs as nation-building projects worth investing in.”

As to the planet, at a time when we have crossed seven of nine planetary boundaries, it seems absent from the government’s overall understanding of the 21st century challenges we face. This is exemplified by Mr. Carney’s mandate letter to his Cabinet in May.

In it he identifies “a series of crises” Canada faces without once even mentioning the environment or the planet. He then outlines an agenda for his government that focuses on the economy, while climate change gets a brush-off reference towards the end: “We will fight climate change.”

So here we are, in the week in which COP30 opens in Brazil, amidst record-breaking global temperature increases, increasing and accelerating greenhouse gas emissions and record storms and wildfires, and Canada is backing away from Mr. Carney’s expressed commitment to fight climate change.

In an article in Canada’s National Observer Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood, a senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, wrote: “In many respects, this is the most harmful budget from a climate perspective since the Harper era.”

At a time when we face not just ecological but serious social and technological challenges, the last thing we need is a 19th century set of solutions aimed at infrastructure and more growth in extraction and consumption. Our 21st century challenges need 21st century solutions, but Canada’s political establishment – Liberal, Conservative and NDP alike – seems incapable of responding appropriately.

© 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