Ignorance of the laws of nature and physics is no excuse

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

  • Published as  “You can celebrate CO2 and ignore climate change, but it won’t stop the hurricanes”

The United Conservative Party in Alberta is falsely claiming that CO2 is ‘near the lowest level in over 1,000 years’ — an example of both ignorance and ignore-ance

Dr. Trevor Hancock

22 October 2024

698 words

My first reaction to the news that the United Conservative Party (UCP) in Alberta was to vote on a resolution to stop calling carbon dioxide a pollutant and claiming that CO2 was “near the lowest level in over 1,000 years” was that it must be April Fool’s Day. Then I remembered that this was the UCP, where every single day seems to be a fool’s day.

The resolution is just one small example of a wider phenomenon: The ability of politicians and their followers to display a combination of ignorance and ignore-ance. Of the two, ignore-ance is by far the more sinister and dangerous. Ignorance is just lack of knowledge – ‘Oh, I didn’t know that’ – but ignore-ance is the wilful ignoring of something you know.

The ignorance is clear in the assertion that CO2, currently at around 420 parts per million (ppm), is near the lowest level seen in over 1,000 years. Well, the last time it was as high as 420 ppm was 14 million years ago, according to a 7-year long study by more than 80 researchers from 16 nations, published in the prestigious journal Science in December 2023.

Moreover, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the USA notes that over “the past million years or so, atmospheric carbon dioxide never exceeded 300 ppm.” Any way you look at it, no way is CO2 near the lowest level in over 1,000 years.

So take your pick; either the authors of the UCP resolution – and the UCP policy committee that vets resolutions – were ignorant of the evidence, or they were aware of it but chose to ignore it – ignore-ance.

Nor does it end there; the resolution also wants to remove the designation of CO2 as a pollutant. Instead, they want it to be recognised as “a foundational nutrient for all life on Earth” – which it is, at the right levels, for plants, which are the base of our food chains.

Manitoba’s Department of Agriculture, for example, notes that photosynthesis in most plants will be maximised at about 1,000 ppm of CO2. Beyond that, however, performance worsens, and 10,000 ppm (1 percent) of CO2 is sufficient to cause damage and eventually death.

The same is true for humans. The US Centers for Disease Control states that the maximum level of CO2 for occupational exposure is 5,000 ppm, that 30 minutes at 50,000 ppm causes signs of intoxication, and that 70,000 – 100,000 ppm (7 – 10 percent) causes immediate unconsciousness and will result in death.

Moreover, the CO2 emitted from fossil fuel combustion is the main driver of global heating. The relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and global heating is very clear and well understood, and was first described by Svante Arrhenius in 1886. As the past few years have made abundantly clear, climate change is already causing significant levels of death, injury and  disease, and that is only going to get a lot worse.

So yes, CO2 is a pollutant, as that word is defined by the Oxford Reference Dictionary: “Any substance, produced and released into the environment as a result of human activities, that has damaging effects on living organisms.” Clearly CO2 is released into the environment by human activity (as well as by natural processes), it is toxic to both plants and animals (at levels well below current atmospheric levels), and it is heating the atmosphere and changing the climate, thus harming people directly and indirectly. So let’s not get too carried away in celebrating CO2!

Still, at least the Alberta government has not (yet) gone to the levels of ignore-ance displayed by the Florida Legislature. In a step not unlike a little child ignoring something horrid in the hope that it will go away, they passed a Bill in May that removed all reference to climate change in state law, which does not seem to have stopped Hurricanes Helene and Milton from wreaking havoc.

In Canada’s Criminal Code, section 19 reads “Ignorance of the law by a person who commits an offence is not an excuse for committing that offence.” It is time to extend that principle to political and corporate leaders and their followers who ignore the laws of physics and nature.

© 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

Later is too late to restore nature

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Dr. Trevor Hancock

15 October 2024

697 words

Tomorrow – October 21st – sees the opening of COP16 – the 16th UN Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia. It is the first of three UN conferences this Fall that are addressing individually the three components of what the UN calls the ‘triple planetary crisis’ of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

COP16 will be followed in short succession by the 29th UN Conference on Climate Change, which takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan from November 11th to 21st and then the final round of negotiations on a global plastics treaty – plastic being a key pollutant, although far from the only one – in Busan, South Korea from November 25th to December 1st.

These three issues are also three of the nine components of the Planetary Boundaries model I discussed last week; we have crossed the boundary for all three, and the trend is worsening for all three. Moreover, they don’t operate in isolation, but interact in ways that usually make things worse. Biodiversity loss, for example, is driven by five main factors, according to a landmark 2019 UN report, two of which are climate change and pollution.

While climate change is often seen as the main – and sometimes, the only – threat, biodiversity loss is really fundamental. As Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, the President for COP16, noted in an interview with John Woodside in Canada’s National Observer: “If nature collapses, communities and people will also collapse. Society will collapse.”

Troublingly, nature is getting closer to collapsing. That same 2019 report found that “around 1 million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades.” And just this past week, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) released the latest Living Planet Report, sub-titled ‘A System in Peril’.

The report uses the Living Planet Index, which is based on a count of the population size for almost 35,000 routinely monitored populations representing 5,495 vertebrate species – amphibians, birds, fish, mammals and reptiles. While it is only a portion of overall biodiversity, it is an important one, in part because of its longevity. The Index covers a 50-year period from 1970 – 2020 and has been trending steadily downwards throughout that time.

Thus while the result this year is disturbing, it is hardly surprising: “the average size of monitored wildlife populations has shrunk by 73 percent”, the WWF reports – so nearly three-quarters of those vertebrate populations have gone in just 50 years! “Nature”, the report bluntly states, “is disappearing at an alarming rate.”

But that is the global average; it is much worse in some regions and among some ecosystems. Freshwater vertebrate populations – think fish, reptiles and amphibians – “have suffered the heaviest declines, falling by 85 percent”, while “the fastest declines have been seen in Latin America and the Caribbean – a concerning 95 percent decline – followed by Africa (76 percent).”

By comparison, North America seemingly fares well, with ‘only’ a 39 percent decline, as does Europe and Central Asia (35 percent down). However, the authors caution, that is misleading because “large-scale impacts on nature were already apparent before 1970”, which is when the Index begins.

The authors caution us that population declines of this scale may compromise the resilience of ecosystems, threatening their functioning, which in turn “undermines the benefits that ecosystems provide to people.” And they warn that “a number of tipping points [substantial, often abrupt and potentially irreversible changes] are highly likely if current trends . . . continue, with potentially catastrophic consequences” for both societies and the Earth’s living systems.

As do a number of recent reports, the WWF concludes that to restore resilience, balance and vitality to the natural systems that are our life support systems, we need not just a transition but transformative change, in particular in “our food, energy and finance systems.”

This will not be easy, but the longer we put off the necessary transformations, the steeper the price we will have to pay in health, social and economic terms. Indeed, the WWF believes that “It is no exaggeration to say that what happens in the next five years will determine the future of life on Earth.”

As the slogan for the recent Seniors Climate Action Day put it, ‘Later is too late!’

© 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

Wanted: A government that cares about the wellbeing of the planet and future generations

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

(Published as  “We need a government that cares about the well-being of the planet”)

Somehow we have to get the next provincial government to take a long-term and less-partisan view, for the good of the whole province and for future generations.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

7 October 2024

702 words

Last month Planetary Boundaries Science, an international partnership of Earth scientists based out of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, published the first of what will be an annual Planetary Health Check. It makes for grim, if unsurprising, reading.

The Planetary Boundaries framework used in the report “identifies the nine Earth system processes essential for maintaining global stability, resilience and life-support functions.” Unfortunately, while “staying within these boundaries helps ensure that the Earth system remains stable and capable of supporting life and human development”, we are failing to do so; planetary health is declining.

In fact, the report notes, we have crossed six of the nine boundaries and are on the verge of crossing a seventh – ocean acidification. Even more concerning, all seven systems are trending in the wrong direction, “suggesting further transgression in the near future.”

Which is why I have been discussing with some of my colleagues ways in which we can ensure our political leaders pay much more attention to this critical issue.

One approach we are exploring is to persuade the Senate of Canada to take up the issue of declining planetary health and the need for Canada to become a wellbeing society, which must be the societal response to this and other profound challenges, such as growing inequality. 

The Senate could and should have an important role over and above its role as a place of ‘sober second thought’. It seems to me the Senate has two distinct advantages over the House of Commons. First, under the new system put in place by Justin Trudeau it is largely non-partisan, so much less driven by narrow party-political interests. Second, it does not face an election every 4 – 5 years, enabling it to take a long-term view.

So I would be happy to see the Senate become a sort of futures think tank, focused on the long-range needs of Canada as a whole. Two tasks in particular come to mind: First, an enquiry into the long-term implications for Canada (and for the rest of the world) of declining planetary health; second an investigation into the implications of a wellbeing society for Canada, with a particular view to the wellbeing of future generations.

But useful though that would be, it is not enough; ultimately, this needs to be the role of the elected government, even though the government is disadvantaged by its short term and narrow partisan perspective, which makes it difficult to develop holistic long-term policies and programs.

Which brings me to the upcoming B.C. election. Somehow we have to get the next provincial government – which does not have the equivalent of a Senate – to take a long-term and less partisan view, for the good of the whole province and for future generations.

A friend at the Victoria Secular Humanist Association sent me their list of questions to candidates, which do a good job of focusing on the necessary provincial response to declining planetary health. They include asking the parties to:

  • Commit to B.C. citizens that they will combat climate change by maintaining the ‘carbon tax’;
  • Bring an end to all clearcut and old growth logging in B.C. within 60 days of taking office;
  • Significantly expand provincial Ecological Reserves, with migratory corridors for wildlife, to secure their continued survival;
  • Enact a B.C. Endangered Species Act for terrestrial and marine life by the end of 2025; and
  • Honour the Tripartite Agreement between Canada, British Columbia and the First Nations Leadership Council to protect and conserve 30% of British Columbia’s natural ecosystems by year 2030.

As a way of ensuring that action is actually taken, for each of these questions they ask the parties to describe which measurable goals and timelines will be used to achieve successful outcomes. To this I would add a demand that they commit to enacting a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act and creating the position of a Future Generations Commissioner, as the Welsh National Assembly has done.

Any party that does not take seriously declining planetary health and the need for a wellbeing society, and does not answer in the affirmative to all these questions, clearly does not have at heart the long-term interests of current and future generations and does not deserve your vote.

© 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

Our ‘ignore-ant’ elites blindly adhere to ‘business as usual’

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Many of our so-called leaders don’t want to change because they get so much benefit — wealth, power, status — from the way things are

Dr. Trevor Hancock

21 May 2024

700 words

My colleague Paul Kershaw is a Professor of Public Health at UBC and founder of Generation Squeeze, a “Think and Change Tank” that promotes wellbeing for all generations. It does so “by turning evidence into action and rejuvenating democracy to protect what is sacred for younger and future generations: a healthy childhood, home and planet.” He has been very effective in raising issues of concern and getting public policy changed.

Recently we have been discussing the content of a session we are planning on planetary health and a wellbeing society at the Victoria Forum this August. In the process of that discussion, Paul wrote:

“I doubt we need a session that makes the case we have crossed planetary boundaries, or that wellbeing frameworks matter, or that Indigenous knowledge is critical to thinking sustainably over generations.” 

A reasonable point; one would like to think these issues are already well understood, at least in principle. But he then made the case that – sadly – we do indeed need such a session, by adding: “Except that the governments and corporations that drive our economies and societies are not behaving as if they have heard or understand this.”

Now this is from someone who is well steeped in public policy and well connected to the policy-making process and to policy-makers. So when he says that our government and corporate leadership is not paying attention to these important issues, it worries me.

What they are not hearing or understanding is really very simple: We only have one planet, and its natural ecosystems are the source of all life – not just humanity but every single living thing. And yet our demands considerably exceed the biocapacity and resources of the Earth.

We behave as if we have and can use the resources of several planets. Indeed, the more bizarrely delusional of us actually seem to believe we can and should move to another planet – presumably so we can repeat the process there!

But back here on Earth, where we actually live, we have crossed six of nine suggested planetary boundaries and are approaching two others, one of which is climate change.

Now it’s hard to believe that governments and corporations are not hearing or understanding this; indeed, I am sure they are. But what Paul is saying is that they are not behaving as if they have heard or understood what is going on. They are practising what Elizabeth Ellsworth, in a 1997 book, called ‘ignore-ance’ – “an active dynamic of negation, an active refusal of information”.

I can imagine several reasons that lead to this inability to face reality and act accordingly. In responding to Paul I suggested possible reasons for this ignore-ance: It may be that many of our leaders – and indeed many people in general – don’t believe it is really that bad, or can’t easily face the implications. Or perhaps people believe that somehow someone, somewhere, will come up with a technological fix that will allow us to carry on much as we are.

But I suspect that for many of our so-called leaders, they don’t want to change because they get so much benefit – wealth, power, status – from the way things are. And therein lies the nub of our problem; self-interested blind adherence to ‘business as usual’, to an economic system and underlying core values that plainly work against our long-term interests.

The result is an inability or unwillingness to play a leadership role in the massive and rapid transformation needed to stave off ecological decline, even collapse. And when ecosystems decline or collapse, so too do the communities and societies embedded within them, and the economies they create.

As the old adage has it, if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. And since this government and corporate elite has shown itself unwilling to or incapable of addressing the problem, it clearly IS the problem.

But it is not just the behaviour of our elites, the problem is more profound than that. They are merely reflecting and acting upon a set of deep cultural values that are unfit for purpose in the 21st century, as I start to discuss next week.

© 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