Carney’s ecocidal agenda offers short-term gain for long-term pain

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Focusing on energy, trade, critical minerals, transport and data projects has already brought us to the brink of the ecological precipice.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

22 September 2026

698 words

Everyone is applauding Mark Carney for standing up for Canada in the face of Donald Trump’s assault on us. And of course we need to do that. But Carney’s strategy – doubling down on “a series of nation-building projects in energy, in trade, critical minerals, transport, data, and beyond”, as he noted in an April 2026 address – is simply an acceleration of ‘business-as-usual’, a model of resource extraction and industrial development firmly rooted in 19th and 20th century thinking about the economy and nature.

However, it is ‘business-as-usual’ over the past century that has brought us to the brink of the ecological precipice. The latest Planetary Health Check report, just out this week, confirms we have already crossed planetary boundaries for seven of nine vital natural systems and the trends for all seven are headed in the wrong direction.

So the last thing we need is an approach that says we can keep growing our economy, our use of resources, our creation of pollution and wastes and our impacts on the Earth’s natural systems within the finite system that is our planet.

That is an approach that led Kenneth Boulding, a former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as far back as 1973, to remark to the US Senate that “Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist”. Well, our Prime Minister is an economist.

So it is disturbing to see the consistent pattern of environmental ‘ignore-ance’ in the Carney government’s agenda. The Throne Speech 15 months ago, titled “Building Canada Strong: A bold, ambitious plan for our future”, made no reference at all to sustainable development. It mentioned the environment only once, in a throw-away line about “upholding Canada’s world-leading environmental standards” – which the government has since been systematically undermining.

We have seen the government roll back action on climate change by getting rid of the consumer carbon tax and the EV sales mandate, while at the same time supporting increased tar sands and LNG extraction and promising public funding (i.e. subsidies) for new pipelines. Carney has said he wants Canada to be an energy superpower in both conventional and alternative energy, but as Dr. Courtney Howard, Chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance, remarked in her opening plenary talk at the Victoria Forum last month, it’s not enough to be an energy superpower, we should be a GOOD energy superpower, and doubling down on fossil fuels is the wrong approach.

Meanwhile the government is proposing to relax other environmental safeguards in the interest of major projects of national importance. Noting “the Building Canada Strong Act amends five federal laws, including the Impact Assessment Act, Species at Risk Act, and Fisheries Act”, Lisa Gue, national policy manager at the David Suzuki Foundation, said this past week: “Ottawa’s move to streamline regulations is code for steamrolling nature protections.”

So yet again I point to the deep truth underlying the 2014 statement from the World Wide Fund for Nature statement – a deep truth Carney and his supporters either do not, cannot or will not understand: “Ecosystems sustain societies that create economies. It does not work any other way round.” So sadly, but also disastrously, Carney’s real legacy will not be a stronger Canada but a dangerously weakened Canadian and global ecological system. Fundamentally, the government’s approach is ecocidal.

In 2021 a panel of legal experts from around the world defined ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”. Who can doubt that the wanton and deliberate act of expanding fossil fuel use, or any of the other policies that contribute to further transgression of planetary boundaries, is ecocidal.

The Carney government needs to re-think its entire approach to building a Canada fit for the 21st century. We need a Canada that – in the interests of current young people and future generations – pivots to put the planet ahead of economic growth, that commits to living within planetary boundaries and to equitably sharing our already immense wealth.

© 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

Fossil fuel expansion is ecocide – A crime against nature and humanity

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

The expansionary actions of the fossil-fuel industry, governments and private and public-sector investors, in Canada and around the world, amount to ecocide. While not yet technically a crime, their actions are morally unacceptable.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

11 September 2026

694 words

Published in The Hill Times 24 September 2026

While I strongly support Mark Carney’s efforts to distance us from Trump and the USA, his support for the fossil fuel industry and fossil fuel expansion as part of that strategy cannot be accepted. It will harm Canadians and others around the world, now and in the future, by undermining the natural systems that are the most fundamental determinants of our wellbeing. This constitutes ecocide.

The Stop Ecocide campaign was founded in 2017 with a mission to establish ecocide as an international crime, alongside the four other international crimes judged at the International Criminal Court: Crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and crimes of aggression. So far four countries have supported the proposal and eight countries in Europe and South America are considering including it in their domestic law.

In November 2020 the Stop Ecocide Foundation convened an independent expert panel to define ecocide. In its June 2021 report, the Panel defined ecocide as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”

By ‘wanton’ they mean “reckless disregard for damage which would be clearly excessive in relation to the social and economic benefits anticipated”, while ‘severe’, ‘widespread’ and ‘long-term’ speak for themselves.

Which brings us to two reports on climate change released in early September – one from the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and one from the Government of Canada. They make it plain that our collective failure to rein in greenhouse gas emissions is already resulting in severe, widespread and long-term harm to the environment and thus to people – and it’s only going to get worse.

The UNEP report notes “global temperature rise is set to cross 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, likely within the next few years.” In other words, we have already lost the battle to keep global temperature increase below 1.5°C. In a press release the UNEP adds “The most optimistic scenario will see temperature rise peak at 1.8°C above pre-industrial levels . . .  Most other scenarios predict higher peaks.” UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson stated “There are no good outcomes if we remain above 1.5°C.”

Here in Canada, the government’s own just-released report states with high confidence that “In the near term, Canada will continue warming at close to twice the global rate . . .. On average over this 20-year period, Canada is projected to be 2.7°C (1.8–3.6°C) warmer”. Over the long term, “under current global climate policies . . . Climate change in Canada will intensify through the century . . .  In 2081-2100, average warming across Canada relative to 1850–1900 is projected to reach 5.0°C (3.8–6.6°C).”

Among the consequences of higher temperatures the UNEP report lists are “Intensified extreme weather, ecosystem loss, and submersion of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and low-lying coastal cities.” The report anticipates “Severe damage to human health, food security, water supplies, nature, cities, infrastructure and economies.”

Extreme heat in Europe alone has been estimated to have killed anywhere from 20,000 to 35,000 people this year. On July 31st the World Health Organization reported: “Between 2000–2019 studies show approximately 489,000 heat-related deaths occur each year, with 45 percent of these in Asia and 36 percent in Europe.”

We have already seen the dramatic effects of extreme heat, wildfires, storms, floods and droughts across Canada this year, and it’s only going to get worse. If this doesn’t constitute severe, widespread and long-term harm to the environment and to people, I don’t know what does.

So in the face of clear evidence of current harm and the substantial likelihood of growing harm in the future, the prudent thing to do would be to reduce fossil fuel use as rapidly and as soon as possible. To fail to do so, and indeed to support fossil fuel expansion through continuing subsidies, weakening of regulations and ongoing private and public investment amounts to reckless disregard.  

Clearly the expansionary actions of the fossil fuel industry, governments and private and public sector investors, in Canada and around the world, amount to ecocide. While not yet technically a crime, their actions are morally unacceptable.

© 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

Wicked problems, virtuous solutions

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

  • Published as “Wicked, entangled problems call for virtuous solutions”

Complex issues interweaving climate change, widening inequalities, pandemics, political unrest and more, were very much on the agenda this past week at the Victoria Forum.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

25 August 2026

703 words

We live in an era of polycrisis, which the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University defines as a situation in which “crises in multiple global systems become causally entangled in ways that cause major human harm.”  The Institute identifies a set of fourteen global systemic stresses that create systemic risk, including “climate change, biodiversity loss, widening inequalities, pandemics, financial instability, political unrest — all influenced by long-running demographic trends.”  

These stresses constitute wicked problems, defined by Rittel and Webber in 1973 as a “complex issue that defies complete definition, for which there can be no final solution, since any resolution generates further issues, and where solutions are not true or false or good or bad, but the best that can be done at the time.”

These wicked problems were very much on the agenda this past week at the Victoria Forum, an annual gathering jointly hosted by the Senate of Canada, the University of Victoria and Royal Roads University. The Forum “brings people together from across Canada and around the world to . . . explore the complex tapestry of challenges facing our world and search for solutions to them.”

Monday’s opening plenary featured Thomas Homer-Dixon, Founder and Executive Director of the Cascade Institute, and Dr. Courtney Howard, Chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and a leading advocate in Canada for a Wellbeing society.

Professor Homer-Dixon began by laying out his Institute’s latest thinking on the polycrisis. The Institute is developing “a new, complexity-informed approach to policymaking: one that anticipates cascading failures across interconnected systems and integrates the best available knowledge about both known and emerging risks.”

Their work has enabled them to explore plausible futures for the planet in 2040. The bad news is that of the ten stable global scenarios they found, eight are as bad as or worse than today, with the most likely outcome being deterioration – which is where ‘business as usual’ is headed – and the second most likely being collapse. Of the two more positive futures, one is not so attractive because it would be a high-tech autocracy.

But the good news is that there is one plausible outcome they call the Hope Scenario.  This is not simply a speculative or aspirational future, said Homer-Dixon, but “a scientifically grounded basis for honest hope.” Such a future would involve a cleantech breakthrough in energy and in the agri-food sector, a managed roll out of AI, ‘guided’ pro-social and pro-environmental economic growth and a strong democracy, and would result in a low burden of disease. 

So how do we get there? In a speech at an international conference on urban health in 2014, I suggested wicked problems need virtuous solutions. By virtuous, I meant solutions that move us towards a more sustainable, just and healthy world, solutions that are rooted in a commitment to the public good. Dr. Howard’s presentation focused on that.

Her key message was that we have focused on money as the measurement of progress and success, but people and communities understand that wellbeing is about much more than that. They know it is about our level of human capability, our social relationships and the quality of our environment, as well as the quality of our institutions and our financial status.

But by focusing on the last of these, we have actually destabilized the other key elements of our wellbeing. So we need to measure these societal foundations and manage them to optimise for wellbeing. In the words of the World Health Organization, we need to become a Wellbeing society, “committed to achieving equitable health now and for future generations without breaching ecological limits”.

In the following plenary, Dr. James Orbinski, a highly respected leader of the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders and now Master of Massey College, put it very simply: “We have choice . . . We must make the right choice”, while Lord John Alderdice stressed we solve problems by coming together and by committing to a positive future.

In short, to address the wicked problems of the polycrisis we need to commit to working together to find virtuous solutions rooted in the common good. In my next column I will discuss some of the solutions discussed at the Victoria Forum.

© 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

National food security? Not without natural security

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

The federal National Food Security Strategy lacks important discussion on how our current agri-food system harms the environment.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

28 June 2026

701 words

The Carney government recently released its National Food Security Strategy (NFSS). Unfortunately, the strategy only serves to show that the government doesn’t really understand food security, particularly when it comes to the environment and health, neither of which figure much in the strategy. I will discuss the neglect of the environment in this column and the neglect of health in a future column.

It should be glaringly obvious that ultimately food security depends upon having a healthy environment, and that producing food in environmentally harmful ways undermines food security. Yet not only does the word ‘environment’ only appear ten times in the 27-page strategy, eight of those times are not actually about the natural environment but about the technology of ‘controlled environment agriculture’, meaning greenhouses.

Nowhere in the NFSS is there a discussion of the way in which our current agri-food system harms the environment. Yet the October 2025 second report of the EAT-Lancet Commission on a healthy, sustainable and just food system (The Lancet is one of the world’s leading medical journals) noted that when it comes to the transgression of planetary boundaries for many of the nine Earth systems that are vital for life on Earth: “food is the single largest cause of planetary boundary transgressions, driving the transgression of five of the six breached boundaries.” (Since then we have crossed a seventh boundary, ocean acidification, to which agriculture also contributes).

Specifically, the Commission reported, agriculture accounts for 85 – 90 percent of total pesticide use and 73 percent of total antimicrobial use, while it contributes around half to three-quarters of flows of nitrogen and phosphorus to surface waters, which cause algal blooms and dead zones. Agriculture is also responsible for two-thirds of all freshwater use, while “Unsustainable land conversion, particularly deforestation, remains a major driver of biodiversity loss and climate change.” In addition, agriculture contributes 30 percent of all human-generated CO2 emissions that cause global heating, and a quarter of the CO2 emissions that contribute to ocean acidification.

Good luck finding much of that in the NFSS. Pesticides are only referred to in terms of making it easier to use them, while anti-microbials are not mentioned at all. Nitrogen is mentioned once in passing, phosphorus not at all, and fertilizers only in terms of problems with supply and improving availability. The word water, bizarrely, does not appear once in the report, nor does biodiversity or ocean acidification or – even more bizarrely – greenhouses gases or carbon/ CO2 emissions.

Yet these environmental effects, to which Canada is a significant contributor (the NFSS notes Canada is “the world’s ninth largest exporter of agri-food products”) have a large and growing impact on food security. Climate change alone is a major concern, as a recent joint Food and Agriculture Organization/ World Meteorological Organization report notes. The combination of rising temperatures and heatwaves, drought and water scarcity “represent a systemic risk to global food security and to the livelihoods of more than 1.23 billion people who rely on agriculture.”

Yet the NFSS only mentions climate change four times, and only in the context of it being one of “the global issues beyond Canada’s ability to directly control” that are impacting our agri-food system and increasing costs. No suggestion here that Canada bears any responsibility for climate change or that it could do something about it by reducing the agri-food system’s greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps that is because the Carney government’s policies are moving Canada away from our climate change targets and are increasing our fossil fuel extraction and exports.

Add to that the impacts on food supply and food quality of ocean acidification, algal blooms and dead zones due to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, as well as widespread use of pesticides and antibiotics and food chain contamination with plastic nano-particles and it is clear that our current agri-food system creates environmental insecurity.

In a largely overlooked October 2025 speech, David McGuinty, the Minister of Defence, explained that “Our security and our prosperity are fully dependent on a healthy and functioning environment” before concluding that “Our national and natural security are inextricably linked.” That certainly applies to our food security, but the new national Food Security Strategy disastrously fails to make that connection.

© 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 is Mark Carney undermining our environment?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

​ Dr. Trevor Hancock

22 June 2026

700 words

I have noted several times recently in these columns that Mark Carney’s Mandate letter to his Cabinet a year ago does not identify the environment as one of the government’s seven priorities; indeed, the word ‘environment’ is not even mentioned. Now we can begin to see the consequences of this very deliberate omission.

Let’s start with climate change, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has recognised for some years as “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” More recently, in May of this year, the Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health, convened by the  European Regional Director for the WHO, called climate change “a catastrophic threat to human health, security and social stability” and called on the WHO “to formally declare climate change as a public health emergency of international concern.”

That puts climate change in the same threat category as Covid, Ebola and other infectious disease outbreaks that WHO has declared a public health emergency. In fact, I would argue that it is a greater threat than any of these; as Carney himself said back in 2019, in his role as the UN special envoy for climate action, climate change is “the world’s greatest existential threat.”

So you would think he would act on that belief. But what has Carney actually done? A CBC News item on June 16th listed the following: “Eliminating the consumer carbon tax. Reversing the implementation of the oil and gas emissions cap.  Scrapping the electric vehicle sales mandate. Doubling down on fossil fuel subsidies for LNG and enhanced oil recovery. Charting plans to turn Canada into one of the largest suppliers of LNG in the world. Backing the construction of a potential bitumen pipeline to the West Coast.”

Small wonder that in November 2025 Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific project that tracks government climate action, “downgraded Canada’s overall rating to ‘Highly Insufficient’, primarily due to weakened policy ambition, slow implementation, and a widening gap between current emissions levels and Canada’s 2030 target” – and that was seven months ago!

Then in February the Canadian Climate Institute reported that Canada “is not on track to meet any of its climate goals, including its 2035 target and net zero emissions by 2050”. You can almost hear Steven Guilbeault, the former Environment and Climate Change Minister who quit Carney’s Cabinet, in his recent interview on CBC Radio’s The Current  (June 17th), wondering ‘Who is this man, and what have they done with Mark Carney?’

If it were only climate change, that would be enough to condemn Carney as a hypocrite. But it gets worse. The government just rushed through changes to Canada’s pesticide laws in an omnibus budget Bill that was only reviewed by the Finance Committees of the Commons and the Senate, not by Parliament’s health or environment Committees.

In a June 18th statement, a large number of major environmental and health organisations condemned the move because these “amendments grant cabinet broad authority to overrule the Health Minister and permit the use of any pesticide found to have unacceptable environmental risks.” As the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment noted, these amendments mean “Canada’s pesticide law will be based on financial considerations rather than health and the environment”, adding: “Science doesn’t disappear when it’s inconvenient; evidence of harm must outweigh short-term economic considerations.”

Then there are the Carney government’s moves to weaken key environmental standards under the Species at Risk Act and Impact Assessment Act. A June 3rd article in The Conversation by three leaders of the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution raises concerns that “the reforms proposed in ‘Getting Major Projects Built’” – a recently released federal government discussion paper – “could threaten natural environments, species-at-risk and human health for generations.”

So back to the question in my headline: Why is Mark Carney undermining our environment? I don’t know, but it seems to me he is acting just as you would expect if you elect a mainstream economist and central banker as Prime Minister. When push comes to shove, the economy matters and the environment loses. Yet as I noted in a recent column, when the environment loses, we all lose. That is a lesson Mark Carney seems not to have learned.

© 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 part of ‘climate emergency’ do the feds not get?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Published in The Hill Times, 12 June 2026

Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to wake up to the climate emergency, and accept Canada’s obligation to reduce fossil fuel use and tackle global warming. 

Dr. Trevor Hancock

1 June 2026

700 words

On June 18th 2019 – almost exactly seven years ago – The House of Commons voted 186 to 63 in support of a motion put forward by Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna to declare a national climate emergency. Since 2019, the climate emergency has only worsened.

Globally, our emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases continue to increase. The International Energy Agency reported in its 2026 energy review that total energy-related CO2 emissions reached a new high in 2025. Unsurprisingly, this was matched by a “record atmospheric CO2 concentrations of about 427 parts-per-million (ppm) . . . around 50% above pre-industrial levels.”

Also unsurprisingly, global temperatures remain troublingly high. The World Meteorological Organization recently reported that “2025 was one of the three warmest years on record” (following the top two years of 2023 and 2024) and that “the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record”, while “ocean heating continues unabated.”

A  commentary in One Earth in February 2026 by several leading Earth scientists states: “Earth’s climate is now departing from the stable conditions that supported human civilization for millennia” and asks “Are we now at risk of crossing planetary tipping points and triggering a hothouse Earth trajectory?”

In April the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Meteorological Organization reported that higher temperatures are pushing food systems to the brink. This results from a combination of stressed livestock, falling yields of crops, including staples such as maize and wheat, and ocean heatwaves killing fish. Moreover, high temperatures make it hard for farmers to work safely outdoors in many hot regions.

Then in May, the Pan-European Commission on Climate and Health, convened by the  European Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO), called climate change “a catastrophic threat to human health, security and social stability” and called on the WHO “to formally declare climate change as a public health emergency of international concern.”

Let’s be clear, declaring climate change as a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) puts it on the same threat level as Covid, Ebola and other infectious disease outbreaks that are so far the only basis on which WHO has declared a PHEIC. In fact, I would argue that it is a greater threat than any of these, because of its potential to undermine the security and stability of civilisation as a whole.

And what is Canada’s response to this climate emergency? You can almost hear the Carney government saying ‘climate emergency? What climate emergency?’ Much to the dismay of those fighting for climate action, who expected better of Mark Carney, the government has been undermining Canada’s increasingly dismal record on climate action.

Back in November 2025 the independent Climate Action Tracker’s latest report, “downgraded Canada’s overall rating to ‘Highly Insufficient,’ primarily due to weakened policy ambition, slow implementation, and a widening gap between current emissions levels and Canada’s 2030 target.”

And that was before Mr. Carney cosied up to Alberta, supporting expanded fossil fuel production and exports and lowering the industrial carbon price. Said former Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault in a recent interview with CTV: “By the end of the year analysis will show that Canada has one of the worst track records. I think we’ll go back to the back of the pack.”

Instead of his harmful effort to make Canada a conventional energy superpower, Mr. Carney should follow the recommendations of the Pan-European Commission, which called on heads of government to “to bring climate change to the agenda of national security councils or equivalent bodies, engaging all relevant ministries.”

He should also pay heed to the second recommendation to heads of government from the Commission: “to establish, within their ministries or cabinets, a sustainable mechanism with a specific mandate to support action on climate change and health.”

The government needs to walk its own talk. On May 21st, Canada was the co-sponsor of a UN resolution, adopted in a 141 – 8 vote, affirming the International Court of Justice’s July 2025 advice that states are obligated to reduce fossil fuel use and tackle global warming.

So wake up to the climate emergency, Mr. Carney, and accept Canada’s obligation to reduce fossil fuel use and tackle global warming.

© 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

Food for thought – and for the planet and our health

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

The modern industrial agri-food system not only fails to ensure food for all, it also delivers a diet that makes us sick and kills us early.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

25 May 2026

700 words

Food is a fundamental need: No food, no life. But in addition to having something to eat, food also must be nutritious and safe – it should not make us sick – and it has to be available to everyone.

Unfortunately, the modern industrial agri-food system not only fails to ensure food for all, it also delivers a diet that makes us sick and kills us early. Moreover, it produces food in ways that are enormously harmful to the planet. All this is documented in the October 2025 report of the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy, sustainable and just food systems.

The Commission was established in 2018 by The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, and EAT, a Norwegian science-based global platform for food system transformation. The Commission showed that our agri-food system is deeply implicated as a major contributor to the transgression of planetary boundaries for many of the nine Earth systems that are vital for life on Earth.

Their report states: “food is the single largest cause of planetary boundary transgressions, driving the transgression of five of the six breached boundaries.” (Since October 2025 it has been determined we have crossed a seventh boundary, ocean acidification, to which agriculture also contributes).

In terms of toxins, agriculture accounts for 85 – 90 percent of total pesticide use and 73 percent of total antimicrobial use, while it contributes around half to three-quarters of flows of nitrogen and phosphorus to surface waters, which cause algal blooms and dead zones. Agriculture is also responsible for two-thirds of all freshwater use, while “Unsustainable land conversion, particularly deforestation, remains a major driver of biodiversity loss and climate change.” In addition, agriculture contributes 30 percent of all human-generated CO2 emissions that cause global heating, and a quarter of the CO2 emissions that contribute to ocean acidification.

In addition to being a massive contributor to unsustainable ecological changes, our agri-food system is already suffering the consequences of those changes. Climate change alone is a major concern, as a recent joint Food and Agriculture Organization/ World Meteorological Organization report notes. The combination of rising temperatures and heatwaves, drought and water scarcity “represent a systemic risk to global food security and to the livelihoods of more than 1.23 billion people who rely on agriculture.”

Add to that the impacts on food supply and food quality of ocean acidification, algal blooms and dead zones due to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, as well as widespread use of pesticides and antibiotics and food chain contamination with plastic nano-particles and it is clear that our current agri-food system is ecologically unsustainable.

Not only that, but this unsustainable system does not produce a healthy diet. On the contrary: “More than half of the world’s population struggles to access healthy diets, leading to devastating consequences for public health”, the Commission states.

But the good news is that a shift to a ‘Planetary Health Diet’ (PHD), as proposed by the EAT-Lancet Commission, can not only markedly improve the health of the population but can dramatically benefit the environment.

Derived solely on the basis of the evidence as to what constitutes a healthy diet, the PHD is “rich in plants: whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, and legumes comprise a large proportion of foods consumed, with only moderate or small amounts of fish, dairy, and meat recommended.” Such a diet, the Commission estimated, would avoid “an estimated 15 million deaths per year among adults (27% of total deaths) . . . globally” – and that is probably an underestimate.

Not included are the additional deaths and diseases caused by agriculture’s contribution to air pollution (about 650,000 deaths annually), climate change, use of pesticides, nitrogen pollution of water, antimicrobial resistance and pandemic risk.

Importantly, the Commission notes, producing such a diet through sustainable and ecological intensification of the food system reduces “agricultural land area, water

consumption, and nitrogen use, and substantially reduces greenhouse gas emissions”; pesticide and antibiotic use would also be markedly reduced.

It is time the federal and provincial Ministries of Agriculture and Food insist that our national and provincial agri-food systems focus on the Planetary Health Diet, on what is good for people and the planet, not just on profit and corporate power.

© 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 are our political leaders such fossil fools?

Posted on by Dr. Trevor Hancock

Don’t they read the science? Or do they simply choose to ignore it because it doesn’t fit their short-term, market-oriented agenda?

Dr. Trevor Hancock

27 April 2026

701 words

I understand why the fossil fuel industry pursues growth in the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels. It’s all about making money and damn the consequences. But how can any responsible political leader at this point push for more fossil fuel extraction and use.

Don’t they read the science? Or do they read the science but don’t understand it? Or don’t believe it? Or do they simply choose to ignore it because it doesn’t fit their short-term, market-oriented agenda?

On the assumption that they don’t read the science, and for the benefit of readers who may not be right up to speed, here is what the latest science tells us.

First, our emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases continue to increase. The International Energy Agency reported that total energy-related CO2 emissions reached a new high in 2025. Unsurprisingly, this was matched by a “record atmospheric CO2 concentrations of about 427 parts-per-million (ppm) . . . around 50% above pre-industrial levels.”

Troublingly, “emissions rose more strongly in advanced economies than in emerging market and developing economies for the first time in nearly 30 years.” Moreover, natural gas was the largest contributor to the increase in these emissions in 2025. A commentary in One Earth by several leading Earth scientists notes emissions of two other potent greenhouse gases continue to increase, adding that “Looking ahead, the outlook for emissions remains deeply concerning.”

Second, as a direct result, global temperatures remain troublingly high. The World Meteorological Organization recently reported that “2025 was one of the three warmest years on record” (following the top two years of 2023 and 2024) and that “the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record”, while “ocean heating continues unabated.”

The implications are profound. The One Earth commentary states “Earth’s climate is now departing from the stable conditions that supported human civilization for millennia” and asks “Are we now at risk of crossing planetary tipping points and triggering a hothouse Earth trajectory?” While recognising that “Science doesn’t have a precise answer”, their answer is “we may be approaching a perilous threshold, with rapidly dwindling opportunities to prevent dangerous and unmanageable climate outcomes”

They note that of sixteen important climate tipping elements “Tipping may already be underway or could occur soon for the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, boreal permafrost, mountain glaciers, and parts of the Amazon rainforest.” Moreover, there is a real danger that one tipping point can trigger another, resulting in a cascade of climate tipping events. This “could raise global temperatures, accelerate sea-level rise, release vast stores of carbon, and destabilize ecosystems.”

One of those planetary tipping points is the likelihood that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which we know as the Gulf Stream, might shut down. Were that to happen, not only would it result in a much colder Europe that would threaten continued agriculture, it would “shift tropical rain belts and dry parts of the Amazon.”

Another important impact is on global food supplies. In April the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Meteorological Organization reported that higher temperatures are pushing food systems to the brink. This results from a combination of stressed livestock, falling yields of crops, including staples such as maize and wheat, and ocean heatwaves killing fish. Moreover, high temperatures make it hard for farmers to work safely outdoors in many hot regions.

Given the growing likelihood of some or all of these events, which would have dire consequences for today’s children and youth, a prudent approach would be to apply the precautionary principle. This principle, which is really just a wordy version of the common sense view that it is better to err on the side of caution, is that lack of scientific certainty must not be used as a reason to ignore or postpone preventive or remedial action when there are other good reasons to do so.

But our political leaders are showing anything but common sense and precaution as they pursue greater extraction, use and export of fossil fuels. Their policies are making Canada into not so much a conventional energy superpower as a conventional energy super-idiot. Its time they woke up to the threats created by their foolish and dangerous policies.  

© 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

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