Fifty years ago, armed with new biology degrees, I gave away a thriving motorcycle business that I’d created to a friend. More than making money, I deeply wanted to make a difference.
At the time, Atlantic Canadian provincial governments were adding biologists to their staff. Ecological land and water management issues were appearing on meeting agendas, while winds of change gathered. To date, the efforts devoted to the major problems of human civilization on the planet had been neither adequate nor sensible, but I had hope.
Trashing for profit
But trashing the planet for profit continued in high gear. Looking back on the technological and fossil-fuelled changes that unfolded over the last five decades, some understandings regarding the degradation of the planet come to mind. Realities emerged at different times.
Five decades ago, during an early morning human ecology lecture at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., professor Don Dodds woke me up when he said that North Americans represented six per cent of the world’s population, but were consuming 60 per cent of the world’s annual output of resources to sustain a lifestyle we considered normal. Television advertised our lifestyle around the world, making others want to live like us.
At that time, the total North American bird population was an estimated nine billion. By 2020, three billion of those birds had disappeared. Many of those remaining six billion birds are continuing to experience declining populations.
In the 1970s, I travelled in a van to Newfoundland with other biologists to attend a meeting. The Arab oil cartel had just announced its embargo, and we wondered if there’d be sufficient gas for the return home. The fragilities of global supply chains became an immediate and stark reality.
Twenty years ago, Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., released a study of forest consumption by citizens of the state. They found that the annual rate of wood consumption exceeded what the state forests could grow. This meant that if more land was set aside for conservation protection, replacement wood would have to arrive from outside the state to meet the public demand.
Atlantic Canadian governments do not release sufficient forest information to be clear about forest use, but Global Forest Watch satellite images of the degraded condition of our forests provide ample evidence of ongoing overconsumption by humans.
Global consumption of most so-called “resources” grew steadily while the planet’s human population doubled from four billion in 1974 to eight billion in 2022. Humans have altered roughly three quarters of the Earth’s land base and population growth remains unrestrained.
Plundering not protecting
We’ve polluted vast oceans, rendering them acidic and less suitable for fish and shellfish, while plundering one fish population after another. The late French oceanographer and author Jacques Cousteau estimated that, in his lifetime, the amount of life in the oceans had diminished by a third.
Clear cutting has degraded forests around the world to the point that they no longer provide the habitats needed by a myriad of species. We’re using a concentrated form of energy accumulated during Carboniferous geologic time to fuel engines that emit poisons. Fossil fuel emissions are overheating the earth, water, and skies as they become increasingly toxic. Few thought that mere humans could create such havoc.
Our ecologically ignorant global economy encourages entrepreneurs to exploit natural resources as fast as possible, using new technologies and job-reducing mechanization. It’s no longer take what you need: it’s profits and greed. This current form of “development and progress” has ravaged the planet and precipitated a global crisis.
Sadly, in Atlantic Canada, we’re doing it too.
Economists seem more inclined to add rather than subtract. The Earth has finite limits to what it produces. The demands of a world economy that needs constant growth cannot be reconciled with this reality.
Learning to live lightly
Looking back, I’ve spent a lifetime learning the complexities of nature, while policymakers have steadfastly ignored and overpowered forces of nature. The idea of living lightly on the planet, and making an adequate human living without doing irreparable harm, has yet to become a guiding principle. We need a shift in our habits and values, incorporating a new land and water ethic.
Many governments hire scientists, but fail to act on their science. We vote politicians into power but they often bend to the will of wealthy forestry corporations instead of acting in the public interest. I call them corporate-captured. Governments can maintain scientists in planning mode and as window dressing for the inquiring public.
So how do we turn this around?
Concern for the environment amounts to a waste of time if all it prompts is conversation and consternation, but changing how we live collectively can create a significant difference.
Conservation action can be initiated in three ways. Some folks act after reading science. Art can inspire appreciation and prompt change. Other folks learn by example. Environmentally concerned folks employ these three methods to attract and inform more citizens, and to raise money for conservation.
Ignore the conspiracies
Conspiracy theorists in public-relations companies who are paid to deliberately confound and dilute the environmental realities are subverting public environmental awareness with outright lies. An example of this was the recent Nova Scotia Biodiversity Bill that the then-Liberal government introduced. The bill was subsequently gutted after Forest Nova Scotia paid a PR company to mount a campaign that falsely suggested dire consequences to scare the public into being against it. Corporations als o pay scientists to sing from their song sheet, while their lobbyists constantly hover around politicians.
This all takes place while underfunded environmental groups attempt to raise money with bake sales. Fossil fuel companies act like the cigarette manufacturers did years ago, using lies and artificial “science” to hide health issues. Money trumps nature in political circles far too often. Laws exist on paper to protect nature, but are frequently ineffective.
Voter awareness needed
Once in power, all three major political parties become corporate-captured. Money talks. Science is steadfastly ignored in favour of development. Environmental groups are left to struggle against well-funded resource extractors. Money has the power to warp realities into absurdities. Voter awareness can reach a level that prompts real change when sufficient numbers of people force politicians to address a particular need.
We all should vote with the needs of a healthy environment and our own survival in mind.
Generations have grown up driving and flying everywhere, spewing toxins for business reasons, entertainment or just a coffee at the end of the ride. It’s time to scale down fossil fuel activities, even if you can afford them, and put more thought to the planetary consequences.
Be more mindful about travel. Virtual meetings can replace or minimize travel, while eating locally produced food reduces transportation costs. Scale down personal consumption levels. Buy what you need instead of what you want. Recycling will attain new levels if one cares about future generations. Think about what your investment money supports.
Educators and parents should be equipping youngsters with the practical knowledge needed to understand and live well in local environments. Get to know the natural areas around you. Floodplains should be woodland places for nature and some seasonal farming, but not for residential development.
Recent storms in our region have emphasized that, with massive flooding in some areas. Environmentally friendly housing should take priority over status-based, energy-wasting excessiveness. Do you need a vast lawn and the gasoline mower’s carbon emissions?
The idea of managing the planet may seem bizarre when millions of innocent people around the world are starving and resources are disappearing. Are we doomed as a species or do we have the guts to straighten our course? Can kindness, responsibility, thoughtfulness, respect, and striving to understand transcend the ignorance, hatred, and killing of so many species?
Let’s not foul the very planet we depend upon for life. One can have less and still have a good life. Think about what you can do now to help future generations by keeping the Earth healthy. Nature needs our help, now.