The Top Ten Environmental Issues Facing Our Planet

Council of Canadians | London Chapter | Cory Morningstar

The language of science, like that of the United Nations, is by nature cautious and measured. That makes the dire tone of the final report from the fourth assessment of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a network of thousands of international scientists, all the more striking. Global warming is ‘unequivocal.’ Climate change will bring ‘abrupt and irreversible changes.’ The report reads like what it is: a final warning to humanity. As if the potential consequences of climate change weren’t scary enough, the IPCC emphasized just how little time we have left to try to change the future. This is our defining moment. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. Further delay will be fatal.

The good news is – it is possible to mitigate if we act now collectively. Are we prepared to make changes?  We don’t have to change our quality of life but we must redesign & rethink the way we live.  The human species has reached a defining moment of choice between moving ahead on a path to collective self-destruction or joining together in a cooperative effort to navigate a dramatic turn to a new human era. The profound cultural and institutional transformation that is needed goes up against the short-term interests of the world’s most powerful people and institutions. The barriers to what we humans must now achieve are daunting. By any rational calculation, the needed transformation is not politically feasible. Yet it is essential to human survival and prosperity, which means we must set ourselves to the task of figuring out how to make the impossible into the inevitable.

1                     Redefine.  Reinvent.  Reprioritize.  We must redefine the meaning of wealth.  The notion that monetary wealth brings happiness is an illusion.  It is false.  Our true wealth is our health, our children, our community.  Our true assets are our air and our water.  We must reclaim these redefined ‘assets’ to ensure that we maintain our redefined ‘wealth’.  We must acknowledge that we as a society based on Western ideologies have separated ourselves from our natural environment that sustains us. We are in fact the environment. Within our ecosystem, there has never been nor are there now, any other species in existence that have knowingly destroyed their own habitat.  We must stop looking for the ‘silver bullet’ solution & recognize the silver bullet is each of us collectively.  We must reclaim our responsibility.  We must redesign the way we think and live.  We now have within our society, ‘nature deficit children’.  We must reclaim the parenting of our children from technology and corporate messaging.  We need to redesign our communities and cities around people, rather than communities and cities shaped by industry. Electing ethical government representatives who represent the people who elected them rather than corporate interests is key and respect of public involvement is essential. Although many of the current environmental facts are frightening, this does not have to be so if we recognise that it is us who are creating the problems and thus can change possible negative outcomes through changing our attitudes and responses to the environment.  We could view this crisis as the most exciting opportunity for change in the history of the world – we just need to embrace it.  We have to believe that changing to environmental awareness is a positive aspect in life. Until we can change our behaviour – we will never succeed in averting climate change catastrophe.  We must be the change we wish to see.  We must drive the change through our day to day decisions, actions, and purchases.  It is that simple.

2                     Transition to a true cost economy.  The human economy, which people have traditionally considered independent of the natural Earth system, is actually embedded within, and dependent upon, this global environment.  The current global economy generates 18 trillion dollars per year.  The cost of replacing nature’s services – which are taken for granted as free – would cost us 36 trillion per year. A true cost economy factors in these services.  The wealth of a true cost economy is based on the health & happiness of the people.  The king of Bhutan once said ‘I am not as much concerned about the Gross National Product as I am about the gross National Happiness.’ We must redefine what an investment truly is.  Every time you make the ethical decision to pay more for a purchase that is ethically sound, based on true cost – don’t see this as an unnecessary expense.  Consider this an investment.  An investment in our health, an investment in our planet, an investment in your children’s future.  Vote with your dollar.  This is the most powerful tool we currently have to transform the planet as we know it.  Separate your wants from your needs.  Know the difference.  Simplicity is key.  Being a responsible global citizen is not meant to be complex. The productive apparatus of today has been created and designed in the interest of generating profits. There is no doubt that the current economy based on capitalism is bad for the planet. Multinationals exploit natural resources in the interest of profit, pumping their waste into our rivers, oceans and atmosphere. Vast regions of the world are stripped bare in the search for coal and other minerals. Entire ecosystems are destroyed in the pursuit for profits. And the problem of climate change threatens the planet as a whole. Capitalism isn’t the first economic system to exploit the natural resources of the planet. However it is the first to do so on an industrial scale, using advanced technologies to maximize profits. This relentless drive to make money out of the world’s resources with no accountability whatsoever to the people or environment means there is no chance for the planet’s ecosystems to recover naturally.  In the past three decades alone, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed.

3                     CO2 emission reductions.  Until we embrace a disciplined commitment that acknowledges our responsibility to rethink and relive our lives – until we redesign our current system to reflect a true cost economy – we will never succeed in mitigation of climate change.  There is an alarming rate of growth in emissions.  This past summer’s ice shelf loss is equivalent to over three times the area of Manhattan, totaling 82 square miles — losses that have reduced Arctic Ocean ice cover to its second-biggest retreat since satellite measurements began 30 years ago.  These changes are irreversible under the present climate meaning that the environmental conditions that have kept these ice shelves in balance for thousands of years are no longer present. During the last century, when ice shelves would break off, thick sea ice would eventually reform in their place.  Today, warmer temperatures and a changing climate means there’s no hope for regrowth. The loss of these ice shelves means that rare ecosystems that depend them are on the brink of extinction. Consider the annual tonnes of CO2 emissions per person in:  Ethiopia-.01.  India- 1.1.  China-3.2.  France- 6.2.  Canada- 17.9.  (Second only to U.S.) It’s us, the one billion affluent people of the world whose footprints are crushing the planet.  We are destroying the most vulnerable people on this planet by the way we choose to continue to live beyond the limitations of our environment and natural resources.  Do we have the discipline to live within our means?   Our goal we must achieve is 350 parts per million volume.  We are currently at 388 ppmv, however, at this rate of acceleration we can expect to go to 650ppmv by 2020 and 840 by 2030.  There has been tremendous lack of leadership on all fronts which means our efforts must begin at home with ourselves.  We must lead the movement.  We must embrace a low carbon lifestyle if we wish for any kind of future. Simply put – We must reduce our CO2 emissions by 90% by the year 2030 to if we are to avert the most severe climate change catastrophe. A global reduction of 2% per year would achieve this.   We would never leave of children with a monetary debt – so why is it we would ever leave our children with a debt that no amount of money in the world will ever be able to mend?

4                    Water as a fundamental human right to be respected, protected and conserved at all costs.  We are in a global water crisis. Canada’s leadership in this area could literally shape the future of the world.  In India, whole river systems, such as the River Bhavani in Tamil Nadu state, have been sold to Coca-Cola even as the state is suffering the worst drought in living memory. As one company explains, water is now a “rationed necessity that may be taken by force.” Many Canadians do not recognize this as most of our water is fed to us through mechanical systems, however, the changes started approximately twenty years ago as cities became dependant on the lakes and the ground water has now become a divorced issue. This can be expanded to a much larger scale.  As drought expands in the South West of the U.S., communities adjacent to the Great Lakes will be asked to share the water of these lakes with very distant locations.  Man-made pollution is spreading a growing number of suffocating dead zones across the world’s seas and oceans with disastrous consequences for marine life and the planets ecosystem as a whole. By destroying our water we are only destroying ourselves.  Factory farm runoff (phosphorous produces toxic algae), hazardous waste and pesticides, fertilizers, chemical cleaners and dishwasher detergents are all main culprits. We must be mindful that 90% of these lakes are glacial melt from the last ice age.  Once gone there is no replenishment. Communities across the globe are currently fighting for the right to water as multinationals prepare us for the takeover of public water services by for-profit water service corporations by creating distrust in municipal water systems and by conditioning us to pay for water. The United Nations and many human advocacy organizations, such as Amnesty International and the Council of Canadians are urging the international community to recognize the right to water as a fundamental human right.  Unfortunately, under the Harper government, Canada has opposed all attempts to enshrine the right to water.

5                    Transition to renewable energy | Energy conservation.  We need to transfer our dependence on oil to renewable energies.  Renewable energy is energy generated from natural resources such as sunlight wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat, all of which are renewable (naturally replenished). Renewable energy technologies include solar power, wind power, hydroelectricity, micro hydro, biomass and biofuels. The technical potential for their use including, the greening our economy & relocalization is unparallel, exceeding all other readily available sources. We must discuss peak oil within our communities and embrace solutions which are now readily available.

6                     Plant trees.  Plant lots of trees. Only 22% of the earth’s original forests remain intact on our planet. The Canadian Boreal, one of the forests being logged for junk mail, protects us from the effects of global warming, storing more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem on earth.  Despite this, the Boreal is being logged at a rate of two acres a minute, 24 hours a day. Only 22% of the earth’s original forests remain intact on our planet. In the Amazon alone, we’re losing 2000 trees a minute. That is seven football fields a minute. Urban sprawl, a North American epidemic, reduces the available space for trees and is a major contributor to climate change.

7                     Soil recognized as a living ecosystem.  Soil loss, and its associated impacts, is one of the most important of today’s environmental problems. The threat of nuclear weapons and man’s ability to destroy our own environment are frightening, yet, the exhaustion of our natural resources, and especially of soil erosion are perhaps more dangerous still, because once we begin to feel the repercussions it will be too late. Since 1960 we continue to accelerate the erosion of our soil.  We have lost 50% of our agricultural soil since this time and we continue to desecrate our soil by compacting it with machinery.  We must move towards a sustainable agriculture based on monoculture and local farming methods such as permaculture. Soil is alive. You would not inflict chemical pesticides onto a living person, so why do we do this to our living soil which we depend on to provide our food. Support the movement to organic farming to prevent further desecration to our soil from chemical pesticides which leach into our water, our air and our bodies. Soil must be recognized as a living ecosystem and respected as such.  Moving away from grass towards urban naturalization of native species in an easy way to increase our air quality, re-establish our connection with the natural world and support species within our living ecosystem such as bees with are currently under threat to colony collapse disorder.  We are currently losing our amphibians at a rate faster than any other extinction to date.  Urban naturalization utilizing grey water systems can rebuild these ecosystems while rebuilding our communities and values.

8                     Re-establish Our Connection to Food.  Our connection and respect for our food has been lost.  The art and love of beautiful food has been eroded.  Processed, packaged foods are killing us.  They are void of life.  Consider food your greatest investment as it nourishes your body.  They way the food is produced either gives back to the planet or contributes to further desecration of our planet.  Wise food choices allow us to invest in the local economy, support fair trade thereby supporting independence within families and local communities literally.  Teach your children how to grow, appreciate and respect food.  Evolving to a vegetarian diet is one of the greatest ways there is to very easily lessen your carbon impact on the planet.  The United Nations released a shocking report in November of 2006 citing livestock as the number one contributor to climate change on the planet – more than every single vehicle on the face of the earth.

9                     Stop the tar sands.  Buried below the Boreal Forest of northern Alberta is a source of oil known as the tar sands. Deposits of tar sands are spread out over 138 000 km2 of land – An area the size of Florida and including 4.3 million hectares of the Boreal Forest. Canada is now recognized internationally as operating the world’s largest, most destructive industrial development. Until recently, it was too expensive and complicated to extract the tar sands to produce oil, but over the past few years increases in oil prices and technological changes have made it possible, and profitable. Companies are now producing over a million barrels of oil per day from the tar sands, and this number is constantly increasing. The explosive growth of these projects has huge environmental costs, damaging land, air, water, forests, and the climate.  We must call on oil companies and the government to stop the tar sands, for the sake of people and the planet.  We must curb our addiction to oil by securing renewable energy sources.

10                 Consumption | Move towards a zero waste global society.

§         Junk Mail: 2007 – 103 billion pieces of unwanted mail in the U.S. alone.  This amount destroyed 100 MILLION trees and used 96.7 million gallons of water which then became contaminated & polluted.  The fossil fuel emissions produced for this was equivalent to 3.5 million cars polluting.

§         Plastic Bags: Approx. 1 trillion plastic bags enter our environment each and every year.  Plastics do not break down.  They merely photodegrade.  Over time they break down into smaller, more toxic petro-polymers.

§         Plastic Bottles: Last year, nearly 100 billion litres of bottled water alone were sold around the world, most of it in non-renewable plastic.

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, mass consumption of ‘goods’ has dire consequences on our lives, health and environment and on those most vulnerable. Yet most of this is hidden from view by way of careful branding and deceptive greenwashing practices. Outrageous levels of production and consumption are at the core of market economies and unless that process is confronted by us, little will change. We have become a nation that places a lower priority on teaching it’s children how to thrive socially, intellectually, even spiritually, than it does on training the to consume.  The long term consequences of this development are ominous.  It leaves us as a society with a void – – a void that feeds apathy, emptiness & sadness that no amount of material wealth can possibly fill. As individuals we each have a responsibility to embrace this much-needed positive change. Remove all single use disposables from your life.  Shop used.  Shop vintage.  Quality: Buy it once – buy it for life.  Stop supporting exploitation by purchasing sweatshop produced goods.  At the end of the day you vote with what you consume. In this culture of endless choice, the right of refusal becomes our greatest choice. The right of refusal becomes our ultimate expression of free will.  We reclaim our power and return to our former status as citizens before we became labeled consumers. We must challenge the idea of convenience and make a commitment. As responsible global citizens we must work towards a zero waste, sustainable culture for the future of our planet and for future generations. Our children deserve nothing less.

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