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 well-being 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 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, it is largely non-partisan, so much less driven by narrow party-political interests.
Second, it does not face an election every four to five 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 well-being society for Canada, with a particular view to the well-being 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
• 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 Well-being 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 well-being 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.
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy
