Science Matters | Blogs | David Suzuki Foundation

Report shows Canada must do more for its oceans

2012-02-09T14:55:12Z

You'd think the decline of the Northern cod fishery, largely caused by mismanagement, would have taught us something. (Credit: Hawkins Multimedia via Flickr)

It's been 20 years since Canada's East Coast cod fishery collapsed, and we still have no recovery target or timeline for rebuilding populations. That's just one finding in a damning report from a panel of eminent Royal Society of Canada marine scientists.

Sustaining Canada's Marine Biodiversity notes that Canada has "failed to meet most of our national and international commitments to protect marine biodiversity" and "lags behind other modernized nations in almost every aspect of fisheries management."

For a country surrounded on three sides by oceans, with the longest coastline in the world, that's shameful. Beyond the jobs, recreational opportunities, food, medicines, and habitat that our oceans provide, they also give us life. Half the world's oxygen is produced in the oceans by phytoplankton, which are threatened by rising ocean temperatures and acidification because of global warming.

Successive federal governments have failed to recognize our oceans as much more than reservoirs of resources to exploit for short-term gain. You'd think the decline of the Northern cod fishery, largely caused by mismanagement, would have taught us something. Now, with some West Coast salmon fisheries on the verge of collapse, and little real effort to protect our oceans, it appears we can expect more of the same -- unless we start demanding more from our government.

The Royal Society panel focused on climate change, fisheries, and aquaculture, "because of their potential for impact on Canada's marine biodiversity." The problem, it found, was not an absence of knowledge, science, or policy, but rather "a consistent, disheartening lack of action on well-established knowledge and best-practice and policies, some of which have been around for years."

Canada's Fisheries Act, which dates back to 1868, doesn't mention conservation. Our 1997 Oceans Act has yet to be effectively implemented. And the Species at Risk Act has been largely inadequate. Although Canada has made an international commitment to establish a protected network covering 10 per cent of our ocean territory, it has protected less than one per cent.

In fact, the federal government recently rejected millions of dollars in funding for a collaborative effort to establish a marine spatial plan and network of protected areas in Canada's Pacific North Coast waters. First Nations, industry, the provincial and federal governments, and environmental organizations, including the David Suzuki Foundation, had been making progress on the Pacific North Coast Integrated Management Area (PNCIMA) for years, but the federal government stymied the process by failing to invest adequate funding and by rejecting support from a philanthropic organization.

It's reason? The government was worried that marine protected areas and marine use plans based on ecosystem science might restrict oil tanker traffic. The loss of more than $8 million dollars from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation was a blow to the process, and the government has not stepped in to make up for the shortfall.

Rather than protect the Pacific's valuable resources, opportunities, and habitat on which 40 per cent of the world's marine mammal species and countless other plants and animals depend, it appears the government would rather risk it all by pushing the Northern Gateway pipeline project to ship crude bitumen from the tar sands through precarious Pacific Coast waterways to China and California.

The report also notes that climate change could drive some salmon species to extinction, that increasing acid levels could harm "everything from corals to mussels to lobsters", and that fish farming can harm wild stocks through spread of parasites and diseases and interbreeding.

Besides an apparent lack of interest on the part of government regarding the health of Canada's oceans, the report identifies a major problem that puts us behind most developed nations: a "major conflict of interest at Fisheries and Oceans Canada between its mandate to promote industrial and economic activity and its responsibility for conserving marine life and ocean health."

The panel offered a number of sensible recommendations, which include addressing the conflict of interest and living up to our national and international commitments to marine biodiversity.

Our government is gaining a reputation for ignoring or discounting the advice of scientists. Let's tell our leaders that our future depends on the future of the oceans and that this advice must be heeded. The science is clear: it's time to do more.

Science literacy is good for society

2012-02-02T10:30:00Z

Some moms and dads fear questions such as "Why is the sky blue?" and "Why is the moon out during the day?" (Credit: Kristin Brenemen via Flickr)

Kids ask questions. Sometimes adults feel inadequate if they don't have ready answers. But when I became a teacher, I learned quickly that there's nothing wrong with saying, "I don't know." Teaching children how to learn is more useful than feeding them facts.

Many parents, though, believe they must appear infallible in the eyes of their children. A U.K. survey found that some moms and dads fear questions such as "Why is the sky blue?" and "Why is the moon out during the day?" Math and science queries were the biggest stumpers.

Researchers questioned more than 2,000 parents before The Big Bang U.K. Young Scientists and Engineers Fair. Many respondents admitted to "furtive researching to save face before answering their child."

There's no need for that. My area of training as a scientist is genetics. It's a huge subject and I don't always know everything going on outside my field. I try to keep up by reading journals like Scientific American. People shouldn't feel that saying "I don't know" is admitting weakness. The important thing is to look for answers.

What could be better than using a puzzling question as an opportunity to teach your children how to conduct and analyze research, think critically about information, and gain new understanding? You even get to learn along with your kids. In our computer age, it's not even as time-consuming as it once was -- although there's a lot to be said for direct observation, poring over an encyclopedia, or visiting the library.

Some folks are too busy to help youngsters search for answers -- but we can at least get them started. If you make it fun, your kids will eventually learn to research on their own, and then you can ask them for answers.

Giving children the tools to learn and analyze is crucial, but it's often neglected. And that has consequences. Many people don't understand how science works -- its limitations as well as its benefits. This has led to confusion over issues that could have a profound effect on society.

One only has to look at some of the "debate" surrounding global warming to know that incomprehension about science reaches the highest levels of decision-making. U.S. presidential hopefuls have been demonstrating a bewildering lack of knowledge in their attempts to challenge the overwhelming scientific evidence for human-caused climate change. It's reminiscent of parents who make something up when they don't know the answer.

This doesn't always come from ignorance. Sometimes, it's a way to exploit confusion or lack of understanding to further a political or corporate agenda. In Canada, we've seen attempts to limit, control, or silence scientific findings that may hinder the government's economic and corporate agenda.

The situation is so critical that last year Kathryn O'Hara, then president of the Canadian Science Writers' Association, wrote to the prime minister, urging him to "free the scientists to speak -- be it about state of ice in the Arctic, dangers in the food supply, nanotechnology, salmon viruses, radiation monitoring, or how much the climate will change."

Currently, the federal government must approve all media and speaking requests for its scientists. Clearance is often not given, or is delayed so much that experts can't speak in a timely and meaningful way.

Compare this with the Obama administration's U.S. policy, which states that "scientists may speak freely with the media and public about scientific and technical matters based on their official work without approval from the public affairs office or their supervisors."

In an open society, leaders who have nothing to hide and who base their decisions on the best available evidence should have no reason to muzzle scientists, or anyone else. Just as parents should help children find relevant facts and encourage exploration, governments have a responsibility to make sure we have access to good information.

Having answers to our children's questions is not enough. If we want societies that provide the maximum benefit for the most people over the longest time, and if we want to find solutions to the challenges and problems we've created, we must teach our children and ourselves how to find and evaluate answers objectively. Making science education a priority is an important part of that.

Oil sands and pipeline debates hindered by lack of energy plan

2012-01-26T10:04:44Z

We need to slow down development, get our share of the wealth, and save some of the riches and resource for the future. (Credit: NASA Earth Observatory via Flickr)

The ongoing pipeline debates have become mired in conspiracy theories, distractions, and misinformation. Is there nothing we can all agree on?

To begin, who would deny that our most basic human needs are clean air and water, productive soils, and a diversity of species? It isn't controversial to argue that we must protect these necessities of life.

We also need energy -- from a mix of sources. Oil will be in that mix for the foreseeable future. But surely we can all agree that burning fossil fuels at the current or greater rate is not healthy for humans and the environment. Rational people also agree that doing so is driving dangerous climate change that threatens human existence.

Where does that leave us? Canada has tremendous natural wealth, especially energy resources. But we have no plan to guide us in the way we extract and use them or in how we get energy to Canadians. Indeed, one rarely reads of a national energy plan without seeing a reference to the "hated" National Energy Program brought in by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government in 1980 and killed after Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government won the 1984 election.

That plan was a response to the 1970s energy crisis, when oil prices skyrocketed. Its aims were to promote energy self-sufficiency and Canadian ownership, maintain supply, keep prices in check, promote oil exploration and alternative energy sources, and increase government revenues. But it ticked people off in Alberta. They saw it as federal meddling in provincial affairs.

Regardless of the successes and failures of the NEP, history shouldn't prevent us from joining the rest of the developed world in getting an energy strategy in place. To that end, the David Suzuki Foundation is formulating a long-range plan, working with the Canadian Academy of Engineering on the Trottier Energy Futures Project.

It's where I find common ground with people ranging from industry and union leaders to Alberta's new conservative premier, Alison Redford, and several other Canadian premiers. Redford calls her idea a Canadian Energy Strategy to avoid the dreaded NEP association.

With so many bright people considering various plans, surely we can find a way to resolve some serious problems we've created. A solid strategy, developed with input from Canadians from all walks of life, would help us make more rational decisions about the oil sands and pipelines, as well as about other energy sources, including renewables and cleaner alternatives.

Should we send more of our raw bitumen to refineries in the U.S. or China via new pipelines? Keep in mind that the Keystone pipeline, now on hold in light of President Barack Obama's decision to reject the current proposal, is not for supplying the U.S. with oil, but to take the bitumen to Texas for refining and eventual export.

I agree with former Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed, one of the NEP's staunchest opponents, on this one. Lougheed has sensibly argued that shipping all our bitumen to the U.S. or China for refining means sending jobs to those countries instead of keeping them here.

Lougheed has also argued that we should behave like owners of the oil sands; that we need to slow down development, get our share of the wealth, and save some of the riches and resource for the future.

I couldn't agree more. We Canadians have to remember that oil corporations -- whether they're from China, the U.S., Canada, or wherever -- are tenants on our land, not landlords. We should be calling the shots, and deriving the benefits.

It's time to get beyond conspiracy theories about small amounts of U.S. funding for environmental groups, insults about radicals, and cheap marketing slogans like ethical oil. (The David Suzuki Foundation gets less than 10 per cent of its funding from foreign sources, very little of which is used for climate and energy work.)

We shouldn't sell any more of our raw materials or resource industry, expand oil sands production, or build new pipelines until we have a plan in place to ensure that Canadians benefit first -- from the energy, the jobs, and the wealth. And we should make damn sure that whatever we do, we do it in a way that minimizes the impact on the environment.

What's so radical about caring for the Earth?

2012-01-19T10:04:55Z

We are condemned by our own government because we question the safety of two pipelines crossing more than 1,000 streams and rivers through priceless wilderness (Credit: Clickr Bee via Flickr)

Caring about the air, water, and land that give us life. Exploring ways to ensure Canada's natural resources serve the national interest. Knowing that sacrificing our environment to a corporate-controlled economy is suicide. If those qualities make us radicals, as federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver recently claimed in an open letter, then I and many others will wear the label proudly.

But is it radical to care for our country, our world, our children and grandchildren, our future? It seems more radical for a government to come out swinging in favour of an industrial project in advance of public hearings into that project. It seems especially radical when the government paints everyone who opposes the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project as American-funded traitors with a radical ideological agenda "to stop any major project no matter what the cost to Canadian families in lost jobs and economic growth."

It's bad enough when our government and its ethical oil and media supporters don't tell the truth, but it's worse when they don't even offer rational arguments. Their increasing attacks on charitable organizations and Canadians from all walks of life show that if they can't win with facts, they'll do everything they can to silence their critics. And we thought conservative-minded people valued free speech!

The proposed Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipeline projects and the massive, mostly foreign-controlled expansion of the tar sands are not about finding the best way to serve Canada's national interests. If we truly wanted to create jobs, we would refine the oil in Canada and use it to reduce our reliance on imported oil, much of which comes from countries that government supporters say are "unethical". If we really cared about using resources for the national interest, we would slow development in the tar sands, improve environmental standards, increase royalties and put some of the money away or use it to switch to cleaner energy, eliminate subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, and encourage Canadian companies to develop the resource.

Instead, we are called radicals for daring to even question the wisdom of selling entire tar sands operations to China's state-owned oil companies and building a pipeline so that the repressive government of China, rather than Canadians, can reap most of the benefits from the refining jobs, profits, and the resource itself. We are radical because we are concerned about the real dangers of oil-filled supertankers moving through narrow fiords with unpredictable weather conditions and through some of the last pristine ecosystems on Earth. We are condemned by our own government because we question the safety of two pipelines crossing more than 1,000 streams and rivers through priceless wilderness -- a reasonable concern, in light of the more than 800 pipeline spills that Enbridge, the company in charge of the Northern Gateway, has had since 1999.

And so here we are, a country with a government that boasts of our "energy superpower" status but doesn't even have a national energy plan. A country willing to sacrifice its manufacturing industry, its opportunities in the green-energy economy, its future, and the health of its people for the sake of short-term profits. A country hell-bent on selling its industry and resources wholesale to any country that wants them, without regard for the ethics or activities of those countries.

Our government is supposed to represent the interests of all Canadians, and not just those who voted for it or the corporations that support it. Instead we have a government that hurls insults at its citizens.

Canadians are better than that. While an investment banker like Joe Oliver or a former oil industry economist like Stephen Harper may look at Canada and only see numbers, we see a country rich in natural resources, wildlife, clean water, a diverse population of educated and caring people, and institutions that have been built up over the years to put the interests of Canadians first.

With recent or pending federal reviews into both environmental regulation and charitable giving, we can expect more attacks and more attempts to silence those who believe that we must at least have a discussion about our priorities before selling out our country to anyone who wants a piece. Maybe it's time to get radical!

Northern Gateway is about profits versus environment

2012-01-11T14:30:13Z

When we build infrastructure such as pipelines to support the fossil fuel industry, we increase the incentive to use fossil fuels for a longer time and decrease the incentives to invest in cleaner energy. (Credit: rblood via Flickr)

The battle lines are drawn, and Northern B.C.'s pristine wilderness is the latest front. With hearings underway into the proposed $5.5-billion, dual 1,172-kilometre Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline project to transport bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat and imported condensate to dilute it from the coast back to Alberta, the fossil fuel industry and its supporters have stepped up the rhetoric. Environmentalists and people in towns, rural areas, and First Nations communities in B.C. have lined up in opposition.

It's not just about potential damage from an oil spill along the pipeline route or from a supertanker plying the precarious fiords and waterways along our northern coast -- as critical as those concerns are. The larger issues are about our continued reliance on polluting fossil fuels and the economic impact of rapidly exploiting and selling our resources and resource industries.

It's about Canada's national interest. With lax royalty structures and massive subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, not to mention foreign ownership of tar sands operations and lobbying by foreign companies, Canadians are not enjoying the real benefits of our oil industry. In fact, increasing reliance on the tar sands is hurting other sectors of the economy, manufacturing in particular.

Thanks to the government's support for the fossil fuel industry, ours is a petro dollar that rises and falls with the price of oil. The high price of oil has increased our dollar's value, and that has hurt the more labour-intensive manufacturing sector, which relies on exports. Not only have hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs been lost over the past few years, Canada has also been missing out on opportunities to join the boom in production of renewable-energy technology.

And when we build infrastructure such as pipelines to support the fossil fuel industry, we increase the incentive to use fossil fuels for a longer time and decrease the incentives to invest in cleaner energy.

Industry adherents have come up with many arguments supporting the Northern Gateway project. Some have more holes than an oilfield.

Take the jobs argument. Even Enbridge admits that most would be in short-term construction work. Only about 35 to 40 long-term jobs would be created at the Kitimat marine terminal, with some additional jobs in pipeline maintenance. It hardly seems worth risking tens of thousands of jobs in tourism and the fishing industry, among others, for a few short-term and even fewer long-term positions.

Most economic benefits from increased tar sands production would go to the companies and their shareholders, including firms from the U.S., Korea, and China. In fact, state-owned PetroChina, which already operates in the tar sands, has just bought 100 per cent of the MacKay River project.

The "ethical oil" argument is so absurd as to be hardly worth mentioning, but it's one the government has latched onto. Oil can't be ethical or unethical. People, and by extension the companies they own and operate or the governments they represent, can behave in ethical or unethical ways, but a product can't.

The Northern Gateway project, and much of the recent and pending tar sands expansion, will help companies owned by the government of China dig up the bitumen and send it there for refining and use. The ethical oil folks admit that China is a police state, so why do they support selling them our industry and resources? Canadian tar sands companies also do business in the countries tagged by the ethical oil folks as being unethical -- often in partnership with state-owned companies.

The anti-American conspiracy theories are even more absurd. Saying that opposition to the Northern Gateway is a plot by U.S. funding agencies to protect America's access to Canadian oil is just idiotic in light of the fact that many of the same groups and funders also oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project that would carry oil from the tar sands to Texas. It's odd to see such anti-Americanism coming from conservatives who apparently support Communist China!

The only real argument for Northern Gateway is that it will increase profits for the oil industry, and hand over more of our resources and the associated profits and jobs to China. The arguments against it are so numerous we've barely touched them here.

What are governments for?

2012-01-06T10:12:02Z

We can't rely on technological fixes, individual actions, or market systems to protect nature (Credit: Peter Blomert via Flickr).

What purpose do governments serve? Some people think we could do without them, but that's absurd. Even libertarians agree that some kind of police force and legal system are necessary to ensure that individual freedoms and property are protected, especially when conflicts arise over competing freedoms and property rights.

Others argue that the ever-expanding economy is our highest priority, and that governments should encourage this unending growth by subsidizing or promoting business and removing so-called regulatory red tape.

At its most basic, a government is there to protect its citizens. That's more complicated than it seems. What rights do citizens have? Most democratic countries spell those out in their constitutions. Canada's Constitution, for example, enshrines rights in a range of areas: fundamental, democratic, legal, equality, language, and so on.

As we begin a New Year, it's worth reflecting on how well our government has looked after the interests of its citizens, and where we might be heading.

According to our Constitution's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we are legally entitled to life, liberty, and security in Canada. But how can we fulfill that right without protecting the necessary preconditions for life: clean air and water and productive soils to grow food? These all come from and depend on natural functioning ecosystems. We can try to clean up water that has been polluted or grow food in a lab, but those strategies will cost much more than protecting the ecosystems before they are compromised.

Natural functioning ecosystems (let's just call them "nature") supply resources that we all depend on to meet our basic needs and to survive. We need nature, including each other, more than anything else. We can't rely on technological fixes, individual actions, or market systems to protect it. Unfortunately, the negative costs of damaging the environment and the benefits that nature provides are rarely factored into economic equations.

In that light, one of government's primary roles is to protect nature. Arguments between the so-called political left and right are often summarized as the difference between wanting more or less government. But that misses the point of government.

Governments set priorities, many of them based on where they allocate money and resources. Successive governments in Canada have promoted the idea that a strong economy is the most important consideration and that to have prosperity we must put the interests of corporations above those of citizens. This is backwards.

While continuing to spend tens of billions of dollars on jet fighters, war ships, and campaigns to promote itself and the tar sands, Canada's government is gutting resources from the programs and departments responsible for protecting our environment, as well as weakening policies and laws designed to conserve nature.

At the end of 2011, we saw our government trying to cajole other countries to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol during the climate change talks in Durban, South Africa. When no one went along, Canada became the first country to abandon this legally binding international agreement. Of course, our current government isn't the only one that has failed to live up to the agreement's requirements. Kyoto may not have been perfect, but in abandoning it rather than working to strengthen it, Canada's leadership failed to acknowledge that dealing with climate change is essential to protecting its citizens, and those of the world.

We can only take this administration's word that it will come up with a realistic plan to cut emissions and fight climate change, but the record of successive governments so far doesn't inspire much confidence.

Let's get beyond this false dichotomy of economy versus environment. If we look at economy as a way to provide for the health and well-being of citizens, then it's there to serve the environment, of which we are a part, and not the other way around. Environmental protection shouldn't be seen as a barrier to opportunity; it should be seen as an essential part of a healthy economy.

It's up to all of us to ensure that the governments we elect to look after our interests protect nature because we depend on it for our very lives. That's what they're for.

Resurrecting Eden on the edge of a city

2011-12-14T09:52:59Z

Rouge National Park will be established within the heart of one of the fastest growing urban areas in North America (Credit: Sepehr Ehsani via Flickr).

The federal government has announced an exciting NIMBY project. It will put nature in millions of backyards by establishing Canada's first urban National Park in the country's largest urban area.

Nestled in the east end of the Greater Toronto Area, Rouge National Park will be unlike any other. It won't offer the panoramas of Jasper or Banff, or provide a safe haven for polar bears, like Manitoba's Wapusk National Park, or be larger than some European countries, like Wood Buffalo National Park. But it will help connect urban dwellers with nature and ultimately protect and restore a once great forest.

Rouge National Park will be established within the heart of one of the fastest growing urban areas in North America, with millions of people already living outside its borders. Home to a wealth of plant and animal life, like snapping turtles, butternut trees, and rare wetland flowers, the area's significant and growing human footprint is already evident -- two major highways, nearby housing estates, and stormwater drainage. Managing existing and future infrastructure in the park, especially roads, will be critical so the growth and spread of surrounding suburbs don't adversely impact its sensitive ecology.

Some parts of the park have been degraded after decades of human use, so extensive restoration efforts will have to go hand-in-hand with formal federal protection of this urban wilderness.

For example, restoring the Rouge's once verdant Carolinian and Great Lakes forest canopy will be important because a long history of agricultural land use and timber harvesting has dramatically reduced the amount of old and mature forest in the area. Intact mature and old-growth forests are rare in northeastern North America, making up less than one per cent of forested land. Remnant patches of old forest are small and isolated within a second-growth landscape that continues to be damaged by human activities like aggregate mining, industrial agriculture, and urban sprawl. Many scientists fear that further loss and fragmentation of remaining old forest cover will threaten wildlife that relies upon those conditions to survive.

Plant surveys conducted since the early 1900s in southern Ontario, the Maritimes, and New England have found, for example, that some plants, like American yew, do well in undisturbed forests but are so sensitive to human land use that they are often absent or rare in recovering second-growth forests.

Scientists believe these plants are not able to fully recover in abandoned farm fields or old logging sites, even after hundreds of years, because habitat is no longer suitable. Use of mechanical logging and agriculture methods, such as wheeled skidders and tractors, often destroys rotten logs and compacts and levels the ground, removing the pits and mounds that are important for the growth of many forest-dependent species, such as Indian pipe, wood sorrel, and yellow birch.

Given the importance of these habitat features to the recovery of forest plants and animals, Parks Canada, in partnership with local community groups, regional conservation authorities, universities, and others, will need to work to restore areas in Rouge Park by planting indigenous tree species, removing invasive species, and in some places re-introducing and re-creating, by hand, the special features that are largely missing from the park, such as old dead logs, mounds and pits, and vernal ponds.

Much of this restoration work is already underway. A local conservation group, Friends of the Rouge Watershed, has planted more than 100,000 native trees and wildflowers in a monumental effort to reforest a section of the park that was set aside in honour of the late Bob Hunter, who helped start Greenpeace and is considered the father of the modern environmental movement in Canada. The group now hopes to restore critical features, such as old logs, ponds, and other habitat, in Bob Hunter Memorial Park as well as other nearby Rouge Park sites.

It's a fitting tribute to the memory of a great environmental hero, and it's a wonderful gift to the people of Toronto, and indeed, all of Canada, who will see the lustre restored to this once great forest. Spending time in nature is good for physical and mental health. Having a National Park in the city's backyard will offer benefits for generations to come.

Is a healthy economy good for people?

2011-12-08T15:19:07Z

Occupy Christmas is mostly symbolic. It won't change global economic systems, and it could hurt businesses and workers. But it might get us thinking about what really is important to us (Photo credit: if winter ends)

On November 25, referred to as "Black Friday" in the U.S., a woman pepper-sprayed fellow customers at a California Wal-Mart during a mad rush to get a bargain-priced Xbox. In North Carolina, it was police who used pepper spray to subdue shoppers hell-bent on getting deals on electronic gadgets during the biggest shopping day in the country.

Despite these and other incidents, including shootings, U.S. business leaders are buoyed by an expected rise in consumer spending -- to nearly $500 billion this year -- in the shopping season, which begins the day after U.S. Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, Adbusters, the Vancouver magazine that sparked the worldwide Occupy protests, is encouraging supporters to "Occupy Christmas" by boycotting holiday gift shopping, among other actions. (Adbusters also popularized Buy Nothing Day, which fell on Black Friday this year.) The prospect of a seasonal shopping boycott isn't making people in the retail industry jolly. Retail Council of Canada spokesperson Sally Ritchie said such protests would hurt businesses and working people when the global economy is in turmoil.

The argument is that without the seasonal scramble for gadgets and gizmos and disposable goods, businesses will fail and people will lose jobs. So, if you want to keep the economy strong, go out and buy as much stuff as you can, even if -- or especially if -- it will end up in the landfill!

Here are some other ways you can help keep the economy strong, according to John de Graaf and David K. Batker, authors of What's the Economy For, Anyway? You could have a car accident. That would mean money spent on repairs, insurance, investigations, and maybe even a new car. You could get a divorce. All that money spent on lawyers and court services is good for the economy. On a larger scale, you could hope for a massive oil spill. Cleanup costs contribute to a growing economy.

Forget about protecting a forest or conserving a wetland, though. Ducks and bears don't spend money. And services that nature provides, such as carbon storage, water filtration, and habitat for plants and animals, don't factor into most economic equations. That's because the measure most of the world uses to gauge the "health" of the economy is the Gross Domestic Product, the total value of goods and services a country produces in a year.

One month of crazy consumerism won't have a huge impact on the world's teetering economies. We need something bigger -- a war perhaps. That would get money flowing. And we need to drill for more oil, dig up more minerals, convince people to throw out old stuff and buy new. We won't be any happier and we won't be healthier -- quite the opposite. But the economy will be stronger. And that's all that counts, right?

Sadly, for many political and business leaders, it is all that counts. But it shouldn't be. We need a new way of looking at what it means to live well within the Earth's natural systems. We need to consider what we truly need to be happy and healthy. It's not more stuff, and it's not working harder for longer hours at often tedious, pointless, or environmentally destructive jobs so that we can produce more stuff and get money to buy it.

Occupy Christmas is mostly symbolic. It won't change global economic systems, and it could hurt businesses and workers. But it might get us thinking about what really is important to us as we head into the holiday season. I'd argue that spending time with friends and family or helping out people in need are more important and satisfying than getting a new Xbox.

Not that gift-giving is bad. If it's sincere rather than just an obligation, it helps us connect with people. And meaningful gifts really do contribute to the betterment of the community -- locally produced items or services, something you made yourself, donations to charities the recipient supports, invitations to partake in a shared activity.

The holiday season should be a time for resting, sharing, and celebrating, not for being stressed and overwhelmed at the mall. My wish for the season is that all of you are able to take the time to relax and reflect, and enjoy time with loved ones.

The twisted logic, and ethics, of nature's opponents

2011-12-01T14:30:00Z

(Credit : wenzday01 via Flickr).

Who is influencing Canada's resource priorities? In a puzzling appeal to anti-American sentiment, some industry supporters claim that U.S. foundations are threatening Canadian policy by donating money to environmental groups here. These arguments have appeared in publications such as the Vancouver Sun and Calgary Herald, and on Sun TV.

Greenpeace has released research that points in a different direction, one that seems more logical. The Greenpeace report, "Who's Holding Us Back?", shows that multinational and U.S. corporations in the oil, mining, and chemical sectors, among others, have been spending money and using industry trade associations, think-tanks, lobbying, and revolving doors between government and industry to block action on climate change and influence resource policy in Canada and elsewhere.

Opponents of environmental initiatives point to recent protests against the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, which would carry bitumen from the Alberta tar sands to B.C.'s north coast. They say this opposition is part of a conspiracy by U.S. funders to ensure that oil keeps flowing to the U.S. and not to Asia. That the same people also oppose the Keystone XL pipeline, which would take bitumen from the tar sands to the U.S., doesn't faze those who promote this twisted logic.

If these conspiracy theorists were truly upset about U.S. influence on Canadian infrastructure and resource development, they would lobby for greater national control of the oil industry, much of which is owned by U.S. and Chinese corporations. They might also question U.S. industry and foundation funding for organizations such as Canada's right-wing Fraser Institute, which has the same charitable status as the David Suzuki Foundation and other conservation groups and is thus governed by the same rules.

The criticism of U.S. money going to Canadian non-profits is part of a recent spate of efforts to silence those who want to bring more balance to discussions about the fossil fuel industry and environmental issues. Sun Media, owned by media giant Quebecor, has been especially aggressive in its opposition to those who don't go along with its pro-government, pro-industry way of thinking, with recent attacks on environmental groups and the CBC.

In one of those "revolving door" scenarios that the Greenpeace research highlights, Kory Teneycke left his position as Prime Minister Stephen Harper's communications director to join Sun TV before its launch. Several reporters who were considered for positions at the TV channel have said that Teneycke told them part of their job would be to go after me. Sun Media has also campaigned to have the David Suzuki Foundation's charitable status removed. Of course, one of Sun TV's major personalities, Ezra Levant, has strong ties to the Harper government. He also launched the "ethical oil" campaign, which was taken over by Alykhan Velshi, who was recently hired as Stephen Harper's planning director.

I wish I had the kind of influence over public policy that anti-environmentalists and news media claim I have but, alas, I think Greenpeace is much closer to the mark in saying that corporate interests, including many foreign interests, wield more power.

As for funding, just as we're glad that Canadians donate money to important causes worldwide -- from earthquake relief in Haiti to aid for famine victims in Africa -- we're pleased that people outside our borders understand the global importance of environmental protection in Canada.

Like many environmental organizations, the David Suzuki Foundation is able to do its work thanks to the many people who give us their time and money. Over half of our funding (55 per cent) comes in donations from about 28,000 individuals -- more than 9,000 of whom give us a bit of money every month. Philanthropic foundations and businesses provide the rest. Our funding from sources in the U.S. and other countries ranges from six to 10 per cent per year. All must meet the requirements of our ethical gift acceptance policy.

I encourage everyone to carefully consider the arguments on both sides. If you agree that Canadians should help slow rampant extraction and use of fossil fuels to protect the environment and human health, then please support our work and the work of similar organizations. And although we're extremely grateful for all the support we get from Canadians, we're happy to accept donations from people anywhere in the world who want to protect nature, and fend off its enemies.

Don't say the D-word

2011-11-24T12:42:27Z

Try to get a piece of old electronics fixed or upgraded. It costs more to fix an old laptop than to buy a new model (Credit : barnoid via Flickr).

A kerfuffle is raised every time a comedian, politician, or businessperson uses the F-word or the N-word. I understand that. But to me, the D-word is the most obscene. I'm referring to disposable. Let me explain.

When I was a boy, we were poor and it was a big deal when my parents bought me a new coat. I would quickly outgrow it, and it would be passed on to my sister. My parents boasted that three of their children had worn the same coat. They weren't concerned (nor were we kids) about gender differences or fashion; it was the coat's ability to keep the wearer warm and its durability (now there's a good D-word) that mattered.

We now have an economic system in which companies must not only show a profit each year, they must strive for constant growth. If a product is rugged and durable, it creates a problem for even the most successful business -- a diminishing and eventually saturated market. Of course, any product will eventually wear to a point where it can no longer be patched, so the market will continue to exist to replace worn products.

But that's not good enough in a competitive world driven by the demand for relentless growth in profits and profitability. So companies create an aura of obsolescence, where today's product looks like a piece of junk when next year's model comes out. We've lived with that for decades in the auto industry.

I've always said a car is simply a means of getting from point A to point B, but it's become far more than that. Some cars convey a sense of power, and cars become safe havens when loaded with cup holders, sound systems, and even TVs and computers. Some people even name their cars, talk to them, and care for them like babies -- until next year's models come along.

It's similar with clothing, even with outdoor attire beloved by environmentalists. We have a proliferation of choice based on colour, sexiness, and other properties that have nothing to do with function. I don't understand torn blue jeans as a fashion statement, and I wish people would wear their pants till they spring their own leaks rather than deliberately incorporating tears. All of this is designed to get us to toss stuff away as quickly as possible so the economy can keep spinning.

Nowhere is this more obvious than with electronic gadgets. When my wife lost the cord to charge her cellphone, she went to seven stores. None had the necessary plug for her phone. Finally she went back to the retailer that sold her brand only to be told that the cords for the new models don't fit the old ones and hers was so old, it wasn't even on the market any more. It was a year-and-a-half old.

I remember when I was given the first laptop computer on the market. It had an LED display screen that let me see three lines at a time and a chip that stored about three pages of writing. But it was small and had word processing and a port to send my pieces by telephone. It revolutionized my life. I was writing a weekly column for the Globe and Mail and was able to send articles from Russia and even remote towns in the Amazon.

A couple of years later, a much better laptop hit the market. It had an LCD screen, a huge memory, and it displayed almost a full page. I got one. A year later, I got a new model, and then half a year after that, another. Each served me well, but every year, new ones would appear that were faster, smaller, and lighter, with longer-life batteries and more bells and whistles.

Try to get one fixed or upgraded, though. As with digital cameras, I was repeatedly told that it would cost more to fix an old laptop than to buy a new model. This is madness in a finite world with finite resources. At the very least, products should be created so components can be pulled apart and reused until they wear out.

You see why I think the D-word is so obscene.

Protest highlights unnatural aspects of economic system

2011-11-16T10:00:00Z

By making nature's value visible, decision-makers can take into account the true benefits and costs of conservation and restoration (Credit : alexindigo via Flickr).

In early November, 70 Harvard University students walked out of their introductory economics class. They wrote to Prof. Gregory Mankiw that the biased nature of his course "perpetuates problematic and inefficient systems of economic inequality in our society." Mankiw is the author of Principles of Economics, a textbook used by almost every economics student in the Western world.

The walk-out was part of a larger event organized by Boston's Occupy protest, and it echoed a key element of the worldwide Occupy movement. Like these students and protesters, I've been thinking about our dysfunctional economic paradigm. I share the anxiety that we are sacrificing too much to a system driven by three fallacies: that well-being can only be measured in money, that distribution does not matter, and that the economy can grow forever. And like so many people today, I question whether our economic system is serving the goals that are important to society. After all, an economy is a means to prosperity, not the end.

This economic system is relatively new. In the 1930s and '40s, world leaders had to address unemployment and underproduction. Many of our current economic measures were developed when natural capital (the benefits that nature provides) was plentiful but built capital (buildings, machinery, infrastructure) was not. In providing more manufactured goods and services, we developed a blind spot to the economic importance of natural systems. Labour, built, and financial capital are typically considered as the primary factors of production for economic development. Land and natural systems have seldom been included.

With growing human populations and profit-driven, consumer-based economics, more land is being eaten up by development, habitat is being destroyed and degraded, and resources are being exploited at unsustainable levels. Natural capital is disappearing.

For example, salmon were abundant on B.C.'s West Coast in 1900. More built capital, such as nets and boats, was required to harvest them for food. By 2000, there were no shortages of nets and boats, but the fish and the habitat they need to survive had become scarce. As natural capital and the goods and services it provides have diminished, interest in this area of economics has increased.

Economists are also starting to recognize that human well-being depends on more than having manufactured products. A great deal of research shows that things like leisure time, equality, and healthy relationships are more important to people's happiness than greater consumption. This is starting to change our economic models.

But we still have far to go. The services provided by nature and the qualities that contribute to human well-being are still invisible in the marketplace. Because we have elevated economics above everything else, this is dangerous. When you have a society that largely equates the quality of life with economic indicators, such as gross domestic product, and those indicators fail to track the health of its fundamental inputs, you end up on shaky ground.

How do we address this? One tool is natural capital valuation. Putting a price on nature's services is a complicated subject. Although nature's full worth is unquantifiable, its ecosystems undeniably provide services to society that have real and tangible economic weight. For example, wetlands filter water and reduce natural disasters such as flooding, and forests manage water runoff and provide habitat for pollinators.

By making nature's value visible, decision-makers can take into account the true benefits and costs of conservation and restoration. These economic benefits have even received the attention of the World Bank, which plans to assist countries in tracking natural capital assets and including them in development plans, in the same way we track other wealth using the GDP index. And more recently, former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin has advocated including natural capital in national accounts.

These measures won't completely change our current economic paradigms, but they could at least slow the rampant environmental devastation and its consequent impacts on human health and well-being that are a symptom of our profit-driven corporate economies. They may also help us to think about what we truly need to be healthy and happy as humans, and to see the trade-offs inherent in our activities. Until we do this, we cannot hope to address the inequalities the students and the Occupy protesters are rallying against.

Occupy movement demands fresh thinking — for our grandchildren

2011-11-10T11:00:00Z

Globalization does not encourage the highest standards for workers, communities, or ecosystems. Instead, corporations often go for the lowest standards of medical care, wages, and environmental regulations because it’s all about maximizing profit. (Credit : focusedcapture via Flickr).

The laws of physics tell us we can't build a rocket that will travel faster than the speed of light, that gravity governs objects on Earth, and that perpetual motion machines are not possible. In chemistry, diffusion constants, reaction rates, and atomic properties set the limits of chemical reactions and types of molecules that can be synthesized. Biology dictates our absolute need for clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy, and biodiversity for our survival and health.

Those are laws of nature and we can't change them. We have to live within their boundaries. Capitalism, free enterprise, the economy, corporations, currency, markets, and regional borders are not forces of nature. We invented them. If they don't work, we can and must change them.

Instead we try to alter nature to fit our priorities. Look at what happened at the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December 2009. We saw 192 nations gathered to deal with the atmosphere that belongs to no one -- 192 national borders, 192 economic priorities, trying to shoehorn nature to fit our creations! We should be looking for ways to make our systems work with nature, not the other way around.

It's a message that's starting to emerge from the Occupy movement. It's not just about the one per cent who rake in an ever-increasing proportion of society's wealth while 99 per cent bear the real costs. It's also about corporate power and the systems that facilitate it. A few corporations have become bigger than most governments.

Occupiers know, because so many are young, that the inequities represented by the one per cent today are also intergenerational. Although not all corporations are bad, many of them, and the super-rich who run them, are increasing their wealth at the expense of generations to come -- exhausting resources, extinguishing species, and poisoning air, water, and soil. The costs of those problems will be most strongly felt by successive generations to come, yet economists discount them.

Why do the governments we elect to look after our well-being and future act as cheerleaders for the corporate sector? Because money talks.

Corporations may produce or do things that we need and that are good for society, but their real mandate is to make money, and the more they make and the faster they make it, the better. Corporations are said to be the economic engines of society. But as Joel Bakan explains in his book The Corporation, when profit is their primary goal, corporate leaders will fight to reduce their share of taxes, demand subsidies, oppose regulations, and fire hundreds of employees for the sake of the bottom line.

Globalization does not encourage the highest standards for workers, communities, or ecosystems. Instead, corporations often go for the lowest standards of medical care, wages, and environmental regulations because it's all about maximizing profit. The global economy means our garbage and toxic effluents are shared with the world, dumped into the air, water, and land.

When you buy running shoes, a cellphone, or a car, it's almost impossible to know whether slave or child labour was involved in its production. How can you be aware of the ecological impacts or the toxic materials that may be generated in the manufacturing process? These costs are hidden, yet each time we make a purchase, we become part of that system that exploits people and ecosystems.

To me, the Occupy movement is about putting decisions and democracy back into the hands of people. We need democracy for people, not corporations; we want greater equity; we demand social justice; and we want to recognize and protect our most fundamental needs -- clean air, clean water, clean soil, clean energy, biological diversity, and communities that support our children with love and care.

My generation and the boomers who followed have lived like reckless royalty and thoughtlessly partied like there's no tomorrow. We forgot the lessons taught to us by our parents and grandparents who came through the Great Depression: live within your means and save some for tomorrow; satisfy your needs and not your wants; help your neighbours; share and don't be greedy; money doesn't make you a better or more important person. Well, the party's over. It's time to clean up our mess and think about our children and grandchildren.

Is seven-billion people too many?

2011-11-03T10:05:00Z

North Americans, Europeans, Japanese, and Australians, who make up 20 per cent of the world's population, are consuming more than 80 per cent of the world's resources (Credit : jbhthescots via Flickr).

What's the biggest challenge in the world? Climate change? Economic disparity? Species extinction? A Western billionaire -- maybe a member of the one per cent the Occupy protesters are talking about -- will likely say population growth. A lot of well-off people in North America and Europe would agree. But is it true?

It's worth considering, especially in light of the fact that, somewhere in the world, the seven-billionth person was just born. In my lifetime, the human population has more than tripled. (I know I'm guilty of contributing to the boom.) But is overpopulation really the problem it's being made out to be? And if so, what can we do about it?

First, supporting more people on a finite planet with finite resources is a serious challenge. But in a world where hunger and obesity are both epidemic, reproduction rates can't be the main problem. And when we look at issues that are often blamed on overpopulation, we see that overconsumption by the most privileged is a greater factor in rampant environmental destruction and resource depletion.

I once asked the great ecologist E.O. Wilson how many people the planet could sustain indefinitely. He responded, "If you want to live like North Americans, 200 million." North Americans, Europeans, Japanese, and Australians, who make up 20 per cent of the world's population, are consuming more than 80 per cent of the world's resources. We are the major predators and despoilers of the planet, and so we blame the problem on overpopulation. Keep in mind, though, that most environmental devastation is not directly caused by individuals or households, but by corporations driven more by profits than human needs.

The nonprofit organization Global Footprint Network calculated the area of land and water the world's human population needs to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb carbon dioxide emissions. If it takes a year or less for nature to regenerate the amount we use in a year, that's sustainable. But they found it takes 1.5 years to replace what we take in a year. That means we are using up our basic biological capital rather than living on the interest, and this has been going on since the 1980s.

As people in developing countries demand more of the bounty and products we take for granted, environmental impacts are bound to increase. The best way to confront these problems is to reduce waste and consumption, find cleaner energy sources, and support other countries in finding ways to develop that are more sustainable than the ways we've employed -- to learn from our mistakes. Stabilizing or bringing down population growth will help, but research shows it's not the biggest factor. A United Nations report, The State of World Population 2011, concludes that even zero population growth won't have a huge impact on global warming.

But, just as it's absurd to rely on economies based on constant growth on a finite planet, it can't be sustainable to have a human population that continues to increase exponentially. So, is there any good news? Well, population growth is coming down. According to the UN report, the average number of children per woman has gone from six to 2.5 over the past 60 years. Research shows the best way to stabilize and reduce population growth is through greater protection and respect for women's rights, better access to birth control, widespread education about sex and reproduction, and redistribution of wealth.

But wealthy conservatives who overwhelmingly identify population growth as the biggest problem are often the same people who oppose measures that may slow the rate of growth. This has been especially true in the U.S., where corporate honchos and the politicians who support them fight against environmental protection and against sex education and better access to birth control, not to mention redistribution of wealth.

Population, environmental, and social-justice issues are inextricably linked. Giving women more rights over their own bodies, providing equal opportunity for them to participate in society, and making education and contraception widely available will help stabilize population growth and create numerous other benefits. Reducing economic disparity -- between rich and poor individuals and nations -- will lead to better allocation of resources. But it also shows that confronting serious environmental problems will take more than just slowing population growth.

Virus is another sign of failure to protect wild salmon

2011-10-27T09:55:00Z

Salmon provide a healthy source of nutrition for people and have been an important element of First Nations cultures for many generations (Credit : postbear via Flickr).

In 2007 and 2008, a virus wiped out millions of salmon on fish farms in Chile, slamming the country's aquaculture industry with $2 billion in losses, farm and processing-plant closures, and layoffs of 2,000 workers. Now that same virus, infectious salmon anemia, has been found in wild salmon from B.C.'s Rivers Inlet.

The virus normally affects Atlantic salmon, which is what most salmon farms on B.C.'s coast raise, but it can spread and mutate quickly. Scientists confirm that the virus found in the sockeye salmon from River's Inlet was the European strain, which means it almost certainly came from a fish farm. We don't yet know what its effect on Pacific sockeye salmon will be, but it could be catastrophic, especially considering all the other threats B.C.'s wild salmon are facing. There is no vaccine or treatment for infectious salmon anemia (which does not affect humans).

Salmon are more than just a commodity; they are an integral part of West Coast ecosystems and culture. They provide food for marine predators and bears, eagles, and other animals along the rivers and lakes where they spawn. The nitrogen and other nutrients they bring from the ocean are spread to the coastal forests by animals that feed on the fish. Salmon also provide a healthy source of nutrition for people and have been an important element of First Nations cultures for many generations. Losing them would be devastating to local economies and would have a profound impact on coastal ecosystems.

Infectious salmon anemia is just the latest in a list of threats identified during the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River. It's also one of several that have been linked to open net-pen fish farms. The problem of declining salmon populations is obviously bigger than the sum of its threats. Overfishing, habitat destruction, pollution, and fish farms are all issues that can only be dealt with by addressing the larger structural challenges that plague fisheries management in Canada.

The Cohen Commission is wrapping up its hearings and will report to government at the end of June 2012. The David Suzuki Foundation, as part of the Conservation Coalition represented by Ecojustice, submitted recommendations on October 17. One of the coalition's main conclusions was that we can't protect wild salmon until we change the way government and Fisheries and Oceans Canada operate. To begin, Fisheries and Oceans is charged with promoting the fish-farming industry, which is absurd. It should focus on its primary mandate of using strong science and monitoring and enforcement to conserve fish.

Canada has a strong conservation tool with its Wild Salmon Policy. But even though it was released in 2005, it has yet to be implemented. Without the policy, and with conflicting mandates and budget cutbacks, the DFO has not been able to do its job properly. The government should restore the independence and transparency of science by re-establishing an independent fisheries research board. Instead of cutting budgets, it should provide money and resources to monitor and enforce regulations to protect fish and habitat. It could start by putting money now used to promote industry into science and conservation.

The government should also address major threats to wild salmon by getting open net-cage salmon farms off wild salmon migration routes and making sure endangered stocks are not overfished. But that's just a start. We need to move from open net-pen fish farming to closed-containment systems that eliminate interaction between farmed and wild salmon. The government should also do more to confront climate change, which will have an impact on salmon and all marine species.

The problems may seem overwhelming, but with strong policies and regulations, adequate resources, and a Fisheries and Oceans department focused on protecting fish, we can start to address them. Justice Bruce Cohen has heard from many people and groups, and we're confident that his report will be thorough. Of course, we hope and expect that he will include the recommendations of the Conservation Coalition as well as other environmental groups, First Nations, and all stakeholders who care about the survival of wild Pacific salmon. It will then be up to the government to act quickly on the recommendations. The salmon depend on it. And we depend on the salmon.

A 56-million-year-old lesson in climate change

2011-10-20T13:00:00Z

Throughout human history, we have been subject to forces of nature, but overall, the Earth has been in a period that has allowed us to flourish (Credit : –Snugg– via Flickr).

Our planet is an ever-changing sphere of wonder and mystery. By studying sediments, ice-core samples, trees, and fossils, scientists have been able to piece together some of its phenomenal history and evolution. Humans have been here for a relatively short time, our survival and prosperity made possible by the unique conditions that unfolded to create the current balance.

Throughout human history, we have been subject to forces of nature, but overall, the Earth has been in a period that has allowed us to flourish. We can't take that for granted. When we look through a scientific lens, we see amazing hydrologic and carbon cycles, processes such as photosynthesis that allow us to breathe and eat, and so much more. We also see droughts, floods, insect infestations, and mass extinctions that can radically alter the balance of life.

A massive release of carbon into the atmosphere can trigger cataclysmic events. It's something we're facing now, as we burn fossil fuels as fast as we can dig and suck them out of the ground to keep our homes and cities warm and lighted, and to propel ourselves in machines weighing more than 10 times as much as the often-solo person they are transporting.

This is not the first time the Earth has changed in response to carbon overload. Scientists have found that the planet experienced rapid warming about 56 million years ago, long before humans arrived. According to an article in the October issue of National Geographic, a "massive and geologically sudden release of carbon" during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, altered the planet's systems, making it possible for new life forms to appear and thrive, including, eventually, humans.

Evidence suggests that the carbon released then was equivalent to the amount that would enter the atmosphere if we burned all the Earth's reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas. The warming effects are believed to have lasted 150,000 years until the carbon was reabsorbed.

The main difference between now and then is that we are fuelling the current change, whereas 56 million years ago, it was a natural phenomenon -- although scientists are still not entirely sure what caused it. The Earth was experiencing massive tectonic upheavals at the time, which would have sparked volcanic activity, but that only accounts for a relatively minor release of carbon and subsequent small increase in global temperatures, even if a comet impact were added to the mix.

The most likely scenario is that the slight warming from those events, or from fluctuations in the Earth's orbit, caused methane hydrates to melt, releasing massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere. As the National Geographic article points out: "The hypothesis is alarming. Methane in the atmosphere warms the Earth over 20 times more per molecule than carbon dioxide does, then after a decade or two, it oxidizes to CO2 and keeps on warming for a long time."

Methane hydrates are ice-like water molecules that form around a molecule of methane. In cold temperatures and under high pressure, they remain stable. Large deposits lie under the Arctic and the seafloor. Scientists believe the current warming could be enough to release these extremely potent greenhouse gases.

Swedish geologist Birger Schmitz, who has studied the PETM science, told National Geographic that we can either wait to see what the result of such a large release will be, or we can look at what happened 56 million years ago. And what happened then "was a wholesale rearrangement of life."

Why would we undertake such a drastic experiment that threatens the survival of the human species when we have pretty good evidence of what the outcome will be? The main reason is that many of us are not willing to give up our newly acquired luxuries and economic systems regardless of the effects on ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, and all other life on the planet. We don't seem to be willing to slow down the pace of fossil fuel extraction and use while we shift to cleaner energy sources and more rational ways of living within this finite biosphere.

We have some tough choices to make. Science increasingly tells us that we must choose wisely and quickly.