The world has made some progress on environmental sustainability mainly between 1990 and 2010, but there were also important losses. A new report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development gives a snapshot of how we are doing on Millennium Development Goal 7, Ensuring Environmental Sustainability. This is one of eight international development goals established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000. The report covers a large number of developing countries and some developed nations. It notes that there were many data gaps, making it difficult to give a comprehensive picture.

Among the positive findings:

• There was an important increase in access to safe driving water, particularly in China, India and the broader Eastern and Southern Asia region, but there was a decline in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Only 50 per cent of the world has access to proper sanitation.
• Almost 98 per cent of substances contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer have been phased out of production and use. Developed countries almost completely eliminated ozone-depleting substances, while developing countries made an 86 per cent reduction.

On the debit side:

• Forest area decreased from 32 per cent to 31 per cent globally between 1990 and 2010, with reduced forest quality. There were significant declines in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Southeastern Asia and Oceania.
• Global CO2 emissions grew from 21,550 to 31,387 million tonnes a year. From 1990-2010, developing nations increased their annual per capita emissions from 1.66 to 3.16 tonnes.
• Of 600 monitored marine fish stocks in 2009, 29 per cent were considered exploited beyond safe biological limits. (Only about 10 per cent of commercially valuable marine fisheries are monitored, mostly on an irregular basis.)
• About 30 per cent of the world experiences water stress due to shortages of fresh water.

And in a mixed finding, terrestrial and marine protected areas increased from 8.3 to 14 per cent between 1990 and 2012, mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, there was an increase in the number of species forecast to become extinct in the near future, particularly in northern Africa, West Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Every once in a while we get a sea change in how we deal with environmental problems. Finally we are getting that change for the control of greenhouse gases. Ontario announced it will join Quebec and California in a program called cap and trade. The provinces put limits or caps on industrial sources of greenhouse gas pollution. If some industries get below their emission limits they can trade (sell) their unused quota to other industries that find it cheaper to buy credits than control their pollution. The net result is total emissions have to go down.

The greenhouse gas controls are creating the biggest crackdown on a major air pollutant since the acid rain controls of 30 years ago. Recently, Ontario and Quebec chose to set limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2008, British Columbia has had a carbon tax on fossil fuels, and use of these fuels declined 16 per cent helping to cut the province’s emissions.

Under cap and trade, governments impose limits to carbon emissions, but they leave it up to the market to decide how the cuts will be made. Around the world countries are moving to various systems to put a price on carbon dioxide pollution as a way of encouraging people to reduce it.

There are many strong and well-established arguments for pricing carbon emissions. It is a basic economic principle that if something becomes more expensive you will use less of it. There more costly the pollution the more incentive to reduce it.

The sticking point has always been resistance from polluters. This has slowed government controls on carbon pollution for years. But there has been seismic shift. The public accepts that the climate is changing and we face severe risks. Very importantly, a number of major industries have agreed on the need for pollution cuts.

A panel discussion held at the Toronto Stock Exchange in early April provided a glimpse of those changes. There were two hosts. One was Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission www.ecofiscal.ca, a highly credible group calling for governments at all levels to use market-based approaches to discourage pollution and to encourage innovation. The other was the Cement Association of Canada, whose members are an important source of greenhouse gases. Along with Michael McSweeney, president of the cement association, panelists included David Paterson, vice-president of Corporate and Environmental Affairs for GM Canada, and Craig Alexander, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist for the TD Bank. What was most important was that all three business leaders on the panel were agreeing on the need for a price on carbon. This is an important signal to governments that they can move without getting too much pushback from business.

The event was another important move by the ecofiscal commission www.ecofiscal.ca, which was created last year with the goal of promoting “practical fiscal solutions for Canada” that lead to economic and environmental prosperity.

The Ecofiscal Commission is chaired by McGill University economist Chris Ragan, who has worked at the Bank of Canada and the federal finance department. The very diverse advisory board includes leaders from the business and financial sectors, the environmental movement, and former political leaders.

For the first time in some 4.5 billion years, one species – us – is consciously changing the planet Earth.

Our nuclear fallout, carbon emissions, forest clearing, agriculture, urbanization, elimination of other species, erosion and releases of a vast array of chemicals are making the world a different place from the one that evolved naturally.

Close to half of the planet’s ice-free surface is used for agriculture and urban development. Our impacts in the atmosphere are huge. Greenhouse gases released in ever greater amounts are raising the world’s temperature and making the oceans more acidic. Our chemicals have chewed a hole in the protective ozone layer.

We humans have been making some changes to the planet for thousands of years, probably starting with the use of fire to clear landscapes for hunting. Major changes started to build with the industrial revolution, dating back to the 1700s. But the “great acceleration” of impacts began in the 1950s when human population and activities began a rapid expansion, aided by new technologies.

Geologists categorize the past into eons, eras, periods and epochs, based on how the planet has changed, based on the fossils and minerals found in layers of rocks. According to the International Union of Geological Sciences we are now in the Holocene epoch that began at the end of the last ice age, about 11,700 years ago.

Because human impacts are so great, and many will be so long lasting, scientists are looking at declaring a new geologic epoch, the Anthropocene, http://www.anthropocene.info, a period defined by human impacts on the planet.

What does this mean for sustainability? It’s simply another warning – a big one – that human impacts on our world are huge, long lasting and many are dangerous for our future. It lays out the challenge of bringing our lifestyles within planetary boundaries in a very powerful fashion.

The Canadian debate about how to change economic performance to reduce environmental damage has often been chaotic and sometimes downright nasty.

Many experts have proposed changes in economic policies to cut environmental impacts. They have often been ignored by governments that find the ideas too difficult to deal with, or attacked by politicians who refuse to accept ideas contrary to their ideology.

So, despite some important changes in business behaviour, many of our environmental problems are worsening. For example, Canada’s total greenhouse gases emissions are forecast to keep rising, despite federal government promises to reduce them.

That’s why it’s refreshing to see a high-powered and highly credible group calling for governments at all levels to use market-based approaches to discourage pollution and to encourage innovation.

Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission www.ecofiscal.ca says we need to put a price on pollution. We can use the revenue to generate economic benefits, by reducing corporate and personal income taxes, returning money to low-income households, or investing in technology or critical infrastructure.

The relatively new commission says there are many examples of other countries using ecofiscal policies to deal with water conservation, air pollution, traffic congestion and carbon emissions. These policies lead to innovation and greater business competitiveness.

The Ecofiscal Commission is chaired by McGill University economist Chris Ragan, who has worked at the Bank of Canada and the federal finance department. The very diverse advisory board includes such people as former Quebec premier Jean Charest, former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin, and the Reform Party’s founding leader Preston Manning. It includes Steve Williams, chief executive at Canada’s largest oil company, Suncor Energy Inc., Peter Robinson, head of one of the country’s major environmental organizations, the David Suzuki Foundation, and Sheila Watt-Cloutier, past chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council.

Their core idea is not new. Economists have long recommended taxing “bads” such as pollution, while reducing taxes on “goods” such as investments and savings. What is new is that such a prominent group of experts are uniting behind the idea. Their credibility will make it harder for governments to ignore their advice.

They have a perfect homegrown example. Since 2008, British Columbia has had a carbon tax on fossil fuels, and used the revenue to reduce personal and business taxes. Since then per capita consumption of those fuels has dropped in the province, while continuing to rise in the rest of Canada. British Columbia’s economic growth slightly outperformed the rest of the country.

We have known for years that we have to drastically reduce fossil fuel use to avoid catastrophic climate change. It is the most important sustainability challenge the world has ever faced.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report, in 2014, said: “The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, and sea level has risen.” It predicted more heat waves and other weather extremes. The seas will become warmer, more acid and will continue to rise. The IPCC called for “…substantial emissions reductions over the next few decades, and near zero emissions of carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gases by the end of the century.”

The majority of nations have accepted the advice of the IPCC, and agreed on a target of limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees C.

What does this mean?

Previous studies have estimated that about two-thirds of readily accessible fossil fuels need to be left in the ground before 2050 to stay within this limit.

A recent study funded by the UK Energy Research Centre came up with more specific estimates. In the publication Nature authors Christope McGlade and Paul Ekins wrote that globally, a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80 per cent of current coal reserves should remain unused from 2010 to 2050 in order to avoid exceeding the 2 C target. They say specifically that development of fossil fuels in the Arctic and increased unconventional oil production, such as Canada’s oil sands, go against promises to limit global warming.

The paper highlights a huge contradiction in how the world is approaching the biggest environmental problem. With current energy patterns, we are headed for a 5C warming this century, which is predicted to cause huge environmental and social problems. Despite decades of warnings, going back at least to the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere, held in Toronto in 1988, fossil fuel industries continue to expand the supply, often with government subsidies.

Fossil fuels are the major source of global greenhouse gas emissions. These fuels­—coal, oil and natural gas­—still account for more than 80 per cent of global commercial energy. Mr. Ekins said companies spent over $670 billion last year searching for and developing new fossil fuel resources. By comparison, $214 billion was invested in renewable power and fuels in 2013, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. In 2013, the International Energy Agency estimated that consumer subsidies for fossil fuels amounted to $548 billion, while subsidies for renewable energy amounted to $121 billion. Renewables, including biofuels, biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind, only account for about 13 per cent of the world’s commercial energy.

All of us who are writers and who depend on the right of free expression must react against the murder of 12 people, journalists and their police guards, killed at and around the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris today.

Freedom of expression is the oxygen of democracies. Murdering the messenger is an attack on one of our basic rights.

As a former journalist, I have lost brothers in arms in the battle for free speech. We are all at risk of losing a fundamental freedom unless we stand up for free speech.

We must all be Charlie.

It’s time for some good news. On Sunday, more than two weeks of negotiations by 194 countries in Lima, Peru ended with the elements of a climate change agreement scheduled to be completed in Paris in December 2015. By next spring, nations are to produce national plans for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.

Last month, China and the United States, the world’s largest and second-largest carbon polluters, reached a historic accord. The United States promised to emit 26-28 per cent less carbon in 2025 than it did in 2005. China pledged to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, if not sooner. This helped set a more positive tone for Lima.

The Lima agreement was the latest in a series of global meetings, starting with the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in Toronto in 1988, and including the 1987 Kyoto Protocol, with its promise by a number of developed nations to cut emissions. The Lima meeting is important because it kept the onus for emission cuts on richer nations, but also called for contributions in the fight against climate change from developing countries whose emissions are growing.

While many critics say the world has yet to commit to reduce emissions enough to prevent serious global warming, these are major steps. The world is still seriously tied to fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas — which provide more than 80 per cent of commercial energy.

The challenge is to move to renewable energy before greenhouse gas emissions make the world a lot less habitable for humans and other species. There are fears of reaching a tipping point in the climate that will bring severe weather shifts, rising sea levels, and severe effects on human health and the economy.

Who knew that it takes 10,000 litres (that’s 1 tonne) of water to produce a pair of jeans and a T-shirt? Most of that is to grow the cotton. Even a cup of coffee takes 140 litres of water, mainly to grow the beans. A burger with that? There’s another 2 tonnes of water, mainly to grow feed for the beef.

How about a bottle of water? Ironically, it takes 5 litres of water to make the plastic water bottle.

Facts and figures like that are not just entertaining. They can shape our decisions about what and how to consume. They help us to measure our level of sustainability.

These are just a few of huge number of facts and figures that fellow environment writer Stephen Leahy has collected in his new book, Your Water Footprint, published by Firefly Books.

In water-rich countries like Canada, increasing water consumption puts stress on watersheds. The energy needed to purify, pump and carry away used water pushes up energy demands. For many countries in drier regions, water is scarce, creating problems for food production and development. Their situation will worsen as the world population grows, and as climate change brings warmer temperatures. By 2050, more than half the world is forecast to live in regions of limited water supplies.

Already, there are periodic water shortages in the United States, particularly in the dry southern regions, known as the Sun Belt.

If we are to green the economy, can we use pricing to encourage people to reduce pollution? Why not tax pollution?

Recently, the prime ministers of Canada and Australia attacked the idea of carbon taxes and emissions trading as ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saying these hurt the economy.

In an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail, Munir Sheikh, Canada’s former chief statistician, did a study that found no evidence for these claims. Mr. Sheikh looked at the performance of several industrialized countries that rely on environmental taxes.

He writes that countries with high environmental taxes scored better than Canada on environmental, as well as social and economic indicators. While Canada has a high GDP per capita, it has the second worst labour productivity growth. On income inequality Canada and the United States rank at the bottom of the list, with Denmark and Norway at the top.

The former head of Statistics Canada says his study shows that putting taxes on pollution will not destroy the economy and “that environmental goals are achievable at the same time as economic and social goals.”

He adds his voice to those of such organizations as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which have called on countries to use carbon pricing to reduce emissions and therefore the impacts of a changing climate.

Within Canada, there is some carbon taxation. A British Columbia carbon tax began in 2008, offset by reductions in other taxes. According to the BC government: “The carbon tax puts a price on carbon emissions to encourage individuals, businesses, industry and others to use less fuel and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.” Since 2008, fuel use for transportation in BC has dropped, and the provincial economy has continued to grow. Quebec also has a carbon tax, but it does not have as much impact.

Climate change is one of the greatest threats to sustainability because it will destabilize much in our lives and economies.

Rainfall patterns are already changing, often with more severe and damaging storms. Sea levels are rising and rivers are more prone to flash floods before running drier. Warmer temperatures are forcing many species to move, and hasten the spread of diseases. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned the impacts of climate change may exceed the ability of societies to adapt.

Two reports give both the downside and suggestions for solutions.

Canada in a Changing Climate: Sector Perspectives on Impacts and Adaptation says the average temperature in Canada rose 1.5 C between 1950 and 2010. At the same time there was greater average precipitation in many areas.

This report was led by Canada’s natural resources department, and was written by 90 authors, had 115 expert reviewers and synthesized more than 1,500 recent publications. It looks at natural resources, food production, industry, biodiversity, protected areas, human health, and water and transportation.

Among key points:

• Canada’s climate is changing, with observed changes in air temperature, precipitation, snow and ice cover and other indicators. Further changes in climate are inevitable.
• Changes in climate are increasingly affecting Canada’s natural environment, economic sectors and the health of Canadians.
• Extreme weather events are a key concern for Canada and there is growing confidence that some types of extreme events will increase in frequency and/or intensity as the climate continues to warm.
• Adaptation is an essential response to climate change.

It forecasts more climate extremes (e.g. heat, cold, precipitation) and gradual changes, such as permafrost degradation, sea level rise and plant species migration.

Climate change will affect resource supply, notably forestry and hydroelectricity. Despite the growing threats, business is not paying attention. “Climate change itself is rarely identified as a priority concern, with industry focused on other immediate stressors, such as economic drivers.”

It will affect food supplies, with increased losses from invasive pests and diseases, and more extreme weather. A warmer climate may allow a modest increase in food production.

Health will be affected. For example, climate-sensitive diseases, such as Lyme disease are moving northward into Canada and will likely continue to expand their range. Research suggests climate change will worsen air pollution in some parts of Canada.

There are already increases in floods and wildfires.

Changes are becoming so profound that some tourism operators are considering promoting “last chance tourism,” offering people a chance to see landscapes, such as glaciers and species, before they decline or disappear.

The report states that we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but it is already too late to stop some changes, due to inertia in the climate system. This means we have to adapt to a changing climate.

The report comes at a time when there are plans to greatly expand the development of oil sands in western Canada, which would increase global greenhouse gas emissions.

Another report presents a roadmap to try to avoid a climate catastrophe, prescribing specific actions for the world’s biggest economies to sharply reduce emissions.

Pathways to deep decarbonization, was published by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations.

Independent teams were assembled from 15 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States. In total they produce 70 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The reports lays out ways these countries can transition to low-carbon economies as part of an effort to help the world meet the internationally-agreed target of limiting global warming to less than 2 degrees C.

The analyses for the 15 countries show three pillars for the deep decarbonization of energy systems:

• Greatly increased energy efficiency and energy conservation by all energy users, including buildings, transport and industry.
• The decarbonization of electricity, by harnessing renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, as well as nuclear power, and/or the capture and sequestration of carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning.
• Replacing the fossil fuels that drive transport, heating and industrial processes with a mix low-carbon electricity, sustainable biofuels and hydrogen.

The decarbonization paths rely on assumptions about countries’ ability to use new technologies on a commercial scale economically. For instance, carbon capture and storage is supposed to be available starting in about 10 years. Second-generation biofuels are assumed to come into play by 2020. Hydrogen fuel cells and power storage technology are expected to be deployed starting around 2030.

A recent study found that Ontarians are getting a better education, and have safer communities, but are more time-stressed and insecure in their jobs.

The report, How Are Ontarians Really Doing?, is the latest from The Canadian Index of Wellbeing https://uwaterloo.ca/canadian-index-wellbeing/ an independent organization based at the University of Waterloo. Traditionally, it produces national reports, but this report focuses on Ontario, comparing it to national figures from 1994 to 2010. It was commissioned by the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

Traditionally, societies measure how they are doing in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or employment rates, which are economic measures. The well-being report looks at these plus social and environmental factors.

This report found that during the 17-year period, national GDP increased by about 29 per cent, but national well-being increased by only 7.5 per cent. In Ontario, the increases were 24 per cent for GDP and 7 per cent for well-being.

Although the data is several years old, it still provides insights into trends that have probably not changed a lot.

During that period, Canada went through a number of economic cycles, and Ontario in particular is still suffering from loss of manufacturing and food processing jobs following the last recession. This led to a decline in living standards, a growing income gap, volatility in long-term unemployment and lower job quality. Read the rest of this entry »

When we think of innovations, we often think of the latest airliner, smartphone or flat screen TV. These bring many benefits, jobs and pleasure, but rarely make the world more sustainable.

One of Canada’s top business innovators has said the Canadian government needs to do more to help the country innovate its way to sustainability. Jim Balsillie is co-founder and former co-CEO of Research in Motion (now BlackBerry), and founder and chair of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, an international governance think tank.

In a speech to an International Institute for Sustainable Development meeting in Toronto earlier this year, Mr. Balsillie said the government needs to do more to foster the development of sustainable development technologies. He said Canada has strengths in public policy, but they are not harnessed for sustainability. He proposed Canada’s “Own the Podium” strategy that brought Olympic success as a model for organizing resources and energy for sustainable business development.

Read the rest of this entry »

Guest blog By David Letteney

As renewable energy is playing a larger role in the world’s energy mix there is a clear trend that sports clubs are starting to use green energy as a way to reduce costs, create positive public relations and show they want to reduce their pollution and carbon footprints.

This is significant because sports events, sports clubs, and individual sportspersons have tremendous power to influence. Billions of people watch the world cup, and the Olympics incorporate almost every nation on the planet. Home teams dominate the local news, and the local news media surround local players, hanging on their every word. As Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defence Council stated, “Thirteen per cent of Americans follow science, Sixty-one per cent follow sports. If you want to change the world, you have to go where the people are.”

This change in the use of renewable energy in sport can be traced from the last World Cup, the Olympics, English football, U.S. college football, the U.S. National Football League, tennis, hockey and even professional motor racing.
Read the rest of this entry »

Sustainability is about integrating economic, social and environmental decisions. One of the popular images is of a three-legged stool. For stability you need the three legs to be equal. Dealing with greenhouse gases and climate change is the greatest test of the world’s willingness and ability to find ways to successfully integrate the different needs and interests.

The next attempt comes during annual U.N. climate talks in Warsaw on November 11-22. The aim is for representatives from some 200 nations to hammer out a deal on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in time to prevent catastrophic climate change.

The betting is that they won’t be able to do it. Economic development interests are likely to once more trump the need for a safe and stable climate system. The economic leg of the stool will take precedence. A recent report from the United Nations Environment Programme said global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising, instead of falling back to a safe level. In Canada, for example, rising emissions from oil sands production means this country is headed to miss another of its targets for greenhouse gas reductions. Other nations, such as China and India, are still expanding their use of coal, the most greenhouse gas intensive of the fossil fuels.

Economic growth takes priority in virtually all nations. Developed countries are preoccupied with trying to restart economies hard hit by the financial collapses of 2008. Unemployment is still high in most of these nations. Developing countries are still trying to grow their economies to lift more of their citizens out of poverty, another major goal of sustainable development.

The answer, of course, is to make a rapid transition to energy sources that do not release greenhouse gases, but this is costly, and will take decades even if the money is there. The world needs to agree on a rapid and economically costly project to speed the transition away from energy sources that release greenhouse gases. It would include not only major shifts on spending within countries, but very large financial and technology transfers from richer to poorer nations so they do not build their economies on pillars of pollution.

Can nations make this kind of agreement? We’ll see.

Many of the benefits of moving to sustainability will go to future generations. The title of the seminal Brundtland Report of 1987 is Our Common Future.

An article in Time by Bryan Walsh looks at how planning for the long term often goes against the grain of human nature. He uses a study of investing in climate change as an example.

Stopping or at least slowing climate change means a radical shift away from the relatively cheap fossil fuels that move us around, heat our homes and power much of the global economy. The economic cost of the transition would fall mainly on our shoulders, while much of the benefit would be avoiding costs for future generations.

Walsh says that “…climate policy asks the present to sacrifice for the future,” but humans are not very good at that kind of planning. He notes that many people have not even been able to set aside enough money for a decent retirement.

His bottom line: we better look for climate policies that also bring benefits in the short term, noting that reducing fossil fuel consumption will also bring cleaner air and better health.

The line “What have future generations done for me?” needs to be taken seriously. While people do care about their children’s’ future, their focus is mainly on the short term. Sustainability policies must take this into account or they risk getting shelved.

A global survey of concern about the impact of environmental change on humanity’s future shows ongoing concern, with little change over the past year.

The Asahi Glass Foundation in Japan calculated the responses of more than 1,300 environmental experts selected from governments, academic institutions, NGOs, corporations and mass media. They were asked to measure their sense of crisis “about the continuance of the human race as the global environment continues to deteriorate.” They measured their level of concern in terms of minutes to midnight on the Environmental Doomsday Clock.

Environmental Doomsday Clock

This is the latest survey by the foundation, which started in 1992, when the clock only read 7:49 pm. This year it moved to 9:19 pm.

It is useful to look at the regional differences. The greatest levels of concern were from North America and Oceania. The latter is no surprise given fears that sea level rise from global warming will make some low-lying islands uninhabitable. The lowest concern levels were in Asia and the Middle East.

Some of the most interesting reading is in the comments from people surveyed. Some make very specific recommendations. Others call for a fundamental rethink of how we consume.

The Asahi Foundation’s Environmental Doomsday Clock is modeled on the Doomsday Clock, created by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 1947 to represent the threat of nuclear war to human survival. More recently it has also reflected other risks, such as climate change.

You can see the modern, industrialized and globalized food system every time you walk into a supermarket. There are stacks of fresh foods stuffed into plastic boxes. Meat, vegetables and fruits come from around the world: lamb from New Zealand, grapes from Chile, apple juice from China, strawberries from California and so on.

What most people do not see is the ecological impact of a food system based on ever-larger farms growing single crops and maintained with huge machines. The system uses lots of fossil fuels and synthetic chemicals. It emits large amounts of greenhouse gases, both in production and transportation. It causes from soil erosion and soil compaction from the heavy machinery, and its monoculture crops are vulnerable to pest attacks.

In the short term it delivers lots of cheap food, but this kind of agriculture is not sustainable in the long term. Like so much in “western” society, it is about short-term profits, with little regard for its long-term viability.

At the same time population increase will increase pressures on our food supplies. We are now more than 7 billion and adding nearly 80 million a year. Countries like India and China, each with more than 1 billion people, are starting to move to a meatier, more resource-intensive diet.

The UN projects a global population of more than 9 billion by 2050. Will we be able to feed ourselves? Can we do it with a sustainable food system based on ecological agriculture?

These are central questions in Consumed: Food for a finite planet, the latest book by my friend Sarah Elton.

Elton says the present system of industrial agriculture must be dismantled and replaced with small-scale local and urban organic agriculture. She says we need sustainable food systems that maintain soil health, conserve water, reduce soil erosion and conserve biodiversity by leaving habitat for other species. She calls for a return to pasture-based farming even though this will mean a sharp reduction in meat supply, but adds that we eat too much meat now.

Elton calls for a “…a good, clean and fair food system.” She says farmers must earn a living wage. “We cannot continue to exploit farmers so the rest of us can eat cheap food.”

A well-established writer and broadcaster on food issues, she tackled food in 2010 with her book Locavore, promoting the local food movement in Canada.

With Consumed she goes for the global scale, asking, “How will we feed ourselves in 2050?” She looked for answers in local food systems on four continents, telling stories of small-scale organic farmers, thriving regional food cultures and resurgent grassroots organizations.

In India, she visits an organic bazaar in Aurangabad and talks to a woman who abandoned fossil fuel-based fertilizers to go organic, becoming self-sufficient and financially secure.

In China’s Yunnan province, she shows us 2000-year-old rice paddy terracing that still works.

In the Aubrac region in south central France, we encounter a thriving rural community that produces the prized Laguiole cheese, using traditional techniques.

In the Charlevoix region on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, Elton finds a herd of Canadiennes, descendants of the cattle brought to North America by French settlers four centuries ago. This is a story of preserving genetic diversity at time when industrial agriculture is focussing on just a few breeds.

Elton is a good storyteller, serving up a dish of both science and human interest stories. She shows people trying to farm in a sustainable way, and make a decent living. Consumed opens the door to a badly needed discussion about how we are going to provide healthy food to more people without running down the planet at the same time.

The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is another signal that we are on a dangerous track away from sustainability.

Climate Change 2013: the Physical Science Basis, says human actions have driven atmospheric concentrations of climate warming carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide to levels not seen in at least 800,000 years. Carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 40 per cent since pre-industrial times, primarily from fossil fuel emissions, as well as land use changes, such as deforestation. The ocean has absorbed about 30 per cent of the CO2, causing ocean acidification, which threatens marine life.

This comes from the Fifth Assessment Report on climate change by the IPCC. It is based on millions of observations and 9,200 scientific publications.

Global temperature increase

It says: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The atmosphere and ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has risen, and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased. Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease in extent.”

The world’s top climate scientists warned the planet is committed to centuries of a changed climate, even if emissions stop now. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions.

A changing climate means the world faces a series of risks.

Over the past few decades there have been more heat waves and heavy rainfalls in parts of the world. Thomas Stocker, co-chair of an IPPC Working Group said, “Heat waves are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As the Earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions receiving more rainfall, and dry regions receiving less, although there will be exceptions.”

His remarks came after the worst flooding in Alberta’s history, a flash flood that shut down traffic, including a train, in Toronto, and floods in Colorado that killed a number of people.

Over the last two decades, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have been shrinking at an increasing rate, glaciers have continued to decline almost worldwide, and Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to decrease. As the ocean warms, and glaciers and ice sheets shrink, global sea level will continue to rise, but at a faster rate than over the past 40 years. This will lead to more coastal flooding.

Research ship Tara sails around the Arctic, 2013

As if to add an exclamation point to the IPCC report, a large freighter sailed through the Northwest Passage this fall. The Nordic Orion carried a load of coal (which releases greenhouse gases when burned) from Vancouver, bound for Finland. This summer and fall the Tara, a sailing yacht doing scientific research, circumnavigated the Arctic, finishing by the Northwest Passage. It is operated by a French non-profit environmental organization.

Two recent statements from the International Energy Agency (IEA) do not bode well for the critical energy and sustainability file.

The IEA’s World Energy Outlook Special Report, Redrawing the Energy-Climate Map warns that greenhouse gas emissions are still too high. “The world is not on track to limit the global temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius,” stated the Paris-based source of expertise on global energy.

The IEA estimates there was a 1.4 per cent increase in global energy-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2012, reaching a record high of 31.6 billion tonnes.

In May, CO2 levels in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million for the first time in several hundred thousand years.

According to the IEA, “The weight of scientific analysis tells us that our climate is already changing and that we should expect extreme weather events (such as storms, floods and heat waves) to become more frequent and intense, as well as increasing global temperatures and rising sea levels. Policies that have been implemented, or are now being pursued, suggest that the long-term average temperature increase is more likely to be between 3.6°C and 5.3°C.”

IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven lamented that “Climate change has quite frankly slipped to the back burner of policy priorities. But the problem is not going away – quite the opposite.”

She said the energy-climate report maps out four energy policies that can deliver significant emissions reductions by 2020, using existing technologies that have already been adopted successfully in several countries:

• Greater energy efficiency measures in buildings, industry and transport.
• Limiting the construction and use of the least-efficient coal-fired power plants.
• Halving expected methane (a potent greenhouse gas) releases into the atmosphere from oil and gas industries.
• Reducing fossil fuel consumption subsidies.

In another report, http://iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2013/may/name,38080,en.html, the IEA said a surge in North American oil production is helping to increase the world supply of fossil fuels. This is the result of new technologies, such as hydraulic fracturing, which provide access to large amounts of oil and gas that were previously trapped in rock formations.

In the past, there have been predictions that the world would run short of fuel, but the limit to production may not be one of supply, but of pollution. How much climate change is the world willing to endure?

Inertia, call it laziness, has long been seen as one of the great barriers to a transition to sustainability. People can be slow to change to greener options when the benefits are longer term, and the change may take some effort and introduce some uncertainty.

Cass R. Sunstein, a former U.S. government administrator, says that too often people continue practices that are hard on the environment simply because this is the way they have always done things. Mr. Sunstein says society needs to change the default rules so that the normal option for many decisions is a greener one.

As a simple example, he said a university switched the default setting on its printers to double-sided printing and saved more than seven million sheets of paper in one semester. He recommends applying this type of approach to issues like energy, where people would automatically be signed up for green energy unless they opted out.

He said this is a way to help overcome our normal inertia, procrastination and fear of losing something by making changes.

In an article in The Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/what-if-we-were-green-by-default/article11579431/ he wrote: “Green default rules have the advantage of maintaining freedom of choice, but they also promise to protect the environment, save money, increase energy independence and reduce energy use. They ensure that, if people do nothing at all, they will act in an environmentally friendly fashion.”

He said that green default rules may be a more effective tool for altering outcomes than large economic incentives, but need to be chosen in a way that considers people’s welfare as well as the environment, and does not unfairly impose costs on people who will have a hard time paying.

Mr. Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School, was the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012. He also co-authored a longer paper, Automatically Green: Behavioral Economics and Environmental Protection, with Lucia Reisch of the Copenhagen Business School.

It can be found on the Social Science Research Network at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2245657.