As if we don’t have enough bad news these days, a group of international scientists is warning that most people don’t understand how serious biodiversity decline has become. “The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms—including humanity—is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp for even well-informed experts.” They go on to say, “Without fully appreciating and broadcasting the scale of the problems and the enormity of the solutions required, society will fail to achieve even modest sustainability goals.” Because the loss of biodiversity takes place over years, people don’t see its gravity and keep putting off action to stop it.

The sober warning comes in an article, Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future, in Frontiers in Conservation Science, an online journal on conservation management. It documents the huge changes humans have made to life on earth. We have altered about 70 percent of Earth’s land surface; the ocean’s large predatory fish are two-thirds gone; coral reefs have lost half their living mass. Humans and our livestock account for about 95 per cent of land animals on the planet by weight. The world’s wild populations of birds, mammals, fishes, reptiles, and amphibians have declined by an average of nearly 70 percent in just the last 50 years. “With such a rapid, catastrophic loss of biodiversity, the ecosystem services it provides have also declined. These include reduced carbon sequestration, reduced pollination, soil degradation, poorer water and air quality, more frequent and intense flooding and fires, and compromised human health.” With the steady increase in human population and consumption, the trends are worsening.

The 17 prominent academics and experts from the United States, Mexico and Australia call their report a “cold shower” to wake people up in time to head off disaster. They admit this will not be easy, given that many people still enjoy the status quo. The authors say we need fundamental changes to global capitalism, including the abolition of perpetual economic growth as it now exists. “These choices will necessarily entail difficult conversations about population growth and the necessity of dwindling but more equitable standards of living.”

According to a global panel of experts we have had, “a year ravaged by a global pandemic, economic downturn, political turmoil and the ever-worsening climate crisis.” What next? First, a struggle to recover. The impacts of COVID-19 “…threaten to scale back years of progress on reducing global poverty and inequality and further damage social cohesion and global cooperation.” What else? The experts list emerging risks to human health, rising unemployment, widening digital divides, youth disillusionment, and geopolitical fragmentation. But the biggest long-threat to our well-being is the steady, seemingly inexorable march of climate change. While the change seems steady, the panel worries that climate change will not be slow and even but will involve sudden and dramatic changes called tipping points, such as the release of frozen methane that could cause a spurt in global warming and a dramatic rise in sea levels. “We are on the path to triggering climate tipping points that could create runaway and irreversible damage that will be an existential threat to future generations.”

The Global Risks Report 2021 is the 16^th in a series of reports prepared every year for the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of the world’s rich, powerful, famous, knowledgeable and influential, including leaders from government, business, civil society and the media. This week, instead of gathering in the exclusive Swiss ski resort town of Davos, they, like millions of others, are holding virtual meetings. The economic forum was created in 1971 to introduce the American business management approach to European firms. It has evolved into a meeting to discuss critical global issues, including their impacts on business.

The report says the pandemic caused by one of the deadliest viruses in history is seen as relatively short term. However, “…the global economy will be threatened by the knock-on effects of the coronavirus crisis, while geopolitical stability will be critically fragile over the next 5 to 10 years.” These effects “…threaten to scale back years of progress on reducing global poverty and inequality and further damage social cohesion and global cooperation.” Problems facing the world are the huge debt crisis caused by countries borrowing to keep people afloat, a deepening digital divide as poor struggle for access to modern technology. In addition, “youth face new barriers to social mobility, strains on mental health, uncertain economic prospects and the continued degradation of the planet.” The crisis has caused terrible unemployment, especially affecting working women. It has put great strain on many fragile health systems. It has slowed down or even stopped education for millions of young.

The report warns it will take a historic effort to recover and to rebuild economies that keep people safe, healthy and employed but to redirect development to green economies, not just more of the old, polluting and environmentally destructive ways.

Which is really the most developed country in the world? For many years, economic output, measured as gross domestic product, has been used as a key measure of progress. Over the past three decades, the Human Development Index from the United Nations Development Programme [UNDP] has ranked the world’s nations based on composite of life expectancy, education, and per capita income. Using this scale, the top performers in the 2020 report are Norway, Ireland and Switzerland. They have long life expectancies [over 80 years], lots of education and high gross national income. But this year, the UNDP introduced a new experimental index on human progress that deducts points for countries’ environmental impacts: their carbon dioxide emissions and material footprint. With the new index, Norway dropped 15 places, Canada, which ranked 16^th on the regular scale, dropped 40 places and the United States, which was 17^th, dropped 45 places. All three countries are major fossil fuel producers.

This year’s Human Development Report, The Next Frontier: Human Development and the Anthropocene, warns that the success of nations has been tied to high resource use and pollution. Achim Steiner, the UNDP administrator, writes “…no country in the world has yet achieved very high human development without putting immense strain on the planet.” If this development path continues, he warns, humanity’s progress will grind to a halt. The report says human impacts on the planet are so great that they are changing the earth. We have climate change, loss of species, acidification of the ocean, loss of tropical forests and many forms of pollution. As a result, we are “lurching from crisis to crisis.” Mr. Steiner says that to “survive and thrive in this new age, we must redesign a path to progress that respects the intertwined fate of people and planet and recognizes that the carbon and material footprint of the people who have more is choking the opportunities of the people who have less.” The report said many of the problems are rooted in inequalities within and between countries, with roots in colonialism and racism. The rich get more of the benefits of exploiting nature and export the costs to the poor who are less able to deal with the resulting problems.

As the world starts taking climate change more seriously, business is betting on an electric future. According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, 73 countries, 398 cities, 768 businesses and 16 investors are working to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. Since fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal – account for 84 per cent of primary energy, there is a gigantic shift ahead. Hydroelectricity at 6.4 per cent is still the largest non-fossil source but there are limited places for it to expand. Nuclear power is at 4.3 per cent but its growth is limited by costs and safety concerns. Other renewables are where the action is. An article in Bloomberg Green proclaims “The New Energy Giants are Renewable Companies.” It says a handful of companies that have invested heavily in solar and wind energy are overtaking the big oil companies in terms of their market value. Renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuel power in many parts of the world, leading to a shift in investments. The cost of solar power has dropped by as much as 90 per cent in a decade and big investments will keep driving down the cost of renewables. The question is can we make the shift fast enough to bring down greenhouse gas emissions before the cause catastrophic climate change. It’s not certain. Many countries are still subsidizing the production and transport of fossil fuels more than they are investing in renewable energy. The United Nations says the world should be cutting production of oil, coal and natural gas by 6 per cent each year by 2030 to keep global temperatures from rising too high. Instead, countries are projecting annual increases of 2 per cent in fossil fuel production.

Over the past 50 years, I watched and written about governments struggling to deal with environmental problems, often caught between the interests of polluting companies and evidence of serious environmental damage and threats to human health. Over time governments brought in laws and regulations to control pollution and limit the overuse of natural resources. When it comes to the really big issues of our times, such as climate change, governments are facing unprecedented challenges. To deal with climate change they must curtail pollution from virtually every citizen. Many governments have promised to make dramatic cuts in greenhouse gases but are hesitating to bring in controls that will be unpopular with many. The use of “citizen assemblies” is an attempt to give permission to politicians to make tough choices. An article in Science, the journal of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, looks at the U.K. Climate Assembly. It was created by the British House of Commons and made up of 110 people randomly selected to reflect the age, education level, wealth and gender makeup of the general population. The group was given the task of identifying policies to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. They made a series of recommendations, including an early shift to electric vehicles and improvement of public transport, and higher taxes on frequent flyers. The question is how closely will the British government listen to the advice.

Denmark’s decision to kill its 15 million farmed mink because of COVID-19 infections is just the latest signal of how the way we deal with nature is putting our own health at risk. Earlier this month Denmark said a mutated form of the coronavirus had sickened 11 people. The origin of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China is believed to be from a wild animal market. Earlier this month, 22 experts with the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services warned, “Future pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than COVID-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases.” The group said that pandemics are triggered by the way humans push into wild areas and use wildlife, exposing us to previously unknown viruses. Pandemic risk can be significantly lowered by reducing the human activities that drive the loss of biodiversity, by greater conservation of protected areas, and through measures that reduce unsustainable exploitation of high biodiversity regions. This will reduce wildlife-livestock-human contact and help prevent the spillover of new diseases, says the report.

A global public opinion survey found people want to live more healthy lives and reduce their environmental impact but find it too difficult and expensive. The June survey of 27,000 people in 26 countries by GlobeScan wanted to find out what enables them or prevents people from living in a healthier and more sustainable way. It found people worried about COVID-19, the spread of diseases, climate change and the depletion of natural resources. More than 80 per cent are trying to improve their own health and well-being, and three-quarters want to reduce their impact on the environment and nature “by a large amount.” However, most are not ready to make the kind of changes experts say are needed to achieve sustainability. While half said they wanted to move to a more environmentally friendly lifestyle only 25 per cent they had made major changes to do so in the past year. People want change to be easy and less expensive. Younger people were more eager to make a significant effort to become healthier, more environmentally friendly, and more helpful to others.

Last week the Canadian government took a run at slowing the flood of plastic garbage in the environment when it announced a ban on a number of plastics by the end of next year. They include single-use items such as plastic checkout bags, straws, stir sticks, six-pack rings, cutlery, and food ware made from hard-to-recycle plastics. It is step toward a national goal of zero plastic waste by 2030, and is part of a push for industry to stop creating so much waste. This follows years of stories of a world flooded with plastic garbage, some of which breaks down into tiny particles that end up in our food, water and bodies. Every year, Canadians throw away 3 million tonnes of plastic waste. Only 9 per cent is recycled while the vast majority ends up in landfills. In 2019, Canada was publicly embarrassed when the Philippines and Malaysia shipped contaminated plastic waste back to Canada, saying it was unfit for recycling. This came a year after China banned importation of most foreign plastics for recycling.

Last week’s announcement draws from the Canada-wide strategy on zero plastic waste, an agreement among the federal, provincial and territorial governments. It seeks to reduce plastic waste and move used plastics into a circular economy. According to the Recycling Council of Alberta, “the current economy is linear, which means that things are made with raw materials, used and then disposed. In contrast, a circular economy keeps products and materials circulating within the economy at their highest value for as long as possible, through reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, sharing and delivering products as services.” Circular systems minimize input of raw resources and creation of waste by keeping materials in use rather than throwing them away.

The problem is that many plastics are hard to recycle. In the 1980s and 1990s plastics manufacturers were under fire for the amount of plastic garbage in the environment. Companies funded a number of plastic recycling operations. According to a story by National Public Radio in the United States, these were often a financial failure, but gave people the impression that something was being done even though much of the plastic went from recycling containers into garbage landfills. There a number of reasons. Sometimes the plastic is too contaminated with food waste or other materials to be worth cleaning to recycle. There are hundreds of types of plastic, and sometimes several are combined in one product, meaning waste materials have to be sorted before being melted down for a new use. Plastics will also degrade to lower quality when recycled, limiting their use. With low oil prices, it’s often cheaper to make new plastic.

Governments are putting more onus on industry to make changes at the design, collection and recovery stages of plastics. It may mean less stuff thrown into recycling bins and less confusion for people trying to figure out what they can and cannot recycle.

The United Nations was born in a time of crisis, in the aftermath of the Second World War, which killed tens of millions. The organization marks its 75^th anniversary during the COVID-19 crisis. It chose this time to conduct a survey of more than 1 million people around the world. It asked about their hopes and fears for the future, priorities for international cooperation and thoughts about the United Nations. The immediate priority of most respondents was improved access to health care, safe water and sanitation, and education. People also wanted greater international solidarity and increased support to those hardest hit by the pandemic. This includes tackling poverty, inequalities and unemployment. Looking ahead, most people worried about our inability to stop the climate crisis and the destruction of the environment. They also worried about poverty, corruption and violent conflicts     .

Fifty ways to save the planet. If you have one, you could win more than $1 million. It’s called the Earthshot Prize, announced this week by Prince William and David Attenborough, one of the world’s greatest environmental broadcasters. The first five prizes will focus on protecting and restoring nature, clean air, reviving oceans, building a waste-free world and fixing the climate. The goal is to draw ideas from people around the world over the next decade. Earthshot was inspired by U.S. president John F. Kennedy’s 1961 plan to put a human on the moon before the end of the decade, called a moonshot. It led to a host of inventions. Prince William said an Earthshot prize could go to a new technology, a new way of doing things or a new policy. There are 50 prizes of 1 million pounds to be awarded over the next decade, funded by a group of individuals, businesses and organizations. Prince William’s project echoes the work of his father, Prince Charles, a long-time environmentalist, and grandfather, the Duke of Edinburgh, who once president of the World Wildlife Fund.

Canada took a step closer to a circular economy on October 7 with a ban on some plastics and a plan is to encourage recycling of plastic by requiring recycled content in products and packaging. By the end of 2021 the federal government will join some its provinces and cities and a number of other countries with a crackdown on plastics that too often end up as garbage. The ban includes plastic checkout bags, straws, stir sticks, six-pack rings, cutlery, and food ware made from hard-to-recycle plastics. The move is part of a national goal of zero plastic waste by 2030. It will make producers and sellers of plastic products responsible for collecting them. One goal is to drive investment in recycling infrastructure and spur innovation in technology and product design to extend the life of plastic materials. Every year, Canadians throw away 3 million tonnes of plastic waste. Only 9 per cent is recycled while the vast majority goes into landfills. An estimated 29,000 tonnes ends up litter on fields and shorelines, chokes wildlife and breaks down into minute particles that end up in our food, water and our bodies. According to the Recycling Council of Alberta a circular economy, “keeps products and materials circulating within the economy at their highest value for as long as possible, through reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, sharing and delivering products and services.”

Time is running out for the future of species, including us, according to a survey of more than 1,800 environmental experts from around the world. People were asked to say how close to environmental midnight we were. As a global average the time was 9:47pm, with the greatest concern in North American where experts said we were at 10:33pm. The 29^th annual report on survival of humankind comes from the Asahi Glass Foundation in Japan is based on what it calls an Environmental Doomsday Clock. Biodiversity was the area where experts saw time running out fastest, followed by climate change. The other big issues were: society, economy and environment policies and measures; water resources; population; pollution; lifestyles (consumption habits); land use; and food. When it came to improvements, public awareness was listed most often as opposed to actual improvements.

Among the many problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is the huge increase in plastic being used and too often discarded into the environment. In recent years there has been a global movement to limit, even ban throwaway plastics. People have become alarmed about the amount contaminating our oceans and ending up as tiny particles in our food, water and bodies. With the pandemic came a sudden upsurge in single-use plastics as companies wrapped virtually everything in plastic.  An article in the Toronto Star by author Adria Vasil, who is managing editor of Corporate Knights magazine, does a great job of summing up the situation and possible solutions to our plastic waste problem.

Credit: University of Toronto

What are the most effective ways to reverse global warming? We can all come up with a list but is it the best list? In 2014 two Americans, Paul Hawken, author of The Ecology of Commerce, and climate activist Amanda Ravenhall, started Project Drawdown, an attempt to answer one of the most important questions in the world. They asked experts from around the world for a list of the most effective ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They got some obvious ones, such as more wind and solar power. Others that get less coverage, such as plant-rich diets [eat less meat], cutting food waste and better management of land, including croplands, pastures and forests, also ranked very high. Their website has a Table of Solutions showing how many tonnes of greenhouse gases would be cut or stored for each option. It should be a must-read for everyone, especially for government and business leaders looking for the most effective solutions for the greatest crisis we face.

In its report, Our Common Future, the World Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland Commission, said in 1987 that the world had to move to sustainable forms of development to avoid ecological collapse. In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which included the Earth Summit, produced Agenda 21, a 40-chapter guide for business and government policies, and for personal choices to put the world on a sustainable pathway. In 2015, the United Nations agreed on The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with 17 sustainable development goals and 169 specific targets. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has given clear targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the worst effects of climate change. So, we have widespread agreement on goals and targets. What we need is a detailed set of plans to build a sustainable world. We have known for years that we need to reduce our use of energy and materials and to try to recycle our old products. We can build more efficient, cars, buildings, have cleaner energy and less polluting food production. But to make these mainstream, more people must demand them. We need more innovation and leadership from business. Governments must set rules that make clean and green the norm not the exception. As we try to restart the economy after the COVID-19 pandemic, we have a chance to change direction and not return to business as usual.

The pandemic has forced us to face some unpleasant realities about the unsustainability of our world. For many years, I’ve written about widespread environmental degradation. Now we are seeing the harsh side of economic and social unsustainability. A story this spring said the richest Americans increased by $434 billion since the pandemic lockdown began in March. At the same time, millions of people were out of work, struggling to feed their families and pay their mortgages. Food banks were swamped with demand. Businesses were struggling and many were failing. In a number of countries, such as Canada, the majority of COVID-19 deaths have been in long-term care homes. Other groups that suffer more illness and death from the pandemic include the poor, the homeless and migrant farm workers, some of whom are crowded into dormitories where it is impossible to keep a safe space. The Brundtland report said we need environmental, economic and social sustainability together. As governments seek a post-pandemic development pathway they have an opportunity to create a cleaner, healthier and secure future. But, they will have to retire some old ideas about the marketplace solving society’s problems.

In a post COVID-19 world we will have a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a serious shift to sustainability. It’s clear that in the current world there is not enough appetite to save ourselves from ecological decline with all its knock-on effects of climate disasters, economic failures and great hardship for billions.

As we start to emerge from lockdowns we have an opportunity to reshape societies. There are two examples from the past century. The Great Depression of the 1930s closed companies and sent huge numbers of people lining up for soup kitchens and even killing themselves in desperation. In the United States, President Franklin D. Roosevelt launched The New Deal, which offered relief payments and public works jobs that helped reshape the country with new roads, buildings and power dams. It has long been cited as an example of how governments can save their citizens from economic collapses. At the end of the Second World War allied forces launched massive plans to rebuild shattered economies, to foster independent and democratic governments and to create a network of international institutions, including the United Nations. Now, we have another chance to rebuild society. The challenge is to make it a sustainable recovery. We need to avoid a repeat of the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis which saw governments investing in traditional projects such as coal-fired power plants, poorly insulated buildings and more roads.

Saying the COVID-19 pandemic has created “The biggest global economic shock in peacetime since the 1930s” the the International Energy Agency has produced a Sustainable Recovery Plan for a post-pandemic world. The 1 trillion USD a year program would increase wind and solar power, expand and improve electricity grids, increase cleaner transport, improve energy efficiency, make fuel production and use more sustainable, and boost innovation in clean energy. The report will be discussed next week at an online summit for countries producing the bulk of global greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to stop the increase in greenhouse gas emissions and bring them down to the levels set in the Paris Accord of 2016.

For an academic look at possible futures, the Great Transition Initiative has just published a series of articles under the heading, After the pandemic: Which Future? Thirteen world experts examine the risks of slipping into a fortress world, inequality, collective action, a chance to change mindsets and the problems of trying to create future scenarios. For many years this online forum of ideas and international network on a transition to sustainable development has been holding discussions on the risks, barriers and opportunities of sustainability.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given the world’s economy a giant shock. It grounded most of the world’s nearly 30,000 passenger and transport aircraft and putting some airlines out of business. Some 300 cruise ships, are either tied up or floating at sea waiting for permission to dock. Hundreds of millions of cars sit in driveways, parking lots or unsold on dealers’ lots. Factories have shut down and shopping centres closed. The result has been a giant cut in air pollution. The air in cities is cleaner than at any time in living memory.

But it is not a sustainable change. Billions of us have had our lives disrupted, and millions are in desperate straits. Unemployment is spiking to levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The World Food Programme says the lives and livelihoods of 265 million people in low and middle-income countries will be under severe threat unless swift action is taken to tackle the pandemic, up from a current 135 million.

The big question is what next? If we get a vaccine, which will probably not happen for many months, we will be able to go back to our former work and lifestyles. If the vaccine is delayed, then we will continue a gradual deconfinement with risks of more infections and possible closings. But, do we want to go back to old, unsustainable “normal?”

In May, some 350 organizations representing more than 40 million health care workers issued an open letter to G20 world leaders calling for a healthy recovery from COVID-19. They asked for “investments in pandemic preparedness, public health and environmental stewardship,” including renewable energy. They said air pollution already causes 7 million premature deaths a year in the world, and weakens people’s ability to fight off illness. “A truly healthy recovery will not allow pollution to continue to cloud the air we breathe and the water we drink. It will not permit unabated climate change and deforestation, potentially unleashing new health threats upon vulnerable populations.” For a number of years health experts have pointed out that racial minorities and the poor suffer most from air pollution, climate change and diseases, including COVID-19. There have been calls for what amounts to a more sustainable recovery that includes cuts in pollution and an approach to help people escape discrimination, poverty and the resulting ill health.

Many governments had already committed to a green shift, especially given their promises to fight climate change. The pandemic is seen as a possible turning point for a green rebuilding of economies around the world. In late May, the European Commission proposed a European Green Deal that would include billions of Euros a year to create a more circular economy that reduces waste, saying it has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs for Europeans and reduce foreign dependency. The green deal includes a Farm to Fork strategy to help the region’s farmers provide people with good and affordable food, and a Just Transition Strategy to help workers acquire new skills. The proposal calls for greater energy efficiency and green heating, renewable energy, clean cars, zero-emissions trains and the production of clean hydrogen fuel.

The COVID-19 pandemic has given the world’s economy a giant shock. It grounded most of the world’s nearly 30,000 passenger and transport aircraft and putting some airlines out of business. Some 300 cruise ships, are either tied up or floating at sea waiting for permission to dock. Hundreds of millions of cars sit in driveways, parking lots or unsold on dealers’ lots. Factories have shut down and shopping centres closed. The result has been a giant cut in air pollution. The air in cities is cleaner than at any time in living memory.

But it is not a sustainable change. Billions of us have had our lives disrupted, and millions are in desperate straits. Unemployment is spiking to levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The World Food Programme says the lives and livelihoods of 265 million people in low and middle-income countries will be under severe threat unless swift action is taken to tackle the pandemic, up from a current 135 million.

The big question is what next? If we get a vaccine, which will probably not happen for many months, we will be able to go back to our former work and lifestyles. If the vaccine is delayed, then we will continue a gradual deconfinement with risks of more infections and possible closings. But, do we want to go back to old, unsustainable “normal?”

In May, some 350 organizations representing more than 40 million health care workers issued an open letter to G20 world leaders calling for a healthy recovery from COVID-19. They asked for “investments in pandemic preparedness, public health and environmental stewardship,” including renewable energy. They said air pollution already causes 7 million premature deaths a year in the world, and weakens people’s ability to fight off illness. “A truly healthy recovery will not allow pollution to continue to cloud the air we breathe and the water we drink. It will not permit unabated climate change and deforestation, potentially unleashing new health threats upon vulnerable populations.” For a number of years health experts have pointed out that racial minorities and the poor suffer most from air pollution, climate change and diseases, including COVID-19. There have been calls for what amounts to a more sustainable recovery that includes cuts in pollution and an approach to help people escape discrimination, poverty and the resulting ill health.

Many governments had already committed to a green shift, especially given their promises to fight climate change. The pandemic is seen as a possible turning point for a green rebuilding of economies around the world. In late May, the European Commission proposed a European Green Deal that would include billions of Euros a year to create a more circular economy that reduces waste, saying it has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs for Europeans and reduce foreign dependency. The green deal includes a Farm to Fork strategy to help the region’s farmers provide people with good and affordable food, and a Just Transition Strategy to help workers acquire new skills. The proposal calls for greater energy efficiency and green heating, renewable energy, clean cars, zero-emissions trains and the production of clean hydrogen fuel.

Business is playing an ever more important role in a green shift. It is companies that produce wind turbines, solar panels, electric cars, organic food, green buildings and a huge array of products and services that can make the world better than it was. Last month, 155 companies with a combined market capitalization of over US$ 2.4 trillion and representing over five million employees signed a statement urging governments around the world to align their COVID-19 economic aid and recovery efforts with the latest climate science. The corporate chiefs called  on governments “to reimagine a better future grounded in bold climate action.” They said, “As we are setting ambitious corporate emission reduction targets through the Science Based Targets initiative and its Business Ambition for 1.5°C campaign, we remain committed to do our part to achieve a resilient, zero carbon economy. We are now urging governments to prioritize a faster and fairer transition from a grey to a green economy.”

Half a century ago environmental problems were visible, smelly and mostly local. Some rivers were so polluted with oil they caught fire or killed birds that landed on them. Smokestacks belched clouds of dust, chemicals and fine metal particles into the air. Toxic chemicals were openly dumped into lakes and rivers. Gaylord Nelson, an American senator from Wisconsin, pushed for a rally to focus attention on environmental problems. He recruited Dennis Hayes, a 25-year-old Harvard University student to organize what became a nation-wide rally on April 22, 1970. So many people turned out that it put pressure on politicians to pass a series of powerful environmental laws in the United States and later in countries around the world. Today, Earth Day has been somewhat pushed to the side by the COVID-19 crisis. But, it’s a good time to take stock and look ahead. Since 1970, most nations have created environment departments and laws. They have brought in controls on acid rain, ozone-depleting chemicals and a wide range of pollutants. Motor vehicles are much cleaner and more efficient. However, we are still sliding into a series of crises. More parks have been created and some species saved. Now, we face new problems. Climate change, which was unknown to the public in 1970, is the greatest single threat to our future. Despite some successes in reforestation, the world’s wildlands are still shrinking and driving more species toward extinction. The oceans are being polluted and overfished. New chemicals are threatening our health. Plastic pollution is in our food and water. It’s hard to look ahead another 50 years, but we can see building pressures. In 1970, there were about 3.7 billion people on Earth. Since then we have more than doubled the population to about 7.8 billion, and it is projected to be more than 10 billion by 2070. It will take a huge amount of resources and energy to feed, house, clothe, move and employ so many. As the population grows, we must also cut our use of fossil fuels which provide about 80 per cent of current energy, reduce pressures on fish and wilderness, and cut back on many forms of pollution. It will take a massive shift in attitudes and behaviour. The question facing humanity is whether the changes come because the environmental crises have become so severe that we are forced to react, or will we develop the foresight and will to move before the environmental hammer falls on us?

The greatest long-term challenge countries face is moving to a sustainable lifestyle. An article on the BBC website takes a look at countries that are doing well. Drawing from the Good Country Index, the BBC highlighted five countries that are tackling climate change. The highest ranking goes to Norway which runs almost entirely on hydro-electric power and has very high sales of electric cars, although it is also a major producer of oil. Portugal ranks high because of a large number of electric car charging stations and support for citizens to install renewable energy systems. Uruguay has become a leader for renewable energy and has been praised for its social and environmental policies. Kenya is already struggling with the effects of climate change, including more extreme weather and droughts. It has one of the world’s strongest bans on plastic bags. New Zealand also has controls on plastic bags, and is working for carbon neutrality although its large cattle and sheep farms produce methane, a greenhouse gas. While the list is not exhaustive, it gives an interesting perspective on how countries from around the world are trying to improve their environmental performance.