Trevor Hancock, Author at Creatively United Community

Article, Energy, Housing, & Buildings

Too often, politics is focused on the short term. We see it everywhere: Support for clear-cutting the last stands of old-growth forest, fishing to the last fish, maintaining and even expanding the fossil-fuel industry — the list goes on. Only when it is almost too late do we act — and not always even then.

Doughnut Economy Means Not Spending $100M on Interchange

Courtesy of the Times Colonist Photo: Housing should be moderately intensified, writes Trevor Hancock, not through high-rises but by sensitive in-filling to create moderate-priced housing in walkable neighbourhoods, as with a gentle densification housing project... Read More

Our economic system needs to recognize the price – and value – of nature

A cynic, Oscar Wilde wrote, is someone who “knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” On that basis, our dominant economic system — corporate capitalism — is beyond cynical. It takes Wilde’s aphorism one giant step further because it doesn’t even know or take into account the price of everything, never mind recognize and account for that which is priceless.

Achieving Human Potential is True Prosperity

Article, Zero Waste & Circular Economy

Last week, I suggested that true prosperity is doughnut-shaped, but I did not define what I mean by true prosperity, nor what Doughnut Economics means for this region. I will explore the first of these topics this week and the second next week. One understanding of... Read More

True Prosperity is Doughnut-Shaped

It will come as no surprise to fans of the British satirical fantasy writer Tom Holt that economics has something to do with doughnuts. In his YouSpace series, a doughnut is the wormhole to an alternate reality, a parallel universe inhabited by elves, goblins, gnomes, dwarves and other fairytale characters who are ripe for exploitation.

The 2021 Conversations Program

Article, Arts, Community, & Inclusivity, Nature & Conservation

Our Conversations in 2021 will be focusing more on imagining and starting to design and create a One Planet Region, exploring what local and personal and actions are needed and the policy changes needed to support those actions.

We Need to Learn From Indigenous People How to be Stewards of Nature

Article, Arts, Community, & Inclusivity, Nature & Conservation

The 2019 Human Development Report from the UN focused on inequalities in the Human Development Index, but did not look at an inequality that is particularly important in Canada: the HDI of Indigenous people. Happily, Indigenous Services Canada has done this, at the request of the Assembly of First Nations, although only for “Registered Indians,” which misses Inuit and Métis people.

Canada’s Heavy Ecological Footprint Hurts Its Human-Development Ranking

Article, Nature & Conservation, Zero Waste & Circular Economy

Last week, I quoted from a Dec. 2 speech by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on the state of the planet. It made for grim reading, but it is the reality we need to face. Mr. Guterres did not end on a pessimistic note, however. Instead, he pointed to many indications of opportunity and hope.

To heal the planet, we need to embrace solutions that are already here

On Dec. 2, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres gave an important if somewhat overlooked speech at Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum on the state of the planet. Guterres was blunt: “To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken,” he said. “Humanity is waging war on nature” – and that is “suicidal.”

New Year’s resolutions, and how we choose the right recovery

Article, Arts, Community, & Inclusivity, Zero Waste & Circular Economy

First, and very obviously, a wish that might actually come true in 2021: That COVID-19 be over. If the vaccines are as good as promised, and if we can vaccinate around 60 to 70 per cent of the population there is a good chance we can return to something like normal.

The Cult of Individualism is Toxic

I suggested last week that our society is remarkably immature in its approach to life. Central to this is an exaggerated form of individualism that has achieved a cult-like status. With that comes an acquisitive, greedy and selfish culture that really doesn’t care about other people or about nature.

Education for life: Creating a more mature society in the 21st century

In exploring the German concept of bildung and the Nordic experience of folk-bildung I am indebted to a lengthy 2018 overview by Jonathan Reams of the 2017 book The Nordic Secret by Lene Andersen and Tomas Björkman.

Cultural evolution and value shift – Towards a sustainable, just and healthy future

Article, Arts, Community, & Inclusivity, Food & Health

We may be talking about and even acting on climate change — even though our actions usually fall short of our words — but we are not yet talking seriously about the far greater challenge of living as if we have four or five planets, when in reality, we only have one, never mind the implications of that realization.

B.C. Should Follow the Lead of Scotland and Bring In a Well-Being Budget

Anyone watching Knowledge Network these days will be aware it’s all about Scotland, from clan wars to wildlife to railways. Good things come from Scotland, from Scottish ales and whisky to haggis and Robbie Burns — well, OK, not everything is wonderful, although haggis is way better than it sounds.

Zero Waste Means Not Expanding Hartland Landfill

Article, Nature & Conservation, Zero Waste & Circular Economy

A lot of what we acquire — all that “stuff’’ — ends up as solid waste, while inefficient energy use leads to high levels of energy waste. Not only does this contribute to excessive use of resources — with all the pollution and energy use associated with their extraction, processing and distribution — but it fills our landfills and pollutes our local environment or, if we export it, other people’s environment.

We Are an Ocean Province, Let’s Act Like One

What do people think of when they think of British Columbia? Chances are they think of the mountains, the forests, the coast with its salmon and orca, and Indigenous people and cultures. Indeed we are an ocean province, with a 25,000-kilometre-long coastline.

Building Healthy Communities — The Social Dimension

Courtesy of the Times Colonist Photo: A residential neighbourhood in Victoria. ADRIAN LAM, TIMES COLONIST Last week, I suggested our region would be well served by a centre focused on how to create healthy, just and sustainable “One Planet” communities and that it... Read More

Our Fisheries are as Badly Managed as our Forests

Courtesy of the Times Colonist Photo: A fishing boat passes a Canadian Coast Guard helicopter near Fisherman’s Wharf by Darren Stone Here is an astounding statistic: Of the roughly 196,000 tonnes of wild seafood harvested by B.C. fishers in 2018, worth about $476... Read More

Our Forests Are More Than Mere Resources

Courtesy of the Times Colonist Photo of Francis King Regional Park, Darren Stone – Times Colonist Last week, I explored how poorly governments of all stripes have been, at all levels, in protecting nature — and thus in protecting us. British Columbia is renowned... Read More

Counting Down the Climate Clock

Bear with me, there are plenty of numbers here, but they are vitally important and in essence quite simple, with profound implications for our climate and energy policies, and I have not seen the implications for Canada presented as I do here.

Social, Not Ecological Factors Control Our Population

In his 2016 book The Serengeti Rules, Sean Carroll tells us Charles Elton, the 1920s pioneering ecologist, identified four factors that control animal numbers: predators, pathogens, parasites and food supply. Two weeks ago I likened these to the Bible’s four horsemen of the apocalypse.

50-Year-Old Sci-Fi Novel Eerily Prescient

Contemplating an orange-red noon-day sun almost obscured by the smoke clouds roiling in from America, burning to the south, brought vividly to mind The Sheep Look Up by British author John Brunner, an eerily prescient science fiction novel I read almost 50 years ago.

The Four Horsemen of Ecology: Regulating Population Size

Article, Energy, Housing, & Buildings, Nature & Conservation

According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are conquest, war, famine and death, while in the Old Testament’s Book of Ezekiel they are sword, famine, wild beasts and pestilence or plague. (Sometimes, apparently, conquest is interpreted as pestilence or plague.)

Stop Using Taxpayers’ Money to Fund Pollution

In May, The World Health Organization released its “Manifesto for a healthy and green COVID-19 recovery.” It is in many ways an astonishing document, because it speaks briefly and plainly to the many global problems we face and how we need to respond.

Humans Are Deeply Connected With Each Other, and Other Life Forms

Article, Arts, Community, & Inclusivity, Nature & Conservation

Following my reflections last week on Jeremy Lent’s ideas about connections, I found myself musing about beginnings and endings – my own, life on Earth and the universe – and the connections they imply. I thought about and partly wrote this column while sitting under the great trees in Heritage Grove in Francis-King Park, feeling both connected to and in awe of nature.

Making Connections, Finding Balance

In his 2017 book The Patterning Instinct, Jeremy Lent suggests there are three forms of disconnection that lie at the heart of the global challenges we are creating and that are “inexorably leading human civilization to potential disaster.”

Conversations about values for a One Planet Region

Tip O’Neill, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives in the 1980s, famously remarked “all politics is local.” Significant change rarely starts at the top and moves down, mainly because the powerful do very well out of the current situation and seldom have any incentive to change it.

Governments ignore urgent issues – Shouldn’t we be talking about this?

Article, Arts, Community, & Inclusivity, Nature & Conservation

hile there is some evidence that we are slowly coming to grips with the reality of climate change, there are large and powerful pockets of resistance everywhere. Largely that resistance is rooted in and propagated by the fossil fuel industry and its ancillary industries, such as the automobile industry.

A New Ecological Civilization: How Do We Get There?

Some of the key proposals are focused on significant reforms to the present financial system. B.C. should establish a Green Investment Bank of B.C. that would “be used to finance recovery investments that support B.C.’s climate action targets and other goals”.

Guy Dauncey and the Economics of Kindness

Article, Arts, Community, & Inclusivity, Nature & Conservation

et me turn to Guy Dauncey for an alternative that is neither communism nor medieval. Dauncey has been an interesting, thoughtful and — in the best sense — provocative thinker, writer and activist on ecological and social issues in this region for years.

Building a Stronger, One Planet Regional Economy

Article, Food & Health, Zero Waste & Circular Economy

Last week, I stressed the importance of a stronger regional economy as a means of increasing local self-reliance, given that we live on an Island and that the Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the vulnerability that comes from being very reliant on others — be they food or energy producers or tourists.

We Need to Build Our Island Self-Reliance

Last week I discussed Prof. Rick Kool’s point that we live on an island — but we don’t act as if we do. Almost all our food, all of our fossil fuels, much of our electricity and much else is imported. The implication is that we should think about how to be more self-reliant.

Let’s Govern as if We Live On an Island

One of the many things the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed is the extent to which we have become dependent on all sorts of products — from face masks to food — that come from away, as Newfoundlanders would put it.

Neoliberalism is a Major Threat to Well-Being

One of the beneficial side-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it might spur us to rethink the fundamental systems that constitute our society, and the deep values that underpin them. One of those systems is neoliberal economics, which has become the predominant,... Read More

Just Which Predator Needs to be Controlled?

Download File: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hclD4OmMeL8&_=1

An opinion piece in this newspaper on June 4 from the B.C. Chamber of Commerce and the Thriving Orcas, Thriving Communities Coalition (composed of a number of coastal communities’ chambers of commerce) warned that coastal communities are on the brink of extinction because they rely on recreational fishing, which is in jeopardy.

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Patricia Reichert – Food System Comeback

Food & Health, Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hclD4OmMeL8 This is a presentation and discussion about the changes that are possible in this region if we choose to build a local food economy based on principles of resilience and social justice. As a local food systems specialist,... Read More

How to Flatten the Other Curves

As with COVID-19, this demand far exceeds the system’s capacity — only this time, we are talking about the Earth’s biocapacity. So far, we have only seen the ascending part of this chart. But as with any species that exceeds the carrying capacity of its ecological niche, at some point the curve reaches a peak and starts to decline; we might call it “The Great Deccelaration.”

Making a Just Transition to ‘One Planet’

Hourly paid workers — who generally have low pay, few benefits and not much job security — are now almost two-thirds of the workforce. But while low-wage employment is down 30 per cent compared to a year ago, she adds, it is only down 1.3 per cent among high wage earners.

The Health Costs of Business as Usual

A couple of weeks ago I noted that in addition to COVID-19, other major infectious diseases kill millions of people annually, mostly children, and mostly in low-income countries. But globally, and certainly in high-income countries, infectious diseases are not our major causes of death, disease and injury.

Social Tipping Points, Virtuous Cascades

Courtesy of the Times Colonist In a December 2019 interview, Will Steffen, a leading Earth systems scientist and member of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, said: “We need to reach a social tipping point, before we reach a planetary one.” By “a planetary tipping... Read More

Donald Trump’s Crime Against Humanity

In cutting funding to the World Health Organization in the midst of a pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump may think he is attacking a bunch of faceless bureaucrats in Geneva and the World Health Organization’s regional offices around the world.

Roar radically forward, not back to a pathological system

In his daily briefing on April 9, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “Our country will come roaring back.” I understand why he might want to reassure people that everything would be fine, that this is just a temporary, if large, disruption to business-as-usual. But it’s much more than that.

A Tale of Two Futures: Lets Choose the Right One This Time

Because of Covid-19 we stand yet again at a crossroads of history. Too often in my lifetime we have stood at this same crossroads, and each time we have taken the wrong path. Will we get it right this time?

Resilience Means Bouncing Forward, Not Back to the Way We Were Before

This concern with the need to protect and restore the economy plays into a narrative about resilience, usually framed as the ability of people and communities to recover, to bounce back to where they were before the event ever happened.

A Different Perspective on COVID-19

There is no question COVID-19 is a serious issue. If we did nothing, hundreds of thousands of Canadians, especially older people, might die and the health care system would be overwhelmed, jeopardizing the health of many other people with other health problems.

Standing Up to Help Secure Our Children’s Futures

With respect to poverty, the commission states: “The evidence is clear: early investments in children’s health, education and development have benefits that compound throughout the child’s lifetime.” But they note that many children live in poverty and there is a gap between what we know children need and what they get.

The Ethics of a One Planet Region