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Courtesy of the Times Colonist
Photo: Elon Musk at a Trump campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York in October. Despite the fevered dreams of Musk and others, there is no ‘Planet B,’ which means we need to drastically reduce our ecological footprint, writes Trevor Hancock. EVAN VUCCI, AP FILES 

I have spent much of my life working as an educator, whether as a professor teaching graduate students or as an in international consultant working with communities, organizations and governments around the world.

Over the years, I have come across a number of aphorisms that I turn to again and again to make important points.

An aphorism, dictionaries tell us, is a short saying that is memorable and embodies a general truth, astute observation or principle.

So in my monthly columns, I will explore some of those aphorisms that provide important guidance as we address together the many challenges of the 21st century.

Following one of those aphorisms (think globally, act locally), wherever possible I will link the broader dimensions of the issue to local action, with examples from elsewhere as well as examples or implications for action here in the Greater Victoria region.

The first aphorism is one that really started my journey into population health and ecological activism.

In 1972, the first UN Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm, and Maurice Strong, the Canadian secretary-general of the conference, commissioned Barbara Ward and René Dubos to produce what became the unofficial conference book – Only One Earth.

That title really says it all. Despite the fevered dreams of Elon Musk and others of his ilk, there is no “Planet B”.

There is just this one Earth, our only home, which Carl Sagan memorably described as a pale blue dot hanging in the immensity of space.

So we had better learn how to deal with that reality. We had better learn how to live within the limits of this one Earth.

And yet that is not how we live today, neither globally nor, especially, in Canada.

The Global Footprint Network tells us that globally we have an ecological footprint equivalent to 1.7 Earths.

In other words, we use the equivalent of 1.7 planets’ worth of bioproductive capacity every year (and note this does not even take into account the loss of biodiversity or the impact of persistent organic pollutants or plastic nano-particles that are not included in the calculation of the footprint).

This is clearly unsustainable, as evidenced by the fact that we have already passed the planetary boundary for six of the nine key Earth systems needed to sustain life on Earth.

Canada, as a high-income country, has a far greater footprint, around five Earths. If every country lived as we do, we would need four more Earths.

That is clearly not going to happen, so we need to become what can be called a One Planet country, taking only our fair share of the Earth’s bioproductive capacity and resources.

Think of that for a moment: This means we need to reduce our ecological footprint by 80 per cent, as rapidly as possible.

Now the good news, in a sense, is that our carbon footprint, largely the result of fossil-fuel consumption, accounts for more than 60 per cent of both the global and the Canadian footprint.

Which means if we can address that issue, we can markedly reduce our footprint.

That is why it is particularly stupid, at a time when the UN Secretary General has said that our current climate path is “a road to ruin,” that the fossil-fuel industry and its supporters in Canada are calling for an expansion of fossil-fuel extraction and export (and thus consumption) to counter U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on Canada and on the environment.

The really good news is that there is a growing movement to reduce our footprint.

The Global Footprint Network works with countries, regions and cities to reduce their footprints — if you go to their website, you can find case studies under the “Our Work” tab, all of which begin with measuring the ecological footprint.

That has also been done right here in Saanich, as part of the One Planet Saanich project initiated by Bioregional, a U.K.-based non-profit. (Our footprint, using a somewhat different methodology, is about four planets, still way too big.)

That work is now being championed in B.C. by One Earth Living (oneplanetbc.com), which is helping communities deal with the fact that there is only one Earth.

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

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