Sometime in the early 1990s, the ice was so unusually thick and smooth on Gitchigumi that Anishinaabe fisherman Phillip Solomon drove his car, a 1984 Monte Carlo, across the lake from Fort William First Nation to Pie Island with a friend. “There was seven feet of ice,” says Phillip, who everyone calls “Benny.” “There was no snow. We cut the hole, standing in the hole. I was standing in six feet of ice.” By the time he and his friend cut all the way through the ice, there was only a foot of water to fish in, and the two had to set their net somewhere else.

A quiet man who is generous with the fish he pulls out of the lake, Benny was born and raised on Fort William First Nation on the northern shores of Gitchigumi, which means Great Lake in Anishinaabemowin — in English, it’s known as Lake Superior. When he was growing up, commercial fishing was a significant economic resource: northern pike sold for about 35 cents a pound and on a good day, a fisherman could make $2,000 on that fish alone. Of course, not everything caught was sold to local fish markets or restaurants. It was also shared throughout Fort William First Nation and with others in need. Gitchigumi fish have long been a major source of food sovereignty for Benny’s community. 

Phillip, who everyone calls “Benny,” has been fishing all year round on Gitchigumi for 40 years. Over that time, he has noticed a lot of changes to the lake. Photo: Damien Gilbert / The Narwhal

As a young adult, Benny veered away from traditional ways of living and being for a while, sometimes getting into trouble. But there were always a few community members looking out for him and when they invited him to take up fishing again, it became his way of life. For the past 40 years, he’s been fishing all year round.  

Over that time, Benny has noticed a lot of changes to the lake. He’s had to set his fishing net out farther and farther each year: nearby rivers and streams are drying up or becoming noticeably shallow, and docks are being extended as shorelines grow. 

And in the winter, Benny can’t predict when the ice will be thick enough to hold him up the way it did the year he drove his car across the lake. This year, the lake didn’t freeze until mid-January, at least a month later than it did when Benny was younger.  

Gitchigumi is vast. The largest of the Great Lakes, it contains a staggering 10 per cent of all the surface freshwater in the world. The region has been home to many Indigenous communities since before Canada or the United States were imagined and today, it touches Ontario, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. About 600,000 people live around the lake on both sides of the border, using its water at home and in countless industries, from mills to microbreweries. 

Gitchigumi contains 10 per cent of the surface freshwater in the world. About 600,000 people live in the Lake Superior region in Canada and the United States. Map: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal

In Anishinaabek world views, the lake is a living being, an entity — she is life, not merely a resource, and in need of all people to take up the responsibility to care for her. Our Ancestors lived in harmony with Gitchigumi for thousands of years and caused no harm. But she’s not as healthy as she used to be. Scientific data lines up with Benny’s observations: Lake Superior is freezing over for less time than it used to. It’s warming the fastest of all of the Great Lakes, and the consequences are already troubling. With a warming lake posing increasing risks to the wildlife and people that depend on it, it is time for Indigenous people to take the lead in caring for it, before it’s too late. 

Benny remembers fishermen pulling big catches — herring, northern pike and pickerel — out of the Kaministiquia River at the mouth of the harbour. Nearly all were First Nations and lived on the reserve. One was Tim Bannon, who learned the fishing trade from his own father and eventually married into a commercial fishing family. He was one of the people who drew Benny back to fishing.  

“I learnt everything I know from him. He led me on the right path, got me turned around,” Benny said of his teacher and friend. Bannon tells a story of teaching a young, impatient Benny to fish: after two days of setting and checking empty nets, Benny gave up and headed to the bush to cut wood. The next day, Bannon pulled out enough fish to fill the back of his truck. 

By the mid ‘80s, Bannon said, it was becoming increasingly hard for people like him to make a living fishing. One of the biggest buyers of herring, Presteve Fresh Fish, began paying only for eggs to sell as caviar, instead of per pound of whole fish. And Indigenous fishermen were losing their livelihood to development and pollution over which they had no control. 

The Bay Mills Indian Community is located in Michigan near the St. Mary’s River, which connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron. This photo is of community member Wayne Weston and an unknown man ice fishing for herring in the 1930s. Photo: Bay Mills Ojibwe History Department

Dorothy Bowen from the Bay Mills Indian Community sitting on ice blocks in the late 1930s or early 1940s, with Canada in the background. Photo: Bay Mills Ojibwe History Department

First Nations that lived along the shoreline here hadn’t been consulted about the building of two pulp and paper mills in the early 20th century. For decades, the mills regularly released waste and sewage, which had devastating impacts on Lake Superior. By the 1990s, the government of Thunder Bay — a city of about 110,000 people on the north side of the Kaministiquia River — and various federal departments were discussing how to clean up the lake. The Anishinaabe people that lived along the waterfront were again given no input when berms made of filter and fabric were built at Mission Bay, between Fort William First Nation and Thunder Bay, and then used to store dredged, contaminated soil. 

“I was really upset as a young fisherman. I used to fish out of the bay at the Kam,” Bannon said. “And then they started building the berms. They filled all that area of water in, which are now berms and land and a dumpsite.”

Eventually, the water quality at a nearby beach called Chippewa Park was deemed no longer safe for swimming. And hearing rumours of contamination, many buyers stopped sourcing fish from Fort William’s fishermen. Various government departments are still trying to figure out what to do with approximately 400,000 cubic metres of mercury-contaminated pulp sitting in the north harbour: dredging and towing it over to the confined underwater disposal facility at Mission Bay is regularly mentioned as a solution, despite Fort William First Nation’s insistence that not happen. 

Men cutting ice blocks from St. Mary’s River for the LeBlanc Store in the Bay Mills Indian Community, in the late 1930s or early 1940s. Photo: Bay Mills Ojibwe History Department

A man from the Bay Mills Indian Community ice fishing in the late 1930s or early 1940s. Photo: Bay Mills Ojibwe History Department

Pollution is one reason fishing isn’t the same as it used to be. Another is invasive species: zebra and quahog mussels filter out many of the nutrients that various types of whitefish need. Benny has even pulled out a rock bass, a fish typically found in smaller, warmer lakes that’s considered a voracious, invasive predator that will eat anything and everything without stopping. Much of the forage that gets eaten by invasive bass is what cool water fish like pickerel or lake trout rely on for sustenance. Layers of pressure threaten native species, including warming temperatures: low water levels can disrupt spawning grounds for whitefish and lake trout. 

Sapna Sharma has been studying centuries’ worth of data on ice coverage on Northern Hemisphere lakes, as well as 25 years of data on water temperature of lakes worldwide. “What we’ve quantified is that we’re losing ice coverage at a rapid rate,” said Sharma, an associate professor in the biology department at York University. 

Since 1867, warming temperatures have robbed Gitchigumi of two months of ice coverage, meaning that there are about 60 fewer days below zero degrees every year. Photo: Damien Gilbert / The Narwhal

Historic data shows that Lake Superior is warming faster than any other lake in the Northern Hemisphere. Photo: Damien Gilbert / The Narwhal

Superior isn’t just the fastest warming Great Lake, she said: it’s losing ice cover quicker than any other lake in the Northern Hemisphere. Parts of it are starting to go full winters without ice. Sharma says that from 1867 to 1997, the bay in Bayfield, Wisconsin froze every single year. Since then, there have been four years where the bay, about a five hour drive south of Fort William First Nation, hasn’t frozen at all. 

Since 1867, warming temperatures have robbed Gitchigumi of two months of ice coverage, meaning that there are about 60 fewer days below zero degrees every year. “Winter is not that long and losing two months of winter is going to have dramatic consequences,” Sharma said. 

It already has. Less ice coverage allows for faster evaporation in the winter months, lowering water levels. It also means a longer open water season and earlier spring stratification, when the lake separates into two sections: a top warmer layer and a bottom cooler layer. More algae grows after winters when there is little or no ice, which negatively affects water quality. “When you have too much primary production and algal growth, you can end up with algal blooms, some of which can be toxic,” Sharma said. 

Decomposing algae and warmer water also reduce oxygen concentration, which can cause fish to die or become stressed out from difficulty breathing. “We’re seeing even further cases of degraded water quality,” Sharma said. Last year she co-published a research paper on ice cover on Northern Hemisphere lakes that used historical data to predict future ice coverage: it stated that without significant greenhouse gas reductions, Lake Superior and Lake Michigan could both permanently lose their ice covers by 2060. 

Indigenous Peoples have worried about changes in the Great Lakes waters for a long time. In 2003, the late Anishinaabe Elder, grandmother and water protector Josephine Mandamin-ba — in Anishinaabe culture, ba is added to the end of a name to signify someone has passed on — walked around Lake Superior after hearing a prophecy about how sick our water was and what it would take to save her. The walk was Anishinaabe ceremony: for a month in the spring, she walked around the nearly 3,000-kilometre perimeter of Gitchigumi from sunrise to sunset. Mandamin-ba carried a copper pail, as copper holds antimicrobial properties that can help water get and stay clean. The pail strengthened her prayers for the water as she honoured that relationship with water the way she should be, clean. 

In January, Gitchigumi froze solid enough for Benny to head out ice fishing. Photo: Damien Gilbert / The Narwhal

In recent years, rather than cutting a hole into the ice, Benny sometimes just goes out in his boat to set his nets, which feels like an odd thing to do in the middle of winter. Photo: Damien Gilbert / The Narwhal

“When we were young we didn’t have to carry water bottles,” Mandamin-ba told CBC in 2017. “We just drank from wherever we could; lakes, rivers. Now people have to carry water. People walk with water containers. We never had to do that before.” By the time of her death in February 2019, Mandamin-ba had walked over 17,000 kilometres and covered the perimeter of all five Great Lakes. 

Following in her footsteps is Tasha Beeds, a nêhiyaw with Scottish-Metis and Bajan ancestry who has walked over 7,000 kilometres, including alongside each of the Great Lakes. She is a mom, a kokum and a member of Midewiwin from Minweyweywigaan Lodge in Manitoba. 

“By doing something like a water walk, it’s like you activate that ancestral remembrance again, that ancestral knowledge and you get to know the water on her terms,” said Beeds, adding another teacher and mentor is Elder Shirley Williams, who leads water walks in southern Ontario. “Often we go, we swim, we lay, you know, we take our boats, we fish, we take, we take and take and take, and we forget there’s a reciprocity there. And so the water walk is about entering into that reciprocal relationship again, the way that our ancestors did.” 

As Beeds walks various shorelines, it’s evident to her that society has forgotten its reciprocal relationship with water. She sees a lot of garbage, like fishing lines, water bottles, pop cans, tires, chairs and plastic bags. During a walk along the Saskatchewan River last summer, Tasha noticed that it was eerily quiet. She didn’t hear any birds or small animals, just silence. Bogs were dried up, and there was no greenery or berries: the area seemed like a timber box ready to ignite. 

Her group of walkers set up camp. That meant picking up garbage left by previous campers, who had also buried food on the site, enticing a bear to keep coming around. The group set off a few bear-bangers to scare it away, but soon Beeds put her fears aside and thought about why the bear was being a nuisance. 

“They were being habituated to the human race because they had nothing left,” she said. “People want to come and visit, to take in the beauty of the Great Lakes or the mountains or the scenery but they’re often leaving their imprint, they’re forgetting to be good guests. We can either continue on our path and we will continue to destroy all we rely upon for life, destroying ourselves in the process, or we can become united in the protection of the Great Lakes.” She plans to walk the Saskatchewan River Forks to Lake Winnipeg this spring. 

On Gitchigumi, one Indigenous community has reclaimed a traditional role by officially becoming stewards of its part of the lake again. Keweenaw Bay Indian Community achieved “Treatment as Sovereign” status from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. This means responsibility for enforcing the federal Clean Water Act (as well as the Clean Air Act) is in the process of being transferred from the state of Michigan. The Ojibwa community’s water resources specialist, Justin Woodruff, said in an email that Keweenaw Bay will begin by establishing surface water quality standards, while its natural resources department will continue to run programs around native plant restoration, fisheries and fish stocking and wildlife and wetland stewardship.

Indigenous Peoples have worried about changes in the Great Lakes waters for a long time. Photo: Damien Gilbert / The Narwhal

In a 2019 story about Keweenaw Bay’s Treatment as Sovereign application, Environmental Health News wrote that 60 other Indigenous communities in the U.S. hold the status and have used it to “tackle environmental issues specific to their area, including reducing phosphorus in Florida water; preserving clean water in a Montana lake; forcing upstream users in New Mexico to stop sending waste down the Rio Grande; and halting a controversial mine project in Wisconsin.” Woodruff said the community also has concerns about mining, and plans to address the effects of legacy mine tailings in Lake Superior, which send heavy metals up onto beaches and into rock beds where lake trout and whitefish spawn.

Keweenaw Bay’s traditional diet includes waterfowl, fish, wild rice and berries and the water quality standards being drafted are more strict than the existing federal standards. “Water quality is an essential part of the community’s way of life and is protected with the seventh generation principle in mind,” Woodruff wrote. “What we do now should be beneficial seven generations into the future.”

Deb McGregor is Anishinaabe from Whitefish River First Nation on Lake Huron, and the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Environmental Justice. “The unique and distinct perspective that Indigenous environmental justice brings is recognizing the rights and responsibilities of the waters themselves,” she said. 

McGregor laid out the many purposes of water in Anishinaabe culture: for nourishment, of course, but as part of governance, integral to understanding how to live and coexist with the natural world, with other nations living along the lakes and with the Great Lakes themselves for thousands and thousands of years. “I don’t read it from any text book, I don’t learn it from reading stuff,” she said. “I learn it from being in the community, being with people, listening to their stories, listening to what they say. That’s really, actually where, to me, the most valuable knowledge is.”

McGregor grew up understanding how much she depended on Lake Huron. Her family lived not even 50 metres from the lake, without running water. Engagement was constant, as she hauled water many times a day for drinking, cooking, cleaning, everything. While many Indigenous communities in Canada still live without access to clean water, most Canadians haven’t had to haul water for drinking. Not everyone even knows where their water comes from. 

“I think there’s a huge disconnect,” said McGregor, who still lives in her community, about Canada’s highly urbanized population. “People just don’t think about where their water comes from because it’s coming out of a tap. You look at where you live on a map, it looks like this dot beside a big lake, but you never see it. You have to purposely commute for an hour and a half to get downtown, to get by the water’s edge.”

McGregor sees an opportunity for Indigenous People to become leaders in protecting water, especially those living by or near it. It can seem difficult, since colonial governments in nations like Canada and the U.S. make the big decisions, with Indigenous Peoples only sometimes given input. But grassroots initiatives, like the Indigenous Environmental Network, organize regularly to protect water: the 2016 camp at Standing Rock Indian Reservation grew in large part out of concern over the threat that the Dakota Access Pipeline poses to Lake Oahe and the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The Indigenous Environmental Network is currently organizing against the rebuilding of Line 3, a pipeline that takes oil from Edmonton to the edge of Lake Superior in Wisconsin.  

Indigenous Peoples resist further damage to the environment by raising awareness, by walking around the Great Lakes, by returning to our original laws and traditions. “We have to trust our own knowledge, our own systems, our own laws. So much of formal education, residential school education, was to dismiss it,” McGregor said. She is thankful that strong relationships with traditional knowledge holders afforded her a reciprocal relationship with the water. 

On a cold Saturday, Benny used a chainsaw to cut a one-foot square hole in the ice, then picked out all the ice chunks. Photo: Damien Gilbert / The Narwhal

Benny sometimes takes his granddaughters with him when he goes out to set his nets. They’re in grade school, around the same age he was when he started fishing with his dad. He’s passed along the knowledge that he was taught, and has gathered. “I want them to see me fishing and see how it’s done. They help me out. They grab the nets,” Benny said, adding that being out on the lake is a chance for some quality time together, unplugged from the TV. 

He can tell that the ice fishing season on his part of Gitchigumi is getting shorter and shorter. In recent years, rather than cutting a hole into the ice, he sometimes just goes out in his boat to set his nets, which feels like an odd thing to do in the middle of winter. 

This year, as January drew to a close, Gitchigumi finally froze solid enough for Benny to head out ice fishing. As skaters and hikers also enjoyed the lake, there was a constant booming sound as the ice shifted and moved. On a cold Saturday, Benny used a chainsaw to cut a one-foot square hole in the ice, then picked out all the ice chunks. “I’m hoping to catch a rainbow tomorrow, rainbow trout,” he said. “Maybe a salmon.” 

The day after Benny set his nets, the ice in over half the bay was broken up, and there was open water. After assessing his catch, a rainbow trout, Benny pulled his nets out and kept them out. Photo: Damien Gilbert / The Narwhal

Next, he sent a jigger into the water and cut a second hole the length of the net, 300 feet away. A braille line tied to the jigger dragged the net under the water. “There’s maybe four inches of ice out there,” Benny said, comparing it to the seven feet of ice he drove over in the ‘90s. 

And it didn’t hold. The next day, the ice in over half of the bay was broken up and there was open water. Benny dug out the hole he had made in order to drag the net out of the lake and assess his catch, pulling out a rainbow trout and immediately giving it away to The Narwhal’s photographer. Then he pulled his nets out and kept them out. 

The following day, there was even more open water. Benny might end up fishing on his boat this winter, after all. 

Updated Feb. 22, 2022 at 3:40 p.m. ET: This story was updated to correct the population of Thunder Bay, which is 110,000, not 11,000.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Nearly two months have passed since the polls closed in B.C. and at last British Columbians know who will get to form government.

On Thursday, upon the conclusion of a no-confidence vote that ousted former Premier Christy Clark, NDP Leader John Horgan has been offered the opportunity to lead a new B.C. government under a historic partnership between his party and the Greens.

While B.C. awaits the swearing in of a new premier, we thought we’d take the time to tally up some critical promises the NDP and their Green collaborators have made on the environment file.

So Long, Site C?

The NDP and Greens have promised to send the controversial $9 billion Site C dam in B.C.’s northeast for an expedited review by the B.C. Utilities Commission. Site C is the most expensive public infrastructure project in B.C.’s history and numerous experts  have come forward to question the need for the electricity the dam will generate.

The dam will flood 107 kilometres of Peace River valley, displacing residents and flooding valuable agricultural land and sacred indigenous sites.

The Utilities Commission review will look in detail at the cost of the project and demand for the power — something that until this point hasn’t been done.

Supporters of the dam say B.C. will eventually need Site C’s power and that the 2,000 jobs created by the project are reason enough to let the dam go forward as planned. But with less destructive and cheaper alternatives more available now than ever, the debate over Site C is a complicated one.

A preliminary report-back is expected to take about six weeks once the new government takes power.

The Kinder Morgan Pipeline Battle Levels Up

In their agreement to work together, the NDP and Greens have committed to “immediately employ every tool available” to stop the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain oilsands pipeline running from Alberta to export facilities in Burnaby.

There are a number of ways the pipeline, which has already received federal and provincial approval, can still be stopped.

The pipeline is currently being fought by local First Nations who say the project’s review process failed to meet legal guideline for consultation. The province could also implement other regulatory processes the pipeline must pass.

The pipeline is supported by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, so how Horgan and Weaver deal with the project will likely involve some sort of messy political showdown.

What BC’s New NDP Minority Gov’t Means for the Environment https://t.co/lShnokdBtX #SiteC #KinderMorgan #CarbonTax #IndigenousRights #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/dqn356cnaz

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) June 30, 2017

Step Up the Carbon Tax

B.C.’s famed carbon tax languished under Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals. The former ruling party froze the tax and created exemptions for some of the province’s biggest polluters.

The NDP and Greens plan to increase the carbon tax by $5 per year starting in April 2018 in an effort to bring the price up to the federally mandated price of $50 per tonne by 2022.

The carbon tax will also be re-jigged to deal with the major climate problem of fugitive emissions, greenhouse gasses that leak or are vented from the province’s massive gas projects and transmission lines. These emissions have been poorly measured and wildly underestimated, so bringing them more fully under a carbon tax regime is important for meaningful climate action.

Beefing Up B.C.’s Project Review Process

There have been major systemic problems with B.C.’s environmental assessment process. These problems have led to a lack of public trust in how major projects are reviewed and approved in the province.

The NDP and Greens have committed to revitalizing the environmental assessment process, which goes hand in hand with a major review and improvement of the federal process.

Respect for B.C.’s Indigenous Peoples

Whether it’s pipelines running through traditional territory, the Site C dam flooding sacred indigenous sites, or the cumulative effects of industrialization leading to species extinction, many First Nations communities are on the frontline of B.C.’s biggest environmental battles.

The NDP and Greens have stated explicitly that a foundational part of their political partnership is the two parties’ shared adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

Both parties also take to heart the significance of the historic Tsilhqot’in Supreme Court Decision and what that means for untreatied First Nations in B.C.

Many First Nations are fighting off multiple mining, oil and gas and hydro projects in their traditional and treaty territories across B.C.

If the NDP and Greens take indigenous rights truly to heart, this could mean big changes for the way projects are evaluated and given the go ahead.

Funding for Transit!

For all those daily grind commuters near big cities, this should be an exciting one.

In their agreement, the NDP and Greens promised to “act immediately to improve transit and transportation infrastructure” to “reduce emissions, create jobs and get people home faster.”

Shifting into a New Economy

Renewable energy hasn’t gotten the foothold it has needed in B.C. and there are ways to make the transition to a clean, 21st century economy easier. That’s what the new “Emerging Economy Task Force” is designed to do.

This task force will look at the changing nature of business in B.C. over the next 10 to 25 years.

One way the NDP and Greens want to prepare for the changes ahead is by shifting from a measure of GDP ( gross domestic product) to the use of a new metric: the Genuine Progress Indicator or GPI.

Under old GDP rules, anything that is of profit to society is considered of benefit. But analysis has shown that while disasters like oil spills may be a short-lived boon to the economy, they can degrade other measures of social wellbeing like health, safety and a clean environment.

The GPI measure will help B.C. understand, measure and prioritize those opportunities that represent a truer benefit to British Columbians.

Electoral and Campaign Finance Reform

The current political system is set up to advantage the wealthy and powerful. But with changes to how campaigns are financed and run that could help put power back into the hands of the people.

The Green party in particular would benefit from the two parties’ shared commitment to electoral reform. In the fall of 2018 a referendum will be held to ask British Columbians if they want to switch to a proportional representation system.

The NDP and Greens have also promised to ban big money in politics at the first available opportunity. The new rules will place an outright ban on corporate, union and out-of-province donations to political parties and also limit the amount individuals in B.C. can give.

As a bonus, the NDP/Green agreement also lays out a plan for revising lobbying rules that prevent politicians from becoming lobbyists for several years after leaving office.

These promises signal a big change in B.C., where fossil fuel and mining interests are some of the most powerful lobbyists and political donors.

Image: NDP Leader John Horgan and Green Leader Andrew Weaver sign a coalition agreement, May 30, 2017. Photo: B.C. NDP via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The election of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named south of the border is leaving many Canadians with a case of the climate doldrums as 2016 winds to a close — but here’s the thing: 2016 was actually the most promising year Canada has had on climate action in more than a decade.

To be sure, us Canucks have had some not-awesome news on the climate and energy front lately, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval of the enormously polluting Pacific Northwest LNG terminal near Prince Rupert, B.C., Enbridge’s Line 3 from Alberta to Wisconsin and the hotly contested Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain oil pipeline to Vancouver.

Many had higher hopes of climate leadership from Trudeau and they’re not wrong to be disappointed. However, as this year comes to a close, it’s also worth looking back on some of the significant steps forward that were made in 2016 — victories that in many cases were unimaginable even two years ago.

1. Dawning of New Age in Alberta

Where better to start than Alberta? In 2016, that province, home to the oilsands and heaps of coal-fired power, legislated a price on carbon and passed a law that requires at least 30 per cent renewable electricity by 2030.

Getting off coal is a clear win in Alberta, where air quality is consistently worse than Toronto due to emissions from coal-fired power plants. Those emissions annually result in an estimated 107 premature deaths, 80 hospital visits and almost 5,000 asthma-related sick days in Alberta, costing the province around $300 million a year.

Better yet, Alberta has loosened the regulations around citizens being able to generate their own electricity — a move that ought to speak to the free-wheeling spirit of Albertans.

2. Ratified Paris Agreement

With negative or even downright scary climate news dominating the headlines it’s easy to forget that a historic climate treaty was just ratified by nearly every country on the planet.

The Paris Agreement, a global pact to keep temperature increases as close to 1.5 degrees Celsius as possible, has been ratified by more than 114 nations in 2016 representing more than 80 per cent of global emissions.

Now major polluting countries like China (responsible for a whopping 20 per cent of global emissions), Brazil, India and the U.S. are having some of the most productive and concrete conversations about climate action ever in the history of the planet.

And while president-elect you-know-who previously promised to pull out of the Paris Agreement there are early signs he may back down from that position. But even if he doesn’t, and the U.S. goes hog wild with its emissions, there are a lot of reasons why that doesn’t mean game over for the planet.

3. Arctic Drilling Ban

Perhaps one of the most unexpected announcements coming out of the last days of the Obama administration, the recent ban on Arctic and Atlantic drilling is huge, celebration-worthy news.

The ban in U.S. owned waters is permanent, meaning these areas will be indefinitely protected from future oil and gas development. Canada also banned offshore Arctic activity, subject to periodic reviews.

Climate change is being experience more severely in the Arctic, where food and life systems rely heavily on ice. So protecting sensitive polar regions from both climate change and further fossil fuel extraction is critically important.

4. Tanker Ban and End of Northern Gateway Pipeline

At long last, a crude oil tanker ban will be implemented on the north coast of B.C., according to an announcement by Trudeau in late November.

“The Great Bear Rainforest is no place for a pipeline and the Douglas Channel is no place for oil tanker traffic,” Trudeau said in making the announcement.

At the same time, Trudeau officially rejected Enbridge’s Northern Gateway proposal that would have brought more than 200 oil tankers a year into B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest.

The announcement marks a monumental victory in a fight that’s gone on for more than a decade.

5. Canada's National Climate Plan

Despite much posturing from Canada’s premiers, a national framework on fighting climate change was reached. It’s not perfect, but it does take us a long way toward meeting our 2030 climate target. From stronger building codes to electric vehicles to a price on carbon, there’s a lot to be hopeful about in the document.

For the first time ever, Canada’s premiers and prime minister are committed to working together to reducing our carbon emissions — seems worth raising a toast to, doesn’t it?

Bonus Good News: Federal Review of Environmental Assessment

Sure the federal government has broken some of its promises this year, but one of the promises it has kept is to review the way we assess major energy projects. The federal government has initated reviews of the environmental assessment process, the Fisheries Act and the National Energy  Board. All of these reviews hold the potential to create positive long-term change in terms of how Canada considers energy projects — and could help get us out of the myopic gridlock we often find ourselves in. Huzzah!

Image: Rally against the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline in Vancouver, March 2014. Photo: Zack Embree

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Calculating farming’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is difficult, but experts agree that feeding the world’s people has tremendous climate and environmental impacts. Estimates of global emissions from farms range widely. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency puts them at 24 per cent, including deforestation, making agriculture the second-largest emitter after heat and electricity.

Agriculture contributes to global warming in a number of ways. Methane and nitrous oxide, which are more potent than CO2 but remain in the atmosphere for shorter times, make up about 65 per cent of agricultural emissions. Methane comes mainly from cattle and nitrous oxide from fertilizers and wastes. According to the World Resources Institute, “Smaller sources include manure management, rice cultivation, field burning of crop residues, and fuel use on farms.” Net emissions are also created when forests and wetlands are cleared for farming, as these “carbon sinks” usually absorb and store more carbon than the farms that replace them. Transporting and processing agricultural products also contribute to global warming.

We need to eat. So what’s the answer? That obesity is epidemic in parts of the world while people starve elsewhere, and that an estimated one-third of food gets wasted, shows improving distribution and reducing waste are good places to start — but won’t be enough to significantly curtail agriculture’s contribution to climate change.

Reducing meat and animal-product consumption and production — especially beef — would cut emissions, but wouldn’t get us all the way.

Some suggest finding better ways to feed as many as nine billion people by 2050 means rethinking our agricultural systems. Industrial agriculture has made it possible to produce large amounts of food efficiently, but comes with problems, including pollution, reduced biodiversity, pesticide resistance and consequent increased chemical use, destruction of forests and wetlands, and human health issues such as antibiotic resistance. Soil loss and degradation, increased drought and flooding and changing growing patterns caused by climate change add to the complexity.

Some say the best fix is genetic modification — to produce more nutritious plants that can withstand pests and a changing climate. Others note that when humans try to improve on or override nature, the outcome is often not what was expected. And a U.S. National Academies of Science report concludes, “GMO crops have not, to date, increased actual yields.” Failing to recognize that everything in nature is interconnected has led to numerous unintended consequences, from DDT causing bird deaths and toxic buildup in the food chain to widespread antibiotic use facilitating the evolution of “superbugs”.

The growing field of agroecology — working with nature — is one solution. Many researchers argue it’s more efficient, less environmentally damaging and more equitable for farmers and local communities than industrial methods and GMOs.

The goal, writes University of California-Berkeley agroecology professor Miguel Altieri, “is to design an agroecosystem that mimics the structure and function of local natural ecosystems; that is, a system with high species diversity and a biologically active soil, one that promotes natural pest control, nutrient recycling and high soil cover to prevent resource losses.”

A study by the Rodale Institute, a research organization devoted to organic farming, concluded global adoption of agroecological practices such as “cover crops, compost, crop rotation and reduced tillage” could “sequester more carbon than is currently emitted.”

About 40 per cent of Earth’s land surface is used for agriculture, entailing massive geophysical alteration, so working with nature as much as possible to maintain or restore balance to natural systems makes sense. Agroecology appears to be a better way to feed humanity than doubling down on industrial agricultural, from many angles: reducing pollution and chemical use, enhancing rather than degrading soils, increasing biodiversity, protecting water, growing healthier food and creating more equitable food systems.

In This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein quotes former UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food Olivier De Schutter: “Today’s scientific evidence demonstrates that agroecological methods outperform the use of chemical fertilizers in boosting food production where the hungry live — especially in unfavourable environments.” He further notes, “agroecological projects have shown an average crop yield increase of 80% in 57 developing countries, with an average increase of 116% for all African projects.”

We are part of nature, so harming it hurts us. The planet provides resources to feed us. We must learn to use them sustainably.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Image: Asian Development Bank/Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Workers are laying down their tools across the Canadian oilpatch as the price slump draws on. Alberta had a net loss of nearly 20,000 jobs in 2015, with skilled workers being laid off and little hope in sight. The reaction, then, to talks of climate action has been often hostile, with people fearing more economic damage from carbon pricing or other new environmental regulation.

But for some there is an upside to the glut of out-of-work skilled people: it’s an opportunity to shift gears and put them to work in a growing green sector. Former oilsands tradesman Lliam Hildebrand started a non-profit group, Iron & Earth, to get oilpatch workers back to work on the next generation of green energy projects. (Investment in clean energy now doubles that of fossil fuels world-wide.)

“We have the skills to build the renewable energy infrastructure required for Canada to meet their climate target,” Hildebrand told CBC News. “That will open up a huge amount of opportunity for us if we can start diversifying our energy grid and it would ensure that we are less vulnerable to price fluctuations.”

The new organization brings a fresh perspective to a longstanding perceived tension between climate action and its spinoff benefits and the fear of damaging existing emissions-intensive industries.

In a panel discussion last week Environment Minister Catherine McKenna assured Albertans that the Liberal government would not risk damaging “national unity” by acting quickly on climate change. For some, her comment begs the question: when exactly will the Liberals be ready to start acting on their emissions reductions targets?

“Climate policy that is effective — by that I mean significantly reduces emissions over two decades — will challenge national unity in most countries,” says Mark Jaccard, a professor in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at Simon Fraser University.

The tone since the Liberals took office has been to reassure Albertans that the climate police aren’t coming to kick them while they’re down. Trudeau’s “Canadian approach” to climate change action has thus far meant that little in the way of concrete policy has been set down to meet his ambitious Paris goals.

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair came out this week in support of a carbon price to keep oil in the ground, saying the political will to get it done has been lacking so far in Canada. Federal plans to put a price on carbon, while supported by most of the premiers, have met the expected opposition from fossil fuel industry boosters like Premier Brad Wall, who handily won a third mandate this week in Saskatchewan.

“Don’t set a climate target that is ambitious if you’re not willing to take on national unity,” Jaccard says. “It’s one or the other; they’re trade-offs.”

McKenna’s comments frame the notion of climate change action as something that can potentially be done gingerly, with the cooperation of emissions-intensive industries, doing little to disrupt the status quo. Environmental psychologist Renee Lertzman says this kind of wishful thinking is not a helpful way to approach a complex issue.

“It sounds to me like it’s a mode of leadership that’s not really applying…emotional intelligence,” says Lertzman. “As humans we have tremendous capacity and capability to deal with this. When we communicate in ways where we’re trying to be cautious we can unintentionally send a message that’s deeply disempowering. What’s most needed, in fact, is leadership that’s deeply empowering, that’s above-board, that’s compassionate but grounded and strong.”

She echoes a sentiment expressed by Naomi Klein in a recent op-ed for The Nation, in which she skewered Hillary Clinton’s “corporate worldview”:

“For [climate action] to happen, fossil-fuel companies, which have made obscene profits for many decades, will have to start losing,” she writes. “And losing more than just the tax breaks and subsidies that Clinton is promising to cut. They will also have to lose the new drilling and mining leases they want; they’ll have to be denied permits for the pipelines and export terminals they very much want to build. They will have to leave trillions of dollars’ worth of proven fossil-fuel reserves in the ground.”

There is also a growing cost to delaying action on climate change. Consequences are compounding and tipping points are approaching, and every investment in fossil fuel infrastructure like oil pipelines, LNG facilities or coal ports further commits the Canadian economy to emitting more, not less, into the future.

“Once you go down that road, you may not be able to turn back,” said Naomi Oreskes, Harvard professor and author of Merchants of Doubt in an interview with The Tyee this week. “And if you can’t turn back, then you’re looking at four degrees of climate change, metres of sea level rise, and massive intensification of extreme weather events.”

This kind of grown-up discussion about the current direction and how and when to slam on the brakes is lacking in Canada, seemingly out of respect for Alberta’s fiscal trauma. It’s times like this, however, that Lertzman says traumatized people most need to hear the truth spoken plainly.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

The strained relationship between Canada and the U.S. over the last decade was in no small part due to disagreement over the fate of the Keystone XL pipeline.    Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was a staunch supporter of what he called the “no-brainer” project. President Obama, on the other hand, felt like all sorts of brain should be involved when deciding on the future of such major fossil fuel infrastructure. And he rightfully rejected the border crossing pipeline project, which had clearly failed his climate test.   Now, with Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the helm of America’s Hat, the two most intimately tied economies in the developed world have a lot of catching up to do. Even with Keystone XL dead and buried (sort of), environment and energy issues are still top of mind for the two leaders.   In a recent Q and A with the Huffington Post, Trudeau acknowledged the timing is right for bold leadership on climate change and the environment: “There is a nice alignment between a Canadian Prime Minister who wants to get all sorts of things done right off the bat and an American President who is thinking about the legacy he is going to leave in his last year in office,” Mr. Trudeau said.   “The issues that are important to him and to me are climate change.”   Obama and Trudeau already had an informal ‘bromance’ meeting soon after the new Prime Minister took office in November 2015. But now, with the unprecedented Paris Agreement behind them, the two leaders have an incredible opportunity to break new ground on climate action and environmental protection at this formal summit.   Here are the top five energy and environment issues these self-proclaimed climate leaders should have on their agenda:

1. North American Climate Change Strategy 

Rumors have already spread about the signing of a continental climate change plan between Canada and the U.S. that will focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions on both sides of the border.   Recently Canada’s international trade minister Chrystia Freeland told the Globe and Mail that a North American climate agreement is a priority for Trudeau at the bilateral talks this week.   Freeland, who chairs the cabinet committee on Canada-U.S. relations, said officials are working on a climate and environment package for Obama and Trudeau to announce during the summit. The agreement is expected to focus on emissions from the transportation sector, strengthening fuel emissions standards and spurring the production and use of electric vehicles and ride-sharing apps.   Trudeau recently hosted a First Ministers’ Meeting in Canada that brought together provincial, federal and indigenous leaders to discuss the issue of climate change. The meeting resulted in the Vancouver Declaration, a document that outlines a new climate change negotiating process for the country that will give Trudeau a better sense of what Canada can offer to a continental strategy.   Todd Stern, White House envoy, told reporters in Washington that a part of the climate strategy on the table will involve 40 to 45 per cent reductions in methane emissions from the oil and gas sector from 2012 levels by 2025.   2. Drilling in a Climate-Threatened Arctic 

Environmental organizations on both sides of the border recognize the bilateral talks as a prime opportunity to impose a moratorium on oil drilling in the pristine and ecologically sensitive Arctic — something insiders say is unlikely to happen.   Obama and Trudeau are expected to address the issue of the Arctic specifically as a part of their larger climate and environment strategy.   In recent years, Arctic sea ice has been at an all time low while rising sea levels have accelerated coastal erosion and melting permafrost has threatened the structural integrity of northern infrastructure. Some Arctic communities have already been forced to relocate, placing indigenous cultures and traditional ways of life under threat.   The agreement announced at the Obama-Trudeau Summit is expected to include measures to protect sensitive marine areas in the Arctic and bring more renewable energy to remote communities to eliminate the high use of diesel which produces a soot by-product known as ‘black carbon’ that further exacerbates ice melt.   A ban on Arctic drilling is not expected to form part of the agreement.   “Drilling is all risk and no reward,” Franz Matzner from the Natural Resources Defense Council told The Globe and Mail. “And now it is a perfect opportunity to take it off the table.”   The U.S. is currently the chair of the Arctic Council, a position held by Canada for the last two years. Environmentalists would like to see the U.S. set an example in the Arctic by refusing to grant new oil and gas leases.   There is currently no active drilling in the Arctic although exploratory activity is taking place in the Beaufort Sea.

3. Off Fossil Fuels, On to Clean Energy

At the December 2015 Paris climate talks both Canada and the U.S. agreed to limit global temperature increase to two degrees Celsius and to create carbon neutral economies by 2050. Both countries have also promised to eliminate the use of fossil fuels by 2100.   The fossil fuel industry is subsidized to the tune of $20 billion in the U.S. each year and roughly $5.6 billion in Canada. Both countries have pledged, along with all other G20 nations, to end fossil fuel subsidies although no significant progress has been made. In fact, Canada appears to be moving in the wrong direction: last year investment in renewables skyrocketed around the world but dropped by 46 per cent in Canada.   Alternately, the U.S. is the second largest clean energy economy after China. In 2015 the U.S. invested $56 billion in renewables, an increase of seven per cent from 2015, according to Clean Energy Canada.   Canada and the U.S. have the capacity to integrate clean energy grids across the border. But this will only represent meaningful climate progress if investments in clean energy are used to accelerate a major transition off fossil fuel-based energy systems.   Obama already has a Clean Power Plan (currently stalled in litigation) that will allow states to purchase clean Canadian power. According to the North American Electric Reliability Council this could lead to Canada tripling its clean energy exports to the U.S. by 2030.

4. Mining Regulations 

Tensions regarding Canadian mining regulations are at an all time high between British Columbia and Alaska after the collapse of the Mount Polley mine tailings pond in August 2014. An estimated 24 million cubic metres of mining waste were released into Quesnel Lake, a pristine source of drinking water and spawning grounds for a large portion of B.C.’s sockeye salmon.   The accident exposed poor mining practices and an inadequate regulatory regime in the province.   Since then, Alaskans near the border have voiced concern over the 10 new mines in construction or proposed for northwestern B.C. A tailings pond breach at one of the new mines, one of which is operated by Imperial Metals, the owner of the Mount Polley mine, could devastate a local economy dependent on tourism and fishing.   There are only five mines operating in Alaska, none of which use wet tailings ponds for waste storage. Only two of those mines are near salmon runs in southeast Alaska.   Growing concerns that Alaskans aren’t given adequate input into the decision-making process could be allayed by an appeal to the International Join Commission, a body established to resolve Canada/U.S. water disputes. 

5. Trans Pacific Partnership 

The TPP is one of the most controversial and secretive international trade deals ever brokered. In October 2015 Canada and the U.S. along with 10 other nations finalized the details of the TPP although the agreement has yet to be ratified.   If adopted the TPP will introduce new measures to protect fossil fuel giants and their profits from effective climate policies. Just like under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the TPP deal includes provisions that allow corporations to sue countries that limit the extraction of oil, gas and coal or the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.   While Canada and the U.S. at the highest level are promising to implement meaningful climate policies — policies that are critical to achieving targets enshrined in the Paris Agreement — international trade deals give companies the right to sue if those policies hurt their bottom line.   The White House touted the environmental benefits of the trade deal, saying it is a “once-in-a-generation chance to protect our oceans, wildlife and the environment.” But Karthik Ganapathy of 350.org told ThinkProgress the deal is “an absolute disaster for our climate.”   Although Trudeau has indicated he is pro trade and that the TPP represents an important opportunity for Canada, the deal was negotiated under the previous federal government with little to no public accountability or disclosure. This conflicts with Trudeau’s commitment to transparency in government.   Perhaps Trudeau, who promised to consider Canadians’ concerns as well as indigenous rights in light of the agreement, could reopen crucial elements of the deal for discussion with the U.S.   But I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.

Image: PMO press gallery

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Holy smokes.

Polls are in and Canadians across the country are expressing surprise at the strong win for the federal Liberal party.

While there’s much ink to be spilled over former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s reign, he’s likely locked in a bathroom now, so we’ll save that for another, less change-y time.

Canada, you have a new Prime Minister. I would say ‘go home, you’re drunk.’ But don’t, because you’re not. This is actually happening.

But wait, what is actually happening? We have a new majority government. Before the fun gets away with us, let’s do a quick reality check for what the Liberal Party and incoming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have been promising all y’all on some of our top DeSmog Canada topics: climate, environment, science and transparency.

Justin Trudeau’s Liberals on Climate

On the issue of Canada’s climate commitments for the UN climate summit this fall in Paris, the Liberal platform is underdeveloped. On the campaign trail last week party leader Justin Trudeau told the CBC he would not commit to specific emissions targets.

“Everybody has thrown out numbers and different targets, and what they’re going to do and what is going to happen,” Trudeau said.

“What we need is not ambitious political targets. What we need is an ambitious plan to reduce our emissions in the country.”

The federal Conservative party promised to reduce emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2050, a target that has been roundly criticized as weak. Others have pointed out the Conservative plan made no mention of the Alberta oilsands, the fastest growing source of emissions in Canada.  

Although the Liberals don’t have a specific plan yet, the party has promised to establish a new climate change framework by February 2016 that includes an eventual phase out of fossil fuel subsidies. The plan will also include investment in climate resilience, clean technology and low-carbon infrastructure.

The party will also set aside $2 billion for emissions-reducing projects through a new Low Carbon Economy Trust.

Trudeau has also promised to attend climate negotiations in Paris with all of the premiers and to work with the provinces on emissions reduction plans that are location specific.

Importantly the Liberals have also promised to work with other countries like Mexico and the U.S. in developing shared clean energy plans.

Liberals on Environment

The Liberal party is promising to undo some of the damage done to Canada’s environmental laws and environmental assessment process for projects like pipelines.

The party promises to establish new, credible reviews for proposed development that are comprehensive, consider full and cumulative impacts, including upstream impacts like development in the oilsands, as well as greenhouse gas emissions.

Their revamped review process promises to be evidence-based and allow for more meaningful participation by the public.

Liberal party candidate Jonathan Wilkinson, who took the North Vancouver riding with 56 per cent of the vote, has also promised to scrap the current Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline review in favour of a revitalized process.

Trudeau has voiced his support for pipelines, including the Kinder Morgan and Keystone XL pipelines, but has also acknowledged “even though [it is] governments that grant permits, ultimately it’s only communities that grant permission.”

In that light, the party is also promising to engage more respectfully with First Nations during the consultation process. Considering cumulative impacts around the oilsands has been a major issue for local First Nations. On this note the Liberals have also promised to immediately implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — something that will alter the manner in which First Nations are approached and consulted on major energy projects.

Since 2012 the Conservative party has weakened and eliminated many of Canada’s strongest environmental laws, including the Fisheries Act and the Navigable Waters Act.

The Liberals have promised to review changes to both of these Acts, re-instate what was removed from them and possibly up protections where warranted.

Significantly for B.C. the Liberal party has promised a moratorium on crude oil tanker traffic on the province’s north coast.

Liberals on Science

The Liberal party has taken a strong stance on the war on science in Canada, promising to free scientists to speak publicly about their work.

Trudeau has also promised to instate a Parliamentary Science Officer to ensure transparency, expertise and independence of federal scientists. This position will mirror that of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

In addition to unmuzzling scientists, the party also wants to work collaboratively with the provinces, First Nations and other stakeholders when it comes to ocean management.

This is significant in light of the Conservative government’s de-funding of numerous marine science programs, including the only research being conducted into the effects of industrial pollutants on marine mammals. The Liberal party has promised to reinstate $40 million of funding for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

The Liberals plan on incorporating more science into federal environmental assessments including the consideration of climate change and environmental impacts of oilsands development on pipeline projects. Under the Conservatives both emissions and environmental impacts of the oilsands were considered ‘outside the relevant scope’ of pipeline reviews.

The federal Conservatives also fought against First Nations and conservation groups regarding the Species at Risk Act and its implication for major projects like oilsands mines or pipelines.

The Liberal party has promised to respond more quickly and more scientifically to the issue of at risk species. This means species will be listed faster and mandatory timelines will be put in place for species once they are listed as at risk.

A new version of the Species at Risk Act is already on the Liberal’s environmental plan.

Liberals on Transparency

When it comes to dealing with media, Trudeau has promised to have a much more open and transparent relationship with journalists.

Through its Transparency Act, the party has promised to make access to information much easier for Canadians, including making all government documents freely available online.

The Access to Information Act will be amended to make information ‘Open by Default,’ that is, more easily available to the public, on quicker timelines and for less money.

Current requests under the act cost $5 per request but may be subject to additional fees if the request is large or requires a lot of time. The amended act will limit the possible fee to the initial $5 charge.

In addition the Act will be reviewed every five years and expanded to include the Prime Minister’s Office, which is usually exempt from disclosure rules.

Trudeau has also promised to repeal certain elements of the Conservative’s controversial anti-terrorism legislation Bill C-51.

Former prime ministers, national editorial boards, tech experts, legal scholars, civil society organizations, democracy watchdogs and droves of citizens opposed the bill, saying it undermined the democratic rights of Canadians.

Many were outraged at the Liberals’ decision to support it.

Trudeau has promised to “take a constructive approach to improving the bill” including instituting greater oversight of Canada’s national security agencies and establishing an “all-party committee of Parliamentarians, to provide oversight of various agencies, including CSIS, CSE, the RCMP and DND.”

No matter what, Canadians are in for a real mix up under this new leadership. Reuters is reporting Justin Trudeau will bring “glamour, youth and charisma” to Ottawa in the dawning of this new age. I’ll reserve that kind of cheer for another moment. For now, I’ll just say the Liberal party certainly has their work cut out for them.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Aaron Freeman has been working on environmental policy, in one fashion or another, in Canada for 25 years — long enough to witness what he calls the steady decline of environmental priorities in Ottawa.

And yet the majority of Canadians claim they care deeply about the environment and expect governments to act on major environmental problems like climate change. So how to resolve the disconnect?

Freeman launched GreenPAC, a non-partisan political action committee, in March as a way of mending the divide between environmental concerns and environmental action at the political level.

Recently GreenPAC released a list of environmental champions from across the political spectrum and urged Canadians to support their campaigns.

DeSmog Canada asked Freeman to break down how he sees strong support for environmental candidates making the difference when it comes to making environment a top priority in Ottawa once again.

Q: GreenPAC has endorsed strong environmental candidates but do they actually have power to be strong leaders within their parties? Why shouldn’t people vote for candidates that represent the parties with the strongest environmental platforms?

Aaron Freeman: Party discipline has been with us for a long time and it has become a more and more powerful force in Ottawa.

But this isn’t a recent phenomenon: it’s been around since the '70s. I mean, we’ve heard about the Harper government, but we also heard about the Chretien government, the Mulroney government, the Trudeau government. So it’s not a new phenomenon.

At the same time, when we have made progress with environmental issues in Ottawa it has been with ordinary Members of Parliament, working across party lines and pushing for change within their parties. And that has been a very effective political force in Ottawa.

That has resulted in legislation like the Species at Risk act being passed. It has resulted in toxic chemicals being regulated and banned.

I’d say most of the time that we’ve made progress in Ottawa, that dynamic has been at play.

Q: So how does this factor into your work with GreenPAC?

AF: As it relates to GreenPAC we need a force that is politically relevant in our electoral system that sends a strong message to parties that environment matters —that it matters politically. And right now we don’t have that: environment consistently punches below its weight in politics.

The way to achieve this is by embedding leadership in all political parties. The way to do that through our electoral system is to elect people that we send to Ottawa.

If we’ve sent leaders to Ottawa, they can make the difference because they have a mandate, a political mandate.

It [will be] environmentalists who helped get those folks elected and that’s going to carry political weight within their parties.

Q: I’ve been speaking with other politicos and experts about this election who say voters are increasingly voting for a party, rather than a candidate who represents them and their constituency. But GreenPAC is recommending voters find strong candidates with a good environmental record to throw their weight behind. Why?

AF: The key verb there is finding, finding the candidates — we often don’t do that, or support them when we do.

You can imagine the conversation between the environmental sector and the environmental leaders we’re trying to get to run for office.

We’d have a conversation that goes something like this:

You’re a fantastic leader on the environment; you’ve delivered in your field of expertise. We really want to see you run and there’s a nomination race coming open in your party and your community. We want to see you run.

We won’t endorse you, we won’t support you, and we won’t show up. But we love you and we want you to run.

It’s a ludicrous conversation.

That’s completely unappealing especially if you aren’t of politics and many of the best people — who should be running but aren’t — don’t come from politics. That’s a completely unappealing proposition.

So we need to change the conversation a bit.

We need to say to prospective leaders: before you give me your answer, know that there are 200 people in your riding who share your values. In fact they share those values to the point where they’re willing to dig deep and give to candidates in other ridings who share those values. Would you be willing to sit down with 50 of them?

That’s a completely different conversation.

Q: So is this what GreenPAC does? Makes those conversations happen?

AF: We’re in the business of recruiting, nominating, electing and supporting environmental leadership. We are building a conversation, we’re building a community of people in different parts of the country who want to do that, who want to build leadership at the local and national level.

There will be people, there are already people in our network who want to take this to the provincial level in their province, to their municipal level, perhaps even within the party level.

And that’s a really interesting conversation that starts on October 20th for us.

Q: You’re the president and the founder of GreenPAC. Can you tell me a little about what led to you starting this?

AF: I’ve been involved in environmental policy issues for 25 years.

What I’ve seen is a consistent decline of the political relevance of environmental issues. The public supports environmental issues very broadly across all demographics across all parts of the country, they want that leadership.

But the support for it is spread out — it’s diffused. It’s a top issue for five to 15 per cent of the population and it’s a second or third priority for a solid majority of the population across all regions. In our electoral system there is no way to translate that into political relevance. It’s a geographically based electoral system and the support for environmental issues is spread out.

So environment chronically punches below its weight in politics for that reason and other reasons as well.

…

We’re all making difficult choices in who to vote for in this next election.

What GreenPAC is about is moving beyond having to choose between the lesser of two evils at the ballot box and actually focusing on an agenda that will change the face of leadership and turn Canada around on its environmental performance.

Q: You have been around since March and you just launched your list of endorsed candidates that you crafted with a panel of experts. What has the response been so far?

AF: It’s been amazing. We’ve received a lot of media attention but also a lot of public attention.

The message is really resonating with people. People want to do something tangible to really make a difference. They’ve seen where we’ve gone on the environment and the lack of leadership with environmental politics.

They want to do something tangible to turn that around. GreenPAC offers them the opportunity to do that. 

Read more about GreenPAC and check out the Candidate Matching Tool to find environmental leaders who share your values.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This is a guest post by David Suzuki.

The federal leaders’ debate on the economy focused on important issues — jobs, deficits, infrastructure spending, pipelines, climate change — but no one talked about a different vision for Canada’s economy.

What if we challenged our leaders to answer the dilemma posed by American journalist Charles Bowden: “Imagine the problem is that we cannot imagine a future where we possess less but are more”?

Not being able to even imagine an economy without continual growth is a profound failure.

A better economic vision would support the right of all Canadians to live in a healthy environment, with access to clean air and water and healthy food. It would respect planetary boundaries and provide the moral imperative to decrease growing income disparities.

Businesses would be required to pay for environmental damage they inflict, capital would be more widely distributed and ideas, such as employee shareholder programs with ethically invested stocks, would be the norm.

This alternative economy would connect people to family, friends and communities, focus on social capital investments over gross domestic product gains, and distribute wealth through taxes, social programs and minimum guaranteed incomes.

In The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, authors Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett write that developed countries with the greatest inequalities have higher rates of disease, mental illness, drug use and a host of other social problems. Reducing income gaps makes all of us healthier.

In Canada, we don’t question our emphasis on constant growth. Our economic system favours short-term profits at the expense of our long-term health and survival.

Despite more than five decades of trying to fix our environmental challenges, forests are still threatened, deserts are spreading and climate change is creating more frequent and intense storms, floods, forest fires and droughts.

We’re also left with income inequality that threatens our democracy.

Since the 1980s, the top one per cent of Canadians has increasingly enjoyed the biggest share of income growth and the least pain during economic downturns.

Since 2009, the top 10 per cent have seen half of all income growth. The bottom 50 per cent of Canadians have not only seen declines in income growth, accounting for just three per cent of income gains, they’ve also been hardest hit during recessions.

In a statement that applies equally to Canada, the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once noted, “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.”

A cornerstone of our current economy, consuming goods, may give us fleeting pleasure, but it isn’t making us happier.

Studies show the pleasure derived from food, sex, exercise and time with loved ones or doing meaningful work takes much longer to fade. Worse, consuming stuff is not only addictive, it also feeds rivalry and societal overconsumption.

The Canadian Index of Wellbeing uncovered some troubling truths about the connection between the economy and well-being. When Canada’s economy was thriving, Canadians saw only modest improvements in their overall quality of life, but when the economy faltered our well-being took a disproportionate step backward.

This is troubling, given predictions for an upcoming extended period of weak economic growth. Why are we so reluctant to talk about how we can get out of this cycle of endless buying and unsatisfying consumption by considering steady-state economies or even de-growth alternatives?

Despite this failure to imagine a better way, we may finally be seeing a change in course. The climate crisis is creating a global consciousness shift, with hundreds of thousands marching to demand change, and Pope Francis’s Encyclical warning that economic growth and technology can’t continue to trump all other concerns. Throughout Europe, North America and beyond, support is growing for confronting income and wealth inequality.

Imagine a Canadian election in which leaders gave us economic visions aimed at caring for people and the planet. It’s time we talked about a future when we can live with less and be happier.

I’ll be joining Peter Victor, one of Canada’s most respected ecological economists, to talk about these ideas at a public event for the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics conference in Vancouver on October 1. I hope to see some of you there.

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Environmental Economist and Policy Analyst Michelle Molnar.

Image: Kris Krug

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

While Jim Prentice and his Progressive Conservative cadre lick their wounds after last night’s landslide victory by the New Democratic Party and leader Rachel Notley, punditry about the oil industry’s place in the transformed province is in full force.

Even before the results were in, Canadians were being warned new leadership in Canada’s oilpatch will mean very scary things for the economy: fleeing investors, abandoned projects, market uncertainty.

Now that the victory bells have rung, the hand-wringing has leveled up.

The NDP win is “completely devastating,” for the energy industry, Rafi Tahmazian, fund manager for Canoe Financial LP, told Bloomberg.

“The oil patch will pack up and leave,” Licia Corbella, editor of the Calgary Herald’s editorial page, tweeted. “Woe is us.”

Yet many other onlookers are saying fresh leadership in Alberta could bring long-overdue policy changes that not only benefit a broader cross-section of society, but industry itself, by remedying systemic imbalances that have granted an unhealthy amount of power to oil interests for far too long.

NDP Win a “Clear Negative”?

Notley, who has promised to review the royalty regime around oil and gas production, raise corporate taxes, ban corporate political donations and stop pushing for the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines, is poking an exposed nerve for companies already feeling on the outs after the oil economy’s dramatic downturn.

“The perception from the market based on their comments is they’re extremely dangerous,” Tahmazian said.

Bloomberg reports the NDP victory could result in a massive sell off of Canadian energy stocks and stall investment in the oilsands (Cenovus stocks dropped four per cent on the TSX on Wednesday).

“It’s a clear and material negative,” Martin Pelletier from TriVest Wealth Counsel Ltd. opined. “Just when we’re starting to look like we’re recovering here, we get another layer of uncertainty.”

Jeff Gaulin, vice president of communications at the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Canada’s largest oil and gas lobby, echoed those concerns, saying a change in Alberta’s royalty regime would be dangerous for industry.

“Now is not the time for a royalty review,” he told Reuters. “The uncertainty that that would create for investment would jeopardize jobs in Alberta.”

According to Jeremy McCrea, analyst with AltaCorp Capital Inc. in Calgary, American investors began dropping stocks even before the elections results were in. Energy shares, McCrea warned, are threatened by Notley’s royalty review — and a potential hike in rates.

But not all commentators see such doom and gloom in the NDP’s sudden rise to power.

New NDP Rule Could be “Good for Pipelines”

The Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose parties have been called out for running what amounts to a “fear campaign” based on threats the NDP would wreck the economy.

But with the Albertan economy already in shambles — with a deficit running at $5 billion — voters were apparently left unconvinced that sticking with the status quo would be in their best interest.

“The fear of the unknown was a big factor the NDP had to overcome,” Chris Hall, national affairs editor of the CBC said. “I think what people voted for was change.”

Hall acknowledged that Notley’s campaign promises could be a “disincentive” for new investors looking to get involved in the oilpatch, but he added Notley is “not a particularly radical New Democrat.”

“The environment, for example, comes in under ‘other matters’ on their platform.”

Andrew Coyne said he anticipates Notley will proceed with caution as she presumably doesn’t want to be a “one-term premier.”

“This is still an oil-producing province,” Coyne said. “She can’t just step all over that.”

He added: “What she may have an advantage of is presenting a more environmentally friendly face in terms of the outside world and if she plays her cards right could actually increase the odds of getting a pipeline built if that’s the way she’s inclined.”

Max Fawcett, editor of Alberta Oil, said industry’s “nervousness is a gut reaction” and that he anticipates measured policy under Notley.

The new premier isn’t likely to “pick a fight” with industry and represents policies that are actually much closer to the PCs than one might think.

Fawcett points to Andrew Leach’s detailed analysis on the NDPs position, saying “they’re not the fire-breathing leftist radicals some might think.”

As Leach puts it, “an NDP government would certainly lead to changes in Alberta, but perhaps not of the radical sort feared by many in the province.”

So, despite the gnashing of teeth, the new guard doesn’t necessarily represent doom and gloom for the oil industry. After all, much of Alberta’s former policy (with ample help from the federal Conservatives) has put the oil industry in hot water.

Notley Promises to be Good Partner to Industry and First Nations

In her victory speech, Notley promised to maintain good working relations with industry, but also emphasized her hope to repair long-damaged relationships with First Nations in Alberta.

“To Alberta’s Indigenous peoples,” she said, “the trust we have been given tonight is a call to be better neighbours and partners. I’m looking forward to consulting with you and learning from you.”

Currently oilsands operators are facing two major legal challenges from First Nations with traditional territory in the oilsands region.

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN), whose legal challenge was thrust into the spotlight with Neil Young’s Honour the Treaties tour last summer, is arguing the cumulative impacts of rampant oilsands development threatens their treaty rights.

Although the Albertan and Canadian governments fought to have the case dismissed, the Alberta Court of Appeals decided the case was legitimate — with potentially huge implications for all oilsands operators.

In response to the NDP victory, the ACFN said they are “optimistic to finally have a government that that recognizes and respects Indigenous rights and territories.”

“While the ACFN have raised multiple issues over the years relating to land management, environmental, health and education, we are finally looking forward to possibly resolving our concerns through a meaningful working relationship with the NDP government.”

The Beaver Lake Cree First Nation is also taking its oilsands fight to the courts, a challenge given greater weight since the unstoppable CNRL bitumen leak began on its territory in 2012.

Alberta’s “black eye” reputation when it comes to climate and the environment hasn’t been doing industry any favours.

Obama’s ambivalence on Keystone XL, Europe’s efforts to label oilsands crude as “high carbon,” and the explosion of major climate and pipeline protests across Canada are all symptom’s of Alberta’s failure to get the oil industry on a 21st century track.

A lack of social licence for oilsands operators has meant “uncertainty” for industry (to the tune of $17 billion by some estimates) long before the NDP took their seat at the throne.

Clearly the status quo wasn’t working perfectly — for anybody. While entrenched oil interests are fearing the worst, there’s obviously plenty of room for improvement.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This article was originally published in "Canada's Map to Sustainability," a special issue of Alternatives Journal (AJ) in partnership with Sustainable Canada Dialogues (SCD). Comments on the AJ website will inform SCD's white paper on how Canada can achieve sustainability later this year.

Even though people pay attention to images of oil-soaked birds in the aftermath of oil spills, researchers know that another, less perceptible, issue is the death of algae from the use of chemical dispersants after these disasters. Although people focus on shifting to hybrid cars to reduce their carbon footprint, researchers show that we also need to think about methane emissions from the global livestock industry.

Though people promote the environmental benefits of digitization in our workplaces and media consumption, researchers remind us that this shift generates massive amounts of e-waste with its own ecological footprint. Despite nearly universal scientific consensus about the harmful impacts of climate change, government and the public keep ignoring it.

Three environmental communication dilemmas help to explain: The scale of environmental issues, difficulties portraying environmental problems and a tendency to individualize problems.

By recognizing how these factors structure media coverage of environmental issues, scientists and academics can strategically work with them as opportunities to play a greater role in public debates.

The first dilemma concerns the way environmental issues cross multiple geographic and conceptual scales, making them difficult for people to understand or act on. Take climate change as an example. Greenhouse gases are produced locally by individual households, drivers and factories, but carbon emissions quickly move from local sites into atmospheric systems and affect communities and ecosystems worldwide. Climate change impacts are most observable in the Arctic and Antarctic, which are out of sight to those producing the damage. Unfortunately, many people don’t pay attention to environmental problems until they are in their own backyards.

Recent examples of this include opposition to “dirty diesel” trains in Toronto, the expansion of the Kinder Morgan pipeline in Burnaby, or the risks posed by the Energy East pipeline for beluga whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The second dilemma is the difficulty of portraying environmental problems to general audiences. Media privilege stories with dramatic visuals, moments of crisis and issues that appear to have clear causes and effects. However, many environmental issues are complex, difficult to represent and have diffuse causes and consequences. For instance, disasters like the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico provide dramatic imagery of oiled birds and ruined coastlines.

But viewing oil through the lens of catastrophe means that the chronic and mundane impacts of oil extraction on air and water quality go unnoticed. Similarly, focusing on the catastrophic failures of oil extraction reinforces the disconnect between upstream criticisms of oil (e.g., protests against the Alberta oil sands and pipeline projects) and the end users — vehicle drivers and consumers — who depend on oil development.

The last dilemma is that causes and solutions to environmental problems are often framed in individual-level terms, rather than focusing on political and economic structures that promote unsustainable consumption, resource exploitation and waste. In line with an overarching media logic that promotes consumerism, this dilemma focuses on buying new products or individual actions a person can take, but ignores the role of governments and industries that also need to change.

Furthermore, the individualization of environmental issues is often linked to the use of celebrities to communicate environmental issues. When this happens, the environmental issue can become tied to the personality of the celebrity and his or her knowledgeability.

Gone are the days when one can say “environmental issues don’t affect me.”

Therefore, we increasingly need scientists who have done the research to help us successfully navigate these vital issues. We need scientists to communicate in a way that resonates with everyday people. The dilemmas of environmental communication outlined above are well-entrenched in media. However, it is possible to work with these dilemmas and treat them as opportunities, so that the boreal ecologist can go viral on YouTube, the geophysicist can be a regular contributor to the Huffington Post or the social scientist can create the trending podcast on iTunes.

Such translation of science for popular audiences is an important part of the solution to environmental and climate change.

If scientists and academics accept that environmental issues are difficult to portray visually and have complex causal narratives, they can play a major role in translating issues in meaningful ways and helping the general public and policy makers respond to environmental predicaments. 

Doing this means that environmental researchers need to move away from the technical language of their disciplines to more common language and analogies. They have to accept that appealing to non-specialists will require linking environmental problems to personal narratives. This will help translate large-scale data into relatable stories that can provoke personal as well as political responses. This will create a gateway to even more sophisticated understandings of the environment.

To succeed at such translation, environmental scientists and academics will have to engage in multiple communication strategies. They cannot assume their research is inherently newsworthy, that academic journals will be read or understood or that their primary audience is other researchers. Instead, environmental researchers can become prominent public intellectuals, embracing new media and opportunities to comment on environmental changes.

This means devoting grant money to non-academic communication; it means partnering with videographers, web designers or gamers. It means rewarding public engagement and not just articles in peer-reviewed journals.

If environmental scientists and academics embrace these dilemmas as strategies for communication, we could have a fuller understanding of environmental changes. By becoming more visible in public communication, environmental scientists and academics can help shift the tone of environmental debates that are currently led by media workers, politicians and activists.

If they did this, perhaps we would be clicking on YouTube videos of algae destroyed by oil spill dispersants, adopt carbon pricing for beef products to reflect their contribution to climate change or think of scientists as celebrities and not just nerds. By serving as public experts, environmental researchers can play an important role in communicating that tomorrow’s problems are sown today, and so are the solutions.

From Dilemmas to Opportunities

Our comparative research on environmental movements and outdoor recreation in British Columbia and Nova Scotia demonstrates how scale and locality affect media attention. In an ongoing conflict, environmentalists and First Nations groups oppose the development of the Jumbo Glacier ski resort in the Purcell Mountains of B.C., due to impacts on grizzly bear and other wildlife habitat, as well as claims about undemocratic decision-making over land-use development.

In another controversy, environmental groups in Nova Scotia opposed off-highway vehicle use in the Tobeatic Wilderness area due to issues of vegetation damage and noise pollution, and their demands were incorporated into the final management plan for the area.

In comparing these cases, we see that local and rural-based environmental groups were most successful in gaining media coverage when their claims were reinforced by urban environmental organizations closer to provincial levers of political power and media attention.

Research on the BP oil spill shows that actual environmental damage was not the main driver of media and political reaction to the disaster or its aftermath.

In an article published in the Canadian Review of Sociology, we find that media coverage primarily focused on how the government, the oil industry and environmentalists reacted to one another.

Over time, news narratives shifted to issues of economic impacts, compensation and recovery, leaving the ongoing environmental harms of the spill and its cleanup at the margins of the story. 

Singer Neil Young campaigned to raise awareness about the impacts of bitumen development and First Nations rights in Alberta. While he gained much attention, a lot of the media focus was on him and the appropriateness of his comparison of the oil sands to the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, rather than on environmental issues.

As demonstrated by our research, national news media coverage of climate change in Canada (and in much of the world) peaked in 2007-2008. Much of this coverage was driven by the film An Inconvenient Truth, the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) fourth assessment report, and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC.

The reason An Inconvenient Truth successfully got people talking about climate change was because it used the celebrity of Al Gore to translate climate science in ways that made it feel accessible and personal. Imagine if that celebrity were a scientist instead of a politician – perhaps we would see the environment differently.

Mark C.J. Stoddart is an associate professor of Sociology at Memorial University of Nfld. He received the 2014 Early Investigator Award from the Canadian Sociological Association.

Howard Ramos is a political sociologist at Dalhousie University who investigates the relationships among social movements and NGO advocacy and media coverage.  

Image Credit: DaveJDoe CC-BY-2.0 via Flickr

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.