Partisanship Ecology Politics

I handed out this essay at the North Simcoe Eco Exchange in Coldwater, Ontario.

___________________________________________________________________________

I understand that one of the missions here today is the exchange of ideas.

There are three messages I want to convey, beyond our shared determination to protect and rehabilitate degraded natural systems.

First. The environmental movement, from my perspective, has been coopted by a desire to correct all social ills and power imbalances on the assumption that what will flow is a natural regard for, well, nature. As one of my good friends and highly visible activists on the west coast likes to say, “there will be no ecojustice without gender justice.” Sounds good, right?

When I plumb the depths of this slogan, I see a problem in its simplicity. Frankly, gender justice in Canada still needs improving, but big gains have been made. Note the ability for women to vote – thank you suffragettes! It is almost unbelievable to me as well that there was a time when women could not vote. However, since the time of the suffragettes to the present, even as women’s rights have improved in Canada, the ecology of the world has been declining. Choose any metric: biodiversity, presence of toxins, desertification, species under threat, old growth forest decline, overfishing, climate instability, you name it. Sure, there have been ecological gains, but the trend lines for our world ecology have been going down. In any event, the social justice movement, in my opinion, should do what it does, but should not inextricably tie its metrics to the metrics of environmental protection and rehabilitation.

Second. The social justice/ecology movement has demonstrated how the antagonism between the left and right of the political spectrum haunts our democracies. And it seems that this polarisation is rapidly increasing, perhaps fuelled by foreign state actors, education institutions, and algorithms, or all at once. I do not identify with either end of the spectrum all the time. It seems to be assumed in the current political climate in Canada and beyond that the issue of ecology is the purview solely of the political left. I disagree that this should be the case.

People on the right have children as well; they like their forests and clean water. Some of them like to hunt and fish. I clarify that I am not a hunter, but I do see the good conservation work that they do. Think about the benefits of the repatriation of the wild turkey in Simcoe County and beyond, restocking fisheries, planting trees, and advocacy. Also, I am not saying all hunters are card carrying right-of-centre voters, but they do not always share the same sociologic space as vegans (whom I like), for instance. Texan capitalists have embraced windmills and solar panels, but please do not label these green technologies, they just make them money (however subsidised).

In short, I hope we do not believe that no one on the right cares about the things that the left purports to be their turf. I try to follow a simple motto: I am neither right nor left when it comes to ecology protection and rehabilitation.

Third. Seventy percent of the world’s people live in countries with declining populations or at least sub-replacement fertility rates. China, Russia, Italy, South Korea, Japan, and Bulgaria all have declining populations and giants like India will soon join the list as their fertility declines. There are benefits that do go along with that, for instance cheaper housing in rural Japan. The often-noted problem of population decline is less labour, which may be a good thing as the AI juggernaut takes hold. Also, fewer people mean fewer net energy needs, less solid and sewage waste to handle, less infringement on agricultural and natural spaces, decreased emissions and less need for expensive infrastructures. My direct experience is that if you attribute population growth in Canada with growth in immigration numbers, there is visceral response from many, maybe even you, the reader. All I am saying is that we need to have an honest discussion about population growth and its effect on our ecology and not allow our political class to use this issue as a divisive cudgel. Which the political class does very well.

My comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the many other forums and organisations in which I am active. They come from 55 years of ecological advocacy, university training, hands-on experience, worldwide volunteer work, and running in 3 municipal, 2 federal and 2 provincial elections. I continue to be active in opposing harmful fish-farming practices on the west coast, promoting moratoriums on old growth cutting, and in local municipal politics and land conservancy.