In an opinion piece in Macleans, Tom Mulcair details how Canada became an environmental outlier.
Need to ActHe comments that Justin Trudeau and Peter MacKay represent the same generation—one that has failed on the environment. He gives the last word to McGill Ph.D. student Christopher Orr, who does represent the next generation.
The last word to McGill Ph.D. student Christopher Orr, who does represent the next generation. “The global ecological crisis, characterized by climate change, sea level rise, ocean acidification, a sixth mass extinction, promises an even more deeply unsettled time than previous periods,” he wrote in his thesis. “These changes threaten to destabilize global and local systems through mass displacement and migration, conflict and war, and disruption of agriculture, food and water provisioning, energy systems, transportation, and supply chains. The current situation presents a unique opportunity to deal with underlying tensions and trade-offs between the economy and the environment, and to bring about a better world.”1
Moira Warburton writing for Reuters, reports that the last fully intact ice shelf in Canadian Arctic has collapsed.
“This was the largest remaining intact ice shelf, and it’s disintegrated, basically,” Luke Copland, a glaciologist at the University of Ottawa who was part of the research team studying the Milne Ice Shelf, said.
The Arctic has been warming at twice the global rate for the last 30 years, due to a process known as Arctic amplification. But this year, temperatures in the polar region have been intense. The polar sea ice hit its lowest extent for July in 40 years. Record heat and wildfires have scorched Siberian Russia.
Summer in the Canadian Arctic this year in particular has been 5 degrees Celsius above the 30-year average, Copland said.2
David Suzuki, with contributions from Senior Editor and Writer Ian Hanington, comments that a four-day workweek can spur necessary transformation in society. Life isn’t about making more money so we can keep buying more stuff; it’s about having time to do things that enrich our lives. In the face of multiple crises — pandemic, climate and biodiversity — we need to consider new societal and economic ideas that promote human well-being and help us live within Earth’s limits, rather than endlessly chasing a consumerist dream based on the illusory premise that a finite planet can support endless growth.
Sea level rise
It shouldn’t be that difficult this time, as advantages to business and industry are as great as those to individuals and society. And the need for change has never been more evident. Let’s take the first step to new ways of working by adopting a four-day workweek now!
Transforming work-life balance through a well-being lens can lead to significant health benefits, contribute to gender equality, improve work redistribution and have important environmental benefits. Rethinking how we work is crucial, and a four-day workweek, guaranteed sick days, minimum vacation time and greater flexibility are good steps toward making work better for people and the planet.
The four-day week is becoming especially popular as people consider a post-pandemic world. That’s because it works. Utah gave its government workers a four-day workweek from 2007 to 2011 (it ended with a change in government), and concluded it saved $1.8 million in energy costs within the first 10 months and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 10,900 tonnes a year.
A University of Liverpool brief on how the city can respond to the COVID-19 crisis confirmed the benefits of working four days, in part by looking at European nations that have reduced work hours. The researchers caution that governments and unions must help ensure that overall wages and living standards aren’t reduced, and that “productivity gains from advances in fields like automation are distributed amongst the workforce rather than amassed by the owners of machines.”3
Our recent history has been one of slow acceptance of the need to change our approach to the environment and the challenge of climate change. A four day work week is one adaptation that promises to reduce the frequency of events like the collapse of ice shelves in the Arctic.
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