Embracing Earth Charter key to environmental salvation
Author and U of A professor Colin Soskolne says humans need to smarten up.
March 7, 2008 - Edmonton -- Human beings, laments Colin Soskolne, are a "seriously dumb species."
Just what kind of defect drives us to destroy the very ecosystems that provide us with sustenance? Why do we turn away from mounting, irrefutable evidence that we are sabotaging our very existence?
Such questions are asked in a new collection of essays, called Sustaining Life on Earth: Environmental and Human Health through Global Governance, edited by Soskolne, on the environment and human health.
"Our livelihoods and, in fact, life itself fundamentally depends on the ability of ecosystems to function [and] produce goods and services, the sources of which we have for too long taken for granted."
"So, with a track record of wanton destruction, how smart are we?" asks the professor of public health sciences who has spent much of his recent career taking stock of the human health impact of climate change and pollution.
He says the message is simple: people around the world must embrace the Earth Charter. Drawn up by Canadian Maurice Strong in 1992 -- and with help from such advocates as former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev -- it has since undergone a number of revisions and confronted hurdle after political hurdle. But by 2005 it had become became more widely accepted as the global consensus statement on how to define and achieve sustainability-providing a vision statement that ensures the basic rights of sanitation, water quality, food safety and air quality for all.
It is, says Soskolne, "the set of values and principles that will guide us, globally, onto a future path that provides for just, sustainable, and peaceful ways of living."
"I believe that even if (Alberta premier) Ed Stelmach read this document, he would feel that it resonated with him. This is why I feel that it has such promise, that we have to get the word through to people we don't even see as being our allies necessarily in this cause, because the issues are so grave."
In a lecture Friday that drew largely from his book, Soskolne took a moment to express his frustration at Alberta's lack of foresight on the environment.
"You can see how dumb we are-we've just had an election in which people stayed away from the polls instead of voting for people with values and principles allied with their own," he said at the talk sponsored by the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre. "It was a watershed time in the history of this country, and we got a 41 per cent voting turnout. It was a very sad day."
Soskolne listed the myriad forms of environmental destruction humans have left in their wake, from the pollution of the oceans to unfettered development of the oilsands to the eradication of thousands of species. He said the only way to fend off a "gloomy" future is to join forces with people across the political spectrum who share a common concern for the planet.
This tone of urgency can also be detected in the forward to Sustaining Life on Earth. There is a deliberate attempt to make scientific findings, environmental policy and issues of global governance accessible to average readers, he writes, and especially students at all levels of study: "Now more than ever, future leaders in all fields of endeavor need to understand and embrace the message of this book."
Soskolne also urged the U of A - along with the governments of Alberta and Canada - to officially endorse the charter: "Maybe if we can invoke a little wisdom, we can change things."
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