2021 Good News Recap
A review of some positive developments last year to lift your spirits, and your COVID/Climate grief.
Happy new year! I hope for a year filled with better things for each and every one of you.
While a lot of publications have done “year in review” issues over the past week, I can’t help but think there has been enough bad news in your inbox over the past year. The news on the climate change front has certainly been bleak, and the Omicron variant has just been an additional strain on many who are already dealing with climate grief.
So in the interest of lightening your burden, I present, the Good News Only Recap of 2021.
Monarch Butterflies Stage a Huge Comeback
When just over 200 Monarchs visited the Pismo California Butterfly Park last year, researchers feared the worst for the future of this incredibly delicate insect.
But nature…umm…finds a way. This year the population came roaring back with over 100,000 softly alighting in the park, and proving that these fascinating and valuable creatures will live to come and eat Canadian milkweed another day.
Did you plant milkweed last year, and now have the pods sitting around your yard? Perhaps some gentle civil disobedience is in order. Seed bombs can be a great way of spreading love and native pollinators to otherwise derelict lots in urban settings. And the benefits, as we now know, can be seen as far away as California.
Medical Science Gets Serious About Nature’s Benefits
Doctors in British Columbia, Ontario and Saskatchewan are finally taking nature’s well known physical and mental health benefits seriously, and are prescribing time in nature to patients with certain types of mental health and cardiac conditions.
The benefits of nature on people’s well being is well known and has been demonstrated consistently in both modern scientific studies and traditional wisdom since pretty much people started living in cities.
Now Doctors in these provinces are able to prescribe things like “two hours of nature a week in at least 20 minute intervals” to patients who would benefit from them.
Could this lead to the powerful medical lobby joining the fight to preserve natural areas in medium to large cities where nature – as most people would define it – is hard to come by?
We can certainly hope so.
Youth Suing the Government Over Climate Inaction
In March, a group of youth won a precedent setting battle in Ontario Divisional Court which ruled that they were ok to proceed with their suit against the Ontario government for its inaction over climate change.
It was the first time that a Canadian court has ruled that Climate Change can impact a Canadian’s rights under the charter and was a badly needed win after a similar case in BC was thrown out the year before.
Putting aside how ludicrous it is that young people need to take their own government to court to force it to take action on preserving their future, it’s a positive development and could open up other provinces to similar action. Perhaps even leading to a federal suit in the future.
I’m trying to get a few of the youth in question to join me on the Environmental Urbanist Podcast/Radio Show in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.
Ontario Broke Law Courts Declare
In another court case, it was determined that Ontario had broken its own law about consultation on Environmental issues by ramming through changes to the planning act that made it easier for the provincial government to use Ministerial Zoning Orders to override local planning and environmental concerns.
If you follow environmental news in Ontario, you likely know that the Ford government has been wielding these orders like a hatchet to cut through environmental regulations or local planning decisions (which they call red tape), to make it easier for deep-pocketed developers to build quicker and less expensively.
In the end though, the province is wielding this power only because it broke its own law to make it easier to do so.
Kudos to groups like Earthroots, and Indigenous activists like Michel Koostachin for their victory.
Gord Miller from earthroots.org joined me in December on the podcast/radio show to explain what happened and how they won.
It has been said that the solution to issues like the climate crisis will be found in the courts and in the stories we tell each other, so this is certainly a good development.
Shell Abandons Oilfield Expansion
In eagerly awaited news last month, Shell announced they were pulling out of the controversial Cambo oil field development off the coast of Scotland for ”financial reasons.”
The project may still go ahead, pending far from certain regulatory approval with the remaining 70% investor still involved, but the pull out of a major partner like Shell has hopefully dealt a serious blow to its viability.
The project has become a lightning rod for the environmental movement in the UK who insist that achieving the UK’s COP26 goals is incompatible with expanding offshore oil and gas drilling.
It’s advice our government here in Canada would do well to heed.
That’s the some of the good news for 2021 that I found particularly hopeful, there is more out there if you go looking. I hope you have a wonderful year and can find some time in the coming months to take any small step you can toward saving the planet. Whether it’s as simple as organizing a neighbourhood litter clean up, or as fully immersed as running for provincial or municipal office in the upcoming Ontario elections on an environmental platform, I hope you will make climate action part of your year.
Jason Allen
The Environmental Urbanist
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