Opinion
Environment is not an externality; it’s the core of human economy
By Independent Senator Rosa Galvez June 4, 2020
The heavy lobbying of the last decade which saw an average of six meetings per work day between industry lobbyists and the federal government seems to have carried forward into this crisis in a continued effort to dismantle and weaken climate and environmental governance federally.
Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, pictured on West Block. Ottawa has started putting requirements on climate-risk disclosure and plans to reach climate goals in some of its COVID financing and focused a specific oil and gas program on environmental remediation to maintain employment, writes Independent Senator Rosa Galvez. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
Relegated to a mere “externality” of our globalized economy for decades, nature has made a stark eruption to remind us of its importance on this yearly World Environment Day. The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented abrupt interruption of globalized human activity directly linked to our ill-treatment of nature.
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