Changes for the Next 40 Years: Balanced Academics? Is that even possible?

by Kai Chan
[Part 3 of 2—first encore! At 40, I’m still a prof, and still an idealist. In part 1, I identified four points of contention in my turbulent relationship with academia. In part 2, I pointed to three things that kept me in academia, three unexpected gifts. I was buoyed by the feedback I received from people enjoying my explicit consideration of balance, idealism and metrics of impact in academia. In response to multiple requests for forward-looking thoughts, I’ve added a two-part encore.]

It seems like an oxymoron, academics with work-life balance? If a balanced person becomes an academic,

Oxymoron or moron? Balanced and multi-tasking?
The truth is that this photo was taken for Grist,
after I won a survival kit including some juice.

don’t they inevitably become frantically overworked? And if a prof gets work-life balance, isn’t only because they’re academically ‘dead wood’? If I’m going to stick it out in academia for several more decades, here is one priority I’ll be working towards, actively and by example.

The prototypical professor is badly overworked, with little time for family and friends, perhaps judging his students in part on whether they’re in the lab on weekends. Times are changing, but not fast enough. Whereas my father missed my birth and the first few months of my life on sabbatical (no one faults him; it’s a long story), and many dads in his generation never changed a diaper, virtually every male colleague I know with young children took a parental leave to participate substantially in child rearing. Yet colleagues and I still hear profs demeaning assistant professors and grad students for not wanting it enough if they’re not chained to their desks long into the evening.

But we’ll change this.

First, we’ll challenge them. Whenever we hear someone casting aspersions on a colleague or student for not working extra hours, we’ll ask what really matters. We’ll assert, “Surely what matters is what we achieve with our time, not how long or when we work.” I have heard no rejoinder for such an assertion.

Second, we’ll challenge the system. The current system favours over-working, because of the current obsession with quantity over quality (see Fischer et al.). But there are pushes that would instead reward quality over quantity. For instance, the slow scholarship movement (see, e.g., http://web.uvic.ca/~hist66/slowScholarship/ ), which fosters slow conversations, deep thought, quality products, having fun with ideas, and creative outputs. Ironically, hastiness breeds hastiness: it takes time to distinguish meaningful, substantial contributions from meaning-light, superficial ones. But we can take the time needed to engage deeply with the literature, our own data and analyses, the manuscripts we review, etc. My lab group takes pride in various elements of slow scholarship, e.g., substantial peer reviews taking many hours, featuring high standards but also a truly constructive spirit (to foster this, we write our reviews in second-person, e.g., “Dear authors, … in your manuscript …”).

Playing with my family on the Deep Cove lookout hike.

Third, we’ll model the balance we want to see. I’ve been doing this since my first daughter was born, nearly seven years ago. Even when I wasn’t on parental leave, I had my colicky daughter most of the night, walking her around the neighbourhood for hours every night. The same happened for our second daughter. For the first four years of parenthood, I probably averaged 35 hours of work a week. I have my girls for hours every day, before and after work. Weekends are family time, except in grant season. When my wife (who works two days/week) was in Toronto with her dying father for the month of February, I ran the whole show, with the help of a wonderful group of friends and kind folks.

I mean no boast. Just as no one should be penalized for their commitment to family, I deserve no praise for mine. It’s simply my choice—my own vision for a good life and a sustainable world. Balance is deeply individual.

The Valentine's Day card I got from my daughter when I
was solo-parenting and running ragged.

Also, let’s not pretend that I’m some easy-going even-keel father and scholar. Not a chance. I’m only balanced in the sense that I’m equally (and extremely) intense in work, parenting, and exercise. (I do, however, protect my sleep and firmly believe the loads of research suggesting that it is crucial for long-term health.) In that crazy month of February, yes, we had fun for Family Day, Valentine’s, and Chinese New Year, but I also ran a very tight ship and I can’t pretend that I was ever really a picture of calm. And although I might have lots of time for family when I’m in Vancouver, I’m an intense workaholic when I’m not, e.g., working for fifteen hours straight on trains and planes to make the most of the quiet to ‘get it done’. I used to practice yoga and meditate, then I largely let it slip when I became a father. That slipping was right for the time, but I’ll get back to it before long.

Savouring the flowers with my daughter, after picking her
up from preschool.

Does role-modeling work? Well, my choices were certainly shaped by those around me. My parents and my mentors all displayed an intense commitment to family and fitness. My dad retired early to do 1000-km cycle trips with my mum (they have done at least a dozen), and he recently won bronze at the World Master’s Squash Championships (ages 70-75). And I keenly recall Gretchen Daily’s words of wisdom: “I don’t care when you work or how long. I just want you to be passionate about doing great research. If you draw inspiration from long hikes in the middle of the day, go for it.”

It’s time to spread such attitudes far and wide. There’s nothing more effective than social pressure. If you’ve got a story of someone pushing an unhealthy work-life balance, or a healthy one, or any other thought, please comment below. And if your vision of academia is one that embraces balance, please share this post.

What’s the one thing that you would do, to foster the kind of balance you seek? For me, I will strive to find time every single day for play (not just the childcare routine)—mostly with my daughters, but maybe I’ll even take up fancy dancing when I’m on the road….

The 3 things I didn’t know I’d love about being a prof

by Kai Chan
[This is part 2 of 2. Read part 1 here. A part 3 was added here.]

After tossing sleeplessly on the night of my 40^th birthday in my existential crisis, I discovered that the answer to “Why am I still a prof?” is that there are three things that I didn’t know that I’d cherish about being a professor. I knew that I loved the thrill of teaching, mentoring, and the pursuit of knowledge, and that I would love and respect my students and colleagues, but I didn’t appreciate the extent to which I would benefit from these three things.

1.     The freedom to fail. I’ve had many zany ideas over the years. A bunch of them haven’t panned out. They were struck down by reviewers, editors, and grant selection committees, or they simply died as I realized they just weren't resonating with others. While rejection often seems to be about not properly understanding the nature of the venue/opportunity (the journal, the grant program), it’s also true that I have learned tons from my failures, and academia is amazingly forgiving of such failures. Tenure is a particular blessing here. I’m deeply grateful for this opportunity to continue to experiment, to fail, and to learn from that failure.

Me at 40, sporting my birthday shirt
from Hadi Dowlatabadi: monetary
symbols and "Ecosystem Services",
"the bees' buzz" and "It's only money".

2.     The opportunity to contribute, sometimes importantly, to brilliant young leaders’ lives and thinking, when key elements of their personal and professional identities are most being shaped. I knew that I’d love mentoring students, but I hadn’t appreciated how foundational a role my own mentors had had on me, or how much I would cherish the privilege to serve in that role for young superstars, full of passion and integrity. Like many others, I find nothing more satisfying than helping others reach or elevate their potential (see this and this great post from my students on their struggles).

3.     The freedom to meander towards deeply synthetic insights about the world around us. Ten years ago, I thought I knew how we could protect biodiversity and the conditions for sustained human thriving. Now, after my intentional meanderings with students and colleagues through the science of human cognition, behavior, and the study of values, I know I was wrong. Now I have a suite of new ideas (re: social movements and offsetting, informed deeply by my journey, and this time I’m sure I’m right. ;)

I still don't know if I was right in 2005 in thinking that a tenure-track position was my best route to making the world a better place, but it has revealed some absolutely critical benefits that I didn’t anticipate, and insights toward potentially transformative real-world impacts that are still in the making.

P.S. Sarah Klain rightly pointed to my over-use of 'best'. I may not agree entirely with the metrics of academia, but clearly I have largely absorbed the obsession with optimization! I am content in knowing that the last ten years have been joyful, enriching, and productive, and I have contributed directly to real-world issues (see here, here, Vancouver Sun, Georgia Straight, and WWF blog), and to various organizations (e.g., IPBES, see here and here) and every level of government. This effort to optimize is (1) a rhetorical device, and (2) an exercise to evaluate choices for the future towards fulfilling my own potential. Although I have unparalleled job security--a tremendous privilege--I won't let myself rest on my laurels.

An idealist at 40, still a prof after 10 years. Why?

by Kai Chan

Is academia the best way to make the world a better place? Ten years ago, I thought it was best for me, and that’s why I chose my current job as a professor at UBC.

Ljuba and I en route to Vancouver, and my job at UBC, in 2005

After ten years, I’m 40 (today), and preparing my file to go up for promotion to full professor. A big step, and a good time to reflect on the big question, given what I know now. Although several senior colleagues have encouraged me, as I viewed CVs of potential reviewers (leaders in my field), my mind is a-flutter with noise. Tossing in bed last night, I pinned this ‘noise’ down to four points:

1.     I did things starkly differently over the past ten years than most of my senior colleagues (I meandered more, intentionally learning broadly across disciplines);

2.     The metrics by which I will be evaluated (e.g., h-index for publications) are not those that guided my choices, nor do they coincide very well with my objectives;

3.     Despite my own commitments to a different idea of success, I feel a constant unwelcome and often subconscious pull towards established metrics and my colleagues’ notions of success;

4.     I could have enjoyed much higher success by established metrics if I’d made different choices (e.g., invested less in teaching and supervision).

So why am I still at UBC, still contributing my best years to an institution that, at every turn, seems to be rewarding a somewhat different career trajectory? I look around at the leaders in conservation and sustainability science, and I see many leaders operating in research positions with limited or no teaching, and even outside of universities (e.g., in NGOs, so with minimal graduate supervision).

Students don't think we have balance. Hmph.

It’s fair to wonder these days whether the best route to achieve even academic stardom is to eschew a regular tenure-track position, with its exacting combination of research, teaching, and service. And since academic stardom isn’t even my primary objective in life (it might coincide with my objectives, but I’m more concerned with real-world impact), it’s worth deeply pondering why I’m here.

It’s clear that many of my students wonder the same, as they look at the intensity of a faculty job and declare that they don’t want to follow our footsteps.

So, why am I still here? Why are you, or would you be, in a university setting?

P.S. A theme I didn't explore explicitly here is the appropriateness of established metrics as measures of excellence and/or impact. They measure some things well but other things poorly. I promise to return to this issue soon, but in the meantime let it be known that I and a small but vocal set of other profs are certainly looking well beyond these metrics in various evaluation processes.

[This is part 1 of 2. Read part 2 for my answer. A part 3 was added later, re: balance.] 

Why I am not an activist but most probably should be

by: Adrian Semmelink, honours thesis and incoming Master's student in the Chan's Lab group. 

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

~ Onceler, from Dr. Seuss’ book The Lorax

I care about the dysfunctional relationship between people and our environment, and I believe we need to make large changes if we are to thrive as a species. But so what if I care? I've never gone to a protest, written a pro-environmental op-ed and I rarely sign petitions. At the same time, I'm excited to be part of a lab that does engage in debates and controversies. Previously, lab members have testified against the Northern Gateway pipeline, lead petitions, written op-eds (e.g. see Maayan and Kai’s recent post on Okanagan parks), and worked with NGOs.

The Onceler                                                     image: Dr. Seuss

That's all great inspiration, but my question still boils down to: why haven't I participated in advocacy? Maybe because I have never identified with the out-dated stereotype of the activist who chants at protests or goes from door to door collecting signatures and/or money. But, there are other ways to be an advocate, as my lab demonstrates. If I dig a little deeper, I’ve found three reasons why I haven’t engaged in activism:

1) Objectivity. As a junior researcher I am concerned about supporting a cause related to my field of research that could harm my perceived objectivity on the topic. One of my lab colleagues, Sarah Klain, experienced this first hand¹. She and my adviser Kai Chan co-authored an opinion piece that highlighted the environmental risks associated with farmed salmon. She also tweeted a link to an anti-salmon farming march and demonstration. This opinion piece and tweet posed an obstacle to conducting interviews with official representatives from the salmon farming industry, one of the various industries pertinent to her research. She was eventually able to continue her work with the desired breadth, and continues to advocate for issues that are important to her and related to her research, but it is a consideration for all students conducting field work.

2) Future Job Prospects. My second reason is perhaps more specific to my own financial background. I have a large student loan, which makes me more conservative about the choices I make because of the impact they may have on my future opportunities with organizations operating in the environmental or natural resources realm. This includes choices around activism where it often seems riskier to engage compared to staying out of the fray (eg. in BC LNG is a highly charged natural resource issue that one may not want their personal views to be public knowledge). Conversely, this circumspection could be damaging as it also limits the present opportunities I take. 

3) Expert Knowledge. Finally, I have feelings of inadequacy around engagement and how to carry it out. And I am not alone – CHANS lab colleagues Singh et al. (2014)² demonstrates that self-perceived competence in engagement was a significant predicator of researchers level of engagement. However, if one does not engage how can one actually get an understanding of how competent one is at engaging? The irony is that those of us being more careful may not be world leading experts, but have been formally educated in these topics and could be strong contributors to productive discussions on the issues.

Where does this leave me on activism? I think I may need to start taking more cues from the Lorax and in the words of the Onceler start to “change the way things are.” Fortunately, the CHANS Lab seems to be a good place to try.

Notes:

1. For an edifying discussion on using social media in science, including Sarah discussing her experience, check out this youtube video by SciFund: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILd67q02T5g

2. Gerald G Singh, Jordan Tam, Thomas D Sisk, Sarah C Klain, Megan E Mach, Rebecca G Martone, and Kai M A Chan, 2014. A more social science: barriers and incentives for scientists engaging in policy. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 12: 161–166. http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/130011

On Flying and Driving: An Overgrown Boy’s Efforts at Heroics

Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica, where we have a project that I
couldn't participate in without flying (FuturAgua).

Ever since I was a boy, I’ve imagined myself as a hero of sorts. I’ve given up on the 24-inch biceps, but elements of the hero image still have a pull. The Energy Biographies website includes inspiring stories about environmentalists who have virtually given up on flying, which is a personal sacrifice that strikes me as the kind of heroic act that I could enjoy. I firmly believe that we all ought to take responsibility for our impacts on nature and on people via the environment. Climate change is a crucial vehicle for such impacts. So I should give up flying, right?

Years ago, I was poised to make this kind of a leap, but colleagues of mine at UBC (Hadi Dowlatabadi and James Tansey) presented me with an argument that led me to a different approach. They pointed out that trying to mitigate one’s impact on the planet by changing one’s own lifestyle or purchasing is extremely inefficient.

The car we ended up buying, with my family (my younger
daughter dressed to match).

Consider, for example, my dilemma re: cars. I wanted to express my concern about greenhouse gases when purchasing my car. I could either buy a fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle (e.g., a Toyota Prius), or I could buy a similar conventional gasoline-powered car (comparable vehicles to the Prius are several thousand dollars cheaper—as much as $10000 Canadian, even including the gas savings which are small for me as an infrequent driver), and invest the money I’d save to help others reduce their emissions. These ‘others’ would be people, communities and businesses that are interested in energy efficient options, e.g., skating rinks, swimming pools, but they would lack the capital to build the most efficient one. My money, along with the money of like-minded consumers, could help these others build infrastructure that will save many tons of greenhouse gas emissions at a fraction the cost. In the form of a ‘carbon offset’, I can get credit for some of the reduction in emissions, thereby effectively mitigating the climate impact of my driving for many years. For $100 Canadian. That’s ~100 times cheaper.

Nelson, NZ from the air. This offset (round trip from Vancouver
to New Zealand) was no small matter: $122.54. Worth every cent.

I like smart investments, so I’ve been ‘offsetting’ my travel ever since. I’ve made a commitment to myself, and to the rest of the world, to do so. It is a personal sacrifice, because carbon offsets are often not reimbursed or covered by grants, so I pay out of pocket more often that not. And flying has a very heavy toll for the climate, so $100 doesn’t even offset a family trip to our extended families in Toronto. It’s no 24-inch bicep, but it still helps my grandiose eco-hero self-image.

I never would have made it to
this beach without flying.

My commitment doesn’t make the kind of a statement as buying a Prius, or as refusing to fly. There’s something differently powerful about those conspicuous choices, and I applaud that. But personally, I also worried that by giving up flying I would be severely limiting my ability to be effective in work and advocacy. I feared that giving up my travel was giving up too much because I am optimistic about the impact I have when I travel and my ability to inspire others to take responsibility for their environmental impacts.. Besides, travelling can be fun!

I have no financial stake in offsetting companies, and I am very sympathetic to arguments about the failures of carbon markets, etc. (For several reasons, that I can expand upon if you’re interested, I think that reputable offsets, such as through Offsetters.ca, are not problematic in the same ways as carbon credits purchased off carbon markets.) But I do firmly believe that we need to provide a set of options for taking responsibility for environmental impacts that anyone could be keen on, not just those of us who fashion ourselves as climate superheroes.

Clearly there's no one right answer. What do you do? How do you navigate the competing demands of family, work, pleasure, and climate responsibility?

[If you’re interested in mitigating your environmental impacts—not just reducing them but having a net positive impact on the climate and other aspects of the environment, and leveraging larger structural change so that it doesn’t always take heroics—we’d love to hear from you at community.sphere@gmail.com, so we can tell you about CoSphere, a Community of Small Planet Heroes….]

Not a Walk in the Park: understanding parks, impacts, and creation processes

By Maayan Kreitzman

The machinations of bureaucracy that go into establishing parks and protected areas are rarely considered by the general public. And let's face it, why should they? It's a long and frustrating process couched in the coma-inducing language of reports, briefing notes, and inter-government negotiations, only rarely breaching surface of the grey literature ocean to see the light of the mainstream media. Yet, national parks are the highest level of protection afforded to our land. They're important for habitats and endangered species, and also to rural economies and the best outdoor recreation in the country.

It so happens that over the last year I've been involved in two separate national park processes – first in Ontario, around the establishment of Rouge National Urban Park, and then here in BC, around the
South Okanagan Similkameen National Park. Both proposed parks are stalled. Even though the details are different, both situations (when you figure them out in depth) are symbolic of political divides between the local and collective, the provincial and the federal. The way in which we steward and protect land has deep political/ideological/historical layers. So in a way it's not surprising that both park proposals have sometimes become footballs in fights between politically antagonistic forces. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but when parks leave the concrete and mostly exist in the realm of ideological symbolism, it is to the detriment of the actual landscapes, species, ecosystems, livelihoods, and communities at stake.

In this post, we are publishing two reports that were written by students in our lab in collaboration with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Committee (CPAWS), on different aspects of the proposed South Okanagan Similkameen National Park. The two reports were originally prepared for two graduate course taught by Kai Chan in our department (“Towards Social Ecological Systems”, and “Ecosystem Services”), though they were much revised and improved after the courses were over.

South Okanagan Grasslands.                                                                                                         Photo credit: Graham Osborne

Short background: after about a decade of assessment work and consultations by Parks Canada, the BC provincial government put the brakes on the park, citing a lack of local support, making the whole thing screech to a halt.

The first report, written for the course RMES 508, Ecosystem Services, developed landscape models of habitat quality and carbon sequestration using the InVEST software. They modeled four hypothetical management scenarios, from maximum development to maximum conservation. Their results showed that endangered species habitat, climate mitigation, and the provision of clean water and recreational opportunities would be enhanced by a national park. This adds to previous socioeconomic assessment  reports by Parks Canada indicating that a national park would likely yield significant economic benefits and jobs.

Ecosystem Services in the Proposed National Park Reserve for the South Okanagan-Lower Similkameen Region
By: Alejandra Echeverri, Stephen McGlenn, Sian Mill & Janson Wong

The second report, written for the course RMES 510, Towards (or 'Exploring') Social Ecological Systems, considered the parks vs. local peoples narrative for several groups of stakeholders in the park process. This report found that the groups most often characterized as antagonistic to the park's creation (hunters, ATVers, and ranchers) cannot be fairly characterized that way. In contrast, the group most justifiably vulnerable to the formal appropriation of more land by the government are local First Nations, (represented by the Okanagan Nations Alliance, the ONA). Yet the ONA has engaged with Parks Canada and supports the national park as one way to advance their material, social, and spiritual wellbeing. The report also use a social-ecological systems approach to discuss how grassland restoration can have multi-scale positive impacts from endangered species to community.

The South Okanagan Similkameen Park Proposal Through a Social-Ecological Systems Lens
By: Maayan Kreitzman, Maery Kaplan-Hallam, Yaron Cohen & Ashley Cyr

PS, Immediately following this post, Maayan, Maery, and Kai had an op-ed published in the Vancouver Sun, which then led to an article in the Osoyoos Times. KC

The Right to a Healthy Environment in Canada. It sounds good, but what does it mean? We consulted a legal scholar to find out.

By Kai Chan and Paige Olmsted

David Suzuki Foundation and Ecojustice have teamed up to
campaign for a Canadian 'Right to a Healthy Environment'.

A major new movement is hitting Canada, causing municipalities across Canada to formally support a Canadian 'Right to a Healthy Environment'. But what would such a right achieve, and how do the municipal declarations contribute to the campaign? We took the opportunity to ask an expert questions on our minds, and hopefully on yours too.

David Boyd pictured with his daughter. (c) David Boyd.

David Boyd graduated from IRES in 2010. His thesis examined the experiences of 92 countries with the right to a healthy environment. His work has not only led to contributions towards drafting new constitutional provisions related to environmental protection in other countries (from Tunisia to Grenada), it helped inspire the David Suzuki Foundation’s Blue Dot Movement, which is a campaign for Canada to include the right to a healthy environment in our Constitution. As part of the campaign municipalities are signing individual commitments, and we had an opportunity to ask David a few questions about the implications of the right for a healthy environment at both the municipal and national scale, and how such a movement could help change both the legal and natural landscape in Canada. Thanks, David, for your time and insights!

Q: Environmental laws seem to get most attention at the provincial and national scales, so what’s the role of the municipal declarations? Do they have any teeth of their own, or are they merely symbolic?
Municipal declarations do not have direct legal effect but are proving to be more than symbolic. They highlight the importance of the right to a healthy environment and reflect the overwhelming support of Canadians for recognition of this right. The 45+ municipalities that have passed declarations are reviewing their environmental bylaws, policies and programs and looking actively for ways to improve. Among our next challenges (besides making progress at the federal and provincial levels) is helping local governments identify and adopt best practices in protecting the health of their citizens and ecosystems. Municipalities are already seeking advice about how best to do this.

Q: I’m no constitutional lawyer, but my basic understanding is that it is a very high-level legal document—the highest. That would make it the ultimate authority, but perhaps also not prescriptive in any detail, so perhaps it’s good and bad as an enabler of change. What level (constitutional, national, provincial, etc.) of legal changes are you aiming for in R2HE, and why?
The protection of human rights in constitutions is necessarily vague—think of the right to freedom of expression as a classic example. Legislatures then have the primary responsibility of respecting, protecting, and fulfilling those rights that enjoy constitutional recognition. Respecting the right to a healthy environment means government actions cannot directly threaten or violate it. Protecting the right means passing and enforcing laws to ensure that third parties like corporations don’t violate the right. Fulfilling the right means taking positive actions to guarantee clean air, safe drinking water, fertile soil, and healthy ecosystems, such as cleaning up contaminated sites, implementing recovery plans for endangered species, etc.
Recognition of the constitutional right to a healthy environment would have a domino effect on all levels of government in Canada, pushing us to catch up with other wealthy nations in terms of the strength of our environmental laws and standards. My forthcoming book Cleaner, Greener, Healthier: A Prescription for Stronger Canadian Environmental Laws and Policies (UBC Press) demonstrates how far Canada lags behind the legal rules in other wealthy industrialized countries.
Constitutional recognition of the right to a healthy environment would also have non-legal effects on Canadian values and attitudes. For example, look at the way the inclusion of the right to equality in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has contributed to widespread support for same-sex marriage.

Q: And once there’s a change in the law, then what? Who has to do what in order for the Right to a Healthy Environment movement to be successful? Does someone have to sue someone else, or will change happen without that? And who would be likely to be suing? NGOs? Or also private citizens, municipalities, First Nations, etc.?
Once environmental laws, policies, and standards are strengthened, then implementation begins, with governments doing their job. Imagine that recognition of the right to a healthy environment led to a Canada Clean Air Act, national standards for ambient air quality, and fees for emissions of air pollutants such as particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide, benzene, etc. Emissions of these pollutants would be reduced, preventing premature deaths, reducing respiratory illnesses, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, avoiding unnecessary health care expenditures, and improving the health of ecosystems. Lawsuits would only be needed in cases where the law was being violated or the right to a healthy environment would be violated. Lawsuits could come from any of the above individuals or organizations.

Q: I’m starting to sound like my daughter Tiva when I tell a story, but “Then what happens?” Once we’ve got new laws, and it’s clear how the courts are interpreting them, then what might we expect in terms of real change on the ground? Who might do what differently? What kinds of loopholes might we expect to be constructed for whom to sneak through?
I think I answered the first part of this question in my previous response. The evidence from other countries experiences are that the ultimate outcome of constitutional protection of the right to a healthy environment is improved environmental performance—faster reductions in emissions of air pollutants, faster reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and better protection for endangered species.

Here are a couple of tangible examples. Norway, like Canada, is a major oil and gas exporter. Unlike Canada, Norway added the right to a healthy environment to its constitution in 1992. Several years later Norway passed a law requiring the petroleum industry to achieve zero discharge of toxic, persistent, and bioaccumulative chemicals into the ocean. At the time discharges measured millions of kilograms annually. After a transition period of some years, the industry has now achieved the legislated target of zero.

Over the past decade two similar oil spills happened in coastal waters in Newfoundland and Brazil. In the Canadian case, PetroCanada was fined a paltry $350,000 and in the Brazilian case, Chevron was fined $170,000,000. To put these numbers in context, the Chevron fine is larger than the total of all environmental fines in the history of environmental law in Canada. The difference is because the Brazilian right to a healthy environment led to stronger laws and policies such as the Environmental Crimes Act and a dramatic increase in the stringent enforcement of environmental laws.

I have not looked at whether the right to a healthy environment can act as a shield, but loopholes are always a possibility!

However, the constitutional right to a healthy environment has led to the emergence of a new principle of environmental law called "non-regression" which prevents governments from weakening existing environmental laws, regulations, and standards. Under this principle, recent changes by the Harper government that weakened the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, Fisheries Act, Species at Risk Act and other environmental laws would have been rejoiced as unconstitutional. The right to a healthy environment is an idea whose time is now.