Human suppression of biological diversity has reached catastrophic levels. The imperative to relieve and reverse this trend motivates all of my research and teaching. On the more practical side, I list some projects below under the heading "Land protected". While such direct interventions on behalf of species and their habitats are crucial, they will not suffice as long as our current system of political economy prevails. To have a chance at saving the magnificent variety of life on Earth, conservationists must go deeper.
The unconscionable devastation of wild species' habitats results ultimately from unjust relationships among members of our own species. In turn, social injustice results from the fact that one-dollar-one-vote systems, such as corporations, have the upper hand over one-person-one-vote, i.e., democratic, systems of governance, e.g., municipalities and cooperatives.
Besides causing far more "accidental" death and disfigurement than any of its alternatives, automobile transportation has greatly increased the scale of habitat destruction, resource depletion, urban sprawl, and many other health and environmental problems around the world. And the din and stench of traffic have made city living well-nigh insufferable. Unfortunately, people often seek private solutions to this public problem, by moving to the suburbs, thus increasing traffic still more. Having liberated myself from owning an automobile many years ago, I am now working to change the transportation infrastructure in my neighborhood and city. The aim is to slow and reduce the number of cars, and otherwise make life safer, quieter, and less polluted for everyone.
In addition to initiating and sustaining various conservation and restoration projects on "private" land, I played a small part in gaining protection, as one of the Québec government's officially proposed biodiversity reserves, for the Paakumshumwaau and Maatuskaau watersheds on the east coast of James Bay.
In a very small step toward holding corporate managers accountable for more than just monetary profits, colleagues and I together overcame great resistance from our own managers, to make a socially-responsible pension fund available to university faculty and staff.
Neighbors and I, through the Plateau borough government, had eight sizable areas of pavement at our intersection replaced with soil supporting flowers, grasses, and trees. That same project increased not only the area devoted to green space, but also that enjoyed by pedestrians – at the expense of room for cars – and added two new stop signs. We also successfully applied for the borough's green alley program that has now de-paved and re-vegetated the end of our alley nearest that same intersection – thus completely ending the large daily crush of illegal car traffic therethrough. Other traffic-calming and green-space projects are underway throughout the Plateau, which will ideally help inspire other boroughs, cities, provinces, states, and countries to join in turning the tide against the automobile and toward healthy human communities and more-than-human ecosystems.
"And blind Authority beating with his staff
The child
that might have led him"
(Wordsworth 1850)
Twice during the 2011-2012 school year, students occupied small sections of McGill's James Administration Building. The first time, November 10th, 2011, bike and riot police came onto campus to tackle, shove, club, and pepper-spray other students, faculty, and staff who had gathered outside. Widespread outcry against these outrages prompted one of the largest public fora ever held at McGill, a report commissioned by our principal, and many other responses. The report, written by the dean of the law faculty, chalked the unfortunate events up to panicky staff members and the close proximity of riot police due to the city-wide protest against a tuition increase that had ended just across the street from the university.
The second occupation, February 7th to 12th, 2012, unmasked a nastier reality. The main lesson that our senior administrators seem to have drawn from the events of November 10th is: do not bring the police in to confront healthy, confident students. Instead, first degrade, exhaust, and slowly brutalize them so that when the police do finally come, they go willingly. Our administrators – chiefly our principal, provost, and vice-principal (administration and finance) – first took the reactionary and very expensive step of shutting down the whole building, which is a huge chunk of real estate, for several work days. They then deprived the occupiers – including one faculty member – of access to food, internet, electricity, and even toilets. Cutting off internet and electricity also denied the outside world a crucial means to judge the significance of the occupation for themselves, as opposed to relying mostly on our bosses' frequent subjection of the McGill community to their side of the story. Those same administrators' decision to ban the press from campus during the same period shows disregard for all of our safety. "Authorities" behave better with media present; if more media had been here the night of November 10th, less (and perhaps no) police violence would have transpired.
These events drive home the urgency of transforming the university. Many people think of universities as hotbeds of progressive ideas and action. Yet we who work and study here do so under a very hierarchical and authoritarian system of administration. For example, despite the fact that in our municipality, province, and nation we take for granted the right to elect our leaders through a binding democratic vote, in our university we do not have this basic right. I have therefore stood for, and won, several elections for positions within the McGill Association of University Teachers, where fellow faculty and I, in collaboration with staff and students, are working to democratize the university in various ways. Leonard Cohen wrote in a poem that "Democracy is coming to the USA". Time now to bring it to his alma mater.