Spotted: Environment & Diversity Project intern Kasim Tirmizey from Wildlands League chatting with Cassie Barker (Environment & Diversity Project's social media facilitator) about Climate Action Network's Climate Change CalendarThe Climate Action Network launched Canada's Climate Change Calender at Hotshot Gallery in Kensington Market, Toronto. The calendar is an innovative way of showing just how much greenhouse gases an average Canadian produces per year compared to someone from another country. Taking a look at the calendar, we find out that the average Canadian will have surpassed the greenhouse gas production of an average citizen from over 40 countries in January alone!
From the website:
"...it takes only 15 days for the average Canadian to have as big an impact on fuelling global warming as the average Bangladeshi will have all year. Therefore, Bangladesh’s "Climate Impacts Day" is January 15 – 15 days into the year."
The calendar gives us a chance to reflect on our contributions to climate change compared to others and brings home the message that we should play a lead role in the finding the solutions as well. It provides a better perspective and understanding of the impacts of climate change on people around the world - and with Canada being such a diverse country, it also provides a key link between the environmental issues new Canadians faced back in their home countries versus their experiences here.
Check out the calendar on the website which charts out the comparison of greenhouse gases produced by the average Canadian to a person from 170 countries around the world.
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This is great Sonia, I enjoyed learning about and discussing this tool with you and Kasim.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see our environmental organizations engaging diaspora communities in this climate justice conversation, and hopefully co-creating some solutions.
We can connect these issues to people we know and love, help them deal with the climate change consequences to their land, drinking water supplies, food and wildlife, and prevent this egregious and unfair pollution from taking a further toll.
Indeed. The Canada's Climate Change Calender looks to be an interesting tool for getting people to understand the scale of Canada's contribution toward greenhouse gases. At the same time, it would be good to recall the words of Isaiah Kipyegon from Kenya who spoke at the event. The message I took away from his presentation was the urgency for working toward climate justice: there are communities and ways of life that are vanishing, and people are dying. Also, we need to remember that there are faces (any not just numbers and statistics) to the people who are effected by climate change. A tool like this calendar can be useful, but we should not forget that their are names to the people, communities, and places that are affected. I find it most compelling to hear people's stories about climate change.
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