Keyword Community

Charlie Clark, the Mayor of Saskatoon, speaks about the changing nature of cities, living in an era of global warming, and how the next generation of young people are demanding action. Despite being a “cold prairie city”, Clark believes Saskatoon’s sense of community will allow them to move quickly to “show leadership on environmental change”.

Energy transitions are often considered a scientific or technical issue. However, University of Waterloo’s Imre Szeman argues that climate change is fundamentally a cultural issue. He argues that responding to climate change requires a shift in the way we think about cars, energy, chemicals, over-consumption, and other aspects of the fossil-fuel dependent “petrocultures” that permeate our everyday lives.

On Gabriola Island, community members are beginning to notice the impacts of climate change. To reduce their ecological footprint, some residents started a non-profit organization called GabEnergy, which helps people order and install affordable solar energy systems on their homes. GabEnergy member Michael Mehta discusses the solar panels on his house and the potential for distributed, renewable energy systems across Canada.

As their oil wells began to dry up, the small community of Montana First Nation was faced an unemployment crisis. That’s when the idea of solar energy came up. The Nation founded Green Arrow Corp. Akamihk, western Canada’s first Indigenous-owned and operated community solar energy company. Green Arrow’s own team of trained community members is now installing solar panels across all of Alberta. “You hire your own people, by your people, for your people. We can do this for ourselves, we understand these types of businesses,” explains Vickie Wetchie, Montana First Nation member and general manager of Green Arrow. Wetchie describes the benefits that the community has experienced since they launched their solar company in 2012. The economic benefits–local employment, community revenue, and power savings—have been the primary motivators for pursing this energy development. There are now dozens of community members trained as skilled labourers in solar installation and maintenance.

Many citizens of Thunder Bay have an important connection with Lake Superior, which will be impacted by climate change. To mitigate these effects, the local non-profit EcoSuperior and the City of Thunder Bay are encouraging active transportation, local food production, and waste reduction. Citizens are also working together to build resiliency in their neighbourhoods.

In 2009, Vancouver announced that it wanted to become the “Greenest City in the World by 2020”. Their action plan hopes to wean the city off fossil fuels and prioritizes pedestrians, bikes and transit when planning neighborhoods. As a result, Vancouver now has the lowest carbon emissions of any city in North America.

The climate determines almost everything about how we design, build, and live in our cities. The streets and sidewalks, businesses and homes, parking lots and public transit that we use every day have been created to suit our climate. Now, with our climate changing, we need to re-think important aspects of how we live our urban lives.