Keyword Mitigation

Many of Canada’s most notorious forest pests and diseases have become household names in recent years:

In her work as Winnipeg’s City Forester, Martha Barwinsky talks to a lot of people about trees. “People love trees,” she laughs, saying that many people tell her “cool stories about trees: they remember this tree, and they climbed that tree, or their grandfather planted a tree and now they go and pick apples from it.”

Doug Findlater, mayor of West Kelowna, recalls seeing the 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park fire sweep into town: “It kind of looked like a war movie, with houses blowing up all over the place,” he says. More recently, Canadians watched with horror as the immense Fort McMurray fire of 2016 threatened the city. The Fort Mac fire caused the evacuation of almost 90,000 people and quickly became the most expensive natural disaster in Canadian history, destroying 2400 buildings and causing about $10 billion in damage. [1]

Livestock producers Troy Stozek and Don McIntyre – both from southwestern Manitoba – are on the frontlines of farming carbon. By practicing rotational grazing, they’re able to raise more cattle on less land, and in doing so they’re restoring the soil and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere at the same time. Their stories and farming practices show that animal agriculture can be an important part of the climate solution.

Robin Tunnicliffe has farmed for almost 20 years, growing a wide range of organic vegetables for local restaurants and farmer’s markets. She remembers that “when I first started farming, my mentor gave me a list of planting dates.” This essential farmer-to-farmer teaching gave her confidence thanks to its hard-won wisdom, and she recalls thinking “Good! Now I know what I’m doing!” But she soon found that the lessons of tradition and experience were expiring, thanks in part to climate change.

The map shows the value for the selected climate variable or index for one of three 30-year time periods: the recent past (1976-2005), the immediate future (2021-2050) and the near future (2051-2080). Future projections are calculated using two possible greenhouse gas emissions scenarios that result in more or less severe levels of climate change.

The Reep House for Sustainable Living is a 100-year old house in Waterloo, Ontario that has been retrofitted to be maximally energy efficient. This demonstration project shows how older housing stock can be an effective part of the climate change solution through a combination of cutting edge technology and simple upgrades.

An energy revolution is hitting the town of Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia. New 800 kW wind turbines are popping up everywhere, transforming the ever-present wind into electricity that’s used to power electric cars and offset the community’s reliance on fossil fuels. The move to renewable energy isn’t just reducing the community’s impact on the climate, it’s also sparking a whole new green economy.

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”.

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.