B.C. program wants you to help tackle the climate crisis — on your street
CBC
Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled "Our Changing Planet" to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.
Rory Filer's climate action started out as a handful of chestnuts in a yellow yogurt container.
After British Columbia's sweltering heat dome in June highlighted for him how big trees can cool the air around nearby houses, making neighbourhoods more resistant to global warming and heat waves, he wanted to take action in his Vancouver neighbourhood of Kitsilano.
A few months later, a tree started growing — and along with it, his desire to do more.
"I thought, 'What can I start to do about climate change to try and change the situation?'" he said.
It's a question being asked by Filer and other participants taking part in a unique neighbourhood-based climate change workshop run by researchers at the University of British Columbia.
The Cool 'Hoods Champs program was created to bridge the knowledge gap between climate science and everyday people — by bringing solutions to where they live, said lead researcher Cheryl Ng.
Program organizers said while the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow helps set the tone and strategy for reducing carbon emissions worldwide, it also plainly leaves ordinary folk out of the conversation.
"There are a lot of Canadians who care a lot about climate change, but they don't know what to do about it," said Ng.
"What better way to start than to just, you know, go to people right where they live and talk to them about how they can pick solutions with their family and their friends and their neighbours within the neighbourhood?"
The Cool 'Hood Champs philosophy is to start small, but organizers have big hopes to scale up the program to other cities in Canada and even present it to the COP26 conference as part of the university's delegation to Glasgow.
The program consists of three hands-on workshops taking place over the course of a month. After a well-received pilot last year, this fall marks the first time the program is running with participants from three Vancouver neighbourhoods.
It's a rainy Sunday afternoon and a trail of people wearing raincoats and holding clipboards follow Stephen Sheppard, an emeritus professor from UBC's Faculty of Forestry, on a tour of their own neighbourhood in suburban Vancouver.
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