
Climate Adaptation Journey: Extreme Storm
A climate resiliency tool for community enlightenment and civic engagement.
1. Climate Adaptation
Climate change in context
Put yourself on the map. Everybody's relationship to climate change depends on their location.
This unit provides a road-map for how to get involved with climate adaptation. It doesn't take long to become involved in your community. It also feels good to be part of the solutions. And, there are so many ways to contribute.
- Identify your region.
- Understands what is special about your area.
- Link your land to community agendas.
- Link agendas to your action.
- Link your action to feeling better.
Maps! Location! Location! Location!
What is special about where you live? Here are three ways to look at your area through maps.
Let's begin by focusing on some under-reported good news! Good news helps us be resilient.
Responding to climate events with positive actions is remarkably fulfilling and easy.
Activity 1: Group creativity warm-up!
You are one of many! Each person is an essential part of climate resilience. Working together and understanding that you are an important part of a bigger community is an important part of climate resilience. Working together builds hope and trust.
Creativity and climate resiliency reflection
Creativity and Climate Action
2. The Weather
Look at the sky. That's your weather. The weather is often not very remarkable. It follows a general pattern for your location on the planet. No single day of weather anywhere on the planet should be connected to climate change. It's the overall weather patterns that are linked to climate change.
Climate change and weather events
Let's define some terms.
Climate refers to the immediate or long-term weather patterns. Every location on this planet has a local climate.
Climate change refers to the overall global increase in rain and heat (even if some places are dryer and cooler). Climate change has been scientifically confirmed to exist and be caused by human behaviour.
Weather event or climate hazards refer to an occurrence of a large weather system that causes damage. These weather events are not considered climate change events. They may occur more often, or create more damage (as measured by how much communities have to spend to clean up after them). But, they cannot definitely be linked to human behaviours.
Experiencing a weather event
Big weather events can be overwhelming.
Experiencing a derecho weather event
The below video (4:29 min.) shows you how quickly your surroundings can change. We will discuss the components of a derecho after the video. Remember, the entire event only lasted 15 minutes in any one location. It moved fast.
binary110. (May 20, 2022). Ottawa tornado (derecho) - May 21, 2022. Ottawa, Ontario. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWPyLEfE_kY .
Components of a derecho
A lot of elements come together to create big weather. Those components stack on each other and continue to feed the size of the event. Let's review them.
Derecho stats and case study
After you review the stats you can review the City of Peterborough's detailed analysis of their response to the May 2022 derecho.
Activity 2: The science of storms
Lesson plan coming Fall 2023
3. Weather & Policy
Weather events cause damage and this costs money. There are lots of parts of a city that can be damaged: roads, buildings, parks, schools, sewage systems, movie theatres, doctor's offices, electrical stations, public buildings, gas stations, industrial buildings, commercial buildings, libraries, grocery stores, private homes, etc. When parts of cities are damaged it costs a lot of money and time to fix them. It is your local communities responsibility to have a plan to manage the damage. In these units we use the terms community, city, and municipality. A municipality is often a larger area that incorporates a bigger city.
Having a plan in place saves both money and time.
Adopting a Climate Lens
Adopting a climate lens is not new. The stakes are just higher now. City councils are project-based collaborative systems. They are always considering impacts and trying to save money.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities is at the forefront of linking local climate adaptation planning to federal funding. Watch the Climate in Focus - Introductory video below.
Federation of Canadian Municipalities, 2020, Climate in Focus-Introduction
Climate mitigation & climate adaptation
The change in weather is called climate change. The attempts to try to slow climate change are called climate mitigation. Mitigations refer to all the methods used to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
The way your community prepares for and responds to weather events is called climate adaptation planning (CAP). The United Nations documents that countries started building climate adaptation strategies in 2010. These strategies are called National Adaptation Plans, or NAPs.
While the case for adaptation is clear, some communities most vulnerable to climate change are the least able to adapt because they are poor and/or in developing countries already struggling to come up with enough resources for basics like health care and education... Since 2011, under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, a number of countries have developed National Adaptation Plans. ~ UN, Climate Adaptation, 2022
Can you plan for an extreme weather event?
There are 2 main ways to plan for an extreme weather event.
- Emergency Preparedness
- Reflecting on past events.
Plan ahead by looking back
Communities look at past events to help them think ahead.
Climate adaptation is about preparing for future events by measuring how your community responds to past events. This process helps a community see where it is vulnerable. It is called a climate vulnerability and risk assessment (CVRA).
Let's look at a CVRA for a derecho.
Adaptation in your community
When a community builds a new strategy it goes through many phases.
- Vulnerability Assessments - Which groups of people, places and things in your community are the most impacted by climate change?
- Risk Assessments - What is the probability of those groups of people, places, and things being impacted?
- Climate Adaptation Plan (CAP) - What is your community strategy over the next 1, 5, and 10 years for your community of people, places, and things.
Globally united for local climate adaptation strategies
People in communities, cities, and regions are coming together to adapt to the climate hazards.
Activity 3: What is your cities adaptation plan?
Let's dive into the basics of some city climate adaptation documents. Below, you will find the graphic released with the City of Ottawa's Climate Resiliency strategy.
(Academic activity plan to come for Fall 2023).
4. Innovation & Solutions
Thinking critically and creatively in systems
Western society was built on a linear economic model. Linear economies expect to make trash. In fact, it relies on waste. It wants people to throw stuff out so that they buy new stuff.
The "developed" countries shifted to a linear, "waste" mindset during industrialization.
We have to be creative to shift away from a waste-based economy. This is called innovation. We need to shift our societies back to a circular economy mindset.
Good News Alert!
Humans used to live in circular economies.
Indigenous knowledge systems are crucial for sustainable and circular systems
The best news within climate adaptation is that Indigenous communities have saved much of humanity's creative solutions. Phew!! Oral storytelling cultures that rely on elders to pass information down to youth is a great system that will help climate adaptation. In fact, oral storytelling is the system all humans, everywhere, used until we started recording and writing stories.
Humans have been innovating solutions for tens of thousands of years.
Step 1: Use the knowledge we already have! Yay!
Design Thinking & Systems Thinking
Indigenous knowledge systems are a central way to shift from linear thinking to circular thinking. This is important for people, society, and the planet as we adopt a climate lens.
Many systems will come together to organize for climate adaptation. Here are other useful systems.
Solutions that help shift the system
There are a cray-Cray-CRAZY amount of great solutions happening right now. As we review some of these solutions, imagine how you might help shift the system.
Imagine yourself as part of a solution.
When, where, why, and how do you enter the climate adaptation system?
10 Everyday Sustainable Living Swaps
Activity 4: Imagine your local next steps - be outrageous!
Urban Imaginaries, Experimentation and urban transformations
Meet Gabriella Gomez-Mont and her work in Mexico City. UNDP - Mayors for Economic Growth (M4EG) , Urban Talks: Virtual Forum on Urban Transformation, Mayors and cities making change.
M4EG Virtual Forum_Interview with Gabriella Gomez-Mont
(Academic activity plan to come for Fall 2023).
5. Your Well-being
Big weather and big changes cause big emotions.
Where to begin?
Greta Thunberg started her climate journey at home and with small goals. She was feeling overwhelmed about the climate. Listen to her tell her story in the video below.
Greta Thunberg on how to tackle climate anxiety | The One Show - BBC
Be together in our struggles.
Use an holistic approach.
Whole person. Whole communities. Whole planet.
What is climate anxiety?
First, What is anxiety? Anxiety is characterized by feeling fear, overwhelmed, tension, and worried thoughts. It can be accompanied by physical symptoms like increased blood pressure, rapid breathing, and nausea.
Natania Abebe created an eco-anxiety toolkit for her graduate degree at the University of British Columbia. Use it! Let's break it down!
What is eco-anxiety? Anxiety Canada defines Eco-anxiety as
a dread of environmental perils, especially climate change, and a feeling of helplessness over the potential consequences for those living now and even more so for those of later generations.
What is eco-paralysis? Nurse and Lecturer, Rancu Radu defines it as
the response people give when faced by the feeling that one cannot do anything meaningful to positively affect climate change.
Climate Change and Mental Health #ecoanxiety #ecoparalysis #ecogrief
What is eco-grief?
Grieving for Earth: How to Cope with Climate Anxiety | Seat At The Table
Coping with climate anxiety
Working on climate adaptation can feel a lot of different ways.
Below are some ways to cope with your climate anxiety.
Activity 5:
(Academic activity plan to come for Fall 2023).
Learning Standards
Learning implies that there is change in understanding over time within a given area of knowledge and skills. Learning is an acquisition of knowledge and an ability to apply a new skill set in a specific context.
Selecting standards for change
Climate adaptation is an interdisciplinary pursuit. The required skill sets for the future are not in one discipline or domain. Research has established that applied and project-based learning is the key to deep learning and change. Let's review the possible standards for AdaptEd units.
Activity 5: Share what you know with others
References
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