Climate Adaptation Journey: Extreme Storm

A climate resiliency tool for community enlightenment and civic engagement.

1. Climate Adaptation

Infinity loop with sun and water inside loops.
Infinity loop with sun and water inside loops.

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.

  1. Identify your region.
  2. Understands what is special about your area.
  3. Link your land to community agendas.
  4. Link agendas to your action.
  5. 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.

Good change is good!
Artist Bejamin Von Wong sets up his faucet installation in a playground with two small children.
Chiffon, Netting, of prairie plants hangs from the ceiling of the Chazen Museum of Art atrium in University of Wisconsin Madison, Madison, WI, USA.

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.

Watercolour plant

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.

Coloured line drawing of weather and you on a ground line with trees.
Coloured line drawing of weather, you, and houses on a ground line with trees.
Coloured line drawing of weather, you, houses and a building on a ground line with trees.

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.

Base schematic illustrations by Dennis Cain that appear in Derecho-producing storms National Weather Service JetStream online school for weather. Includes depiction of rain-cooled air, radar depiction, gust front, and updraft three-dimensional juxtaposed on a ground plane.
Base schematic illustrations by Dennis Cain that appear in Derecho-producing storms National Weather Service JetStream online school for weather. Includes depiction of rain-cooled air, radar depiction, gust front, and updraft three-dimensional juxtaposed on a ground plane.
Base schematic illustrations by Dennis Cain that appear in Derecho-producing storms National Weather Service JetStream online school for weather. Includes depiction of rain-cooled air, radar depiction, gust front, and updraft three-dimensional juxtaposed on a ground plane.

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.

  1. Emergency Preparedness
  2. 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.

Image of the impact zone for the May 2022 derecho taken from the Northern Tornadoes Project open-data ArcGIS project.
A radial graph of services impacted by 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.

Federation of Canadian Agriculture logo.
UN Women logo

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.

Graphic of National Capital Region weather preditions in 2050.

(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.

Linear economies are based on a take, make, waste economy. They extract resources, create objects with a relatively short lifespan, and then throw it out.

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!

This piece was designed to represent Ojibwe clans and their role in caring about the earth. The turtle in the center is a representation of Turtle Island: our lands, waters and home. The red lines connect the hearts and minds of the beings on earth, through their feet and into the ground. These bloodlines show how we are made up of everything the earth has to provide, how we draw our existence from this place, and also how our thoughts, intentions and actions impact the place we call home. There are four basic colors: the dark blue of the waters, the light blue of the skies, the green of the plant life and the red of our blood and the earth. Artwork by Ziigwanikwe (Katy Bresette), digitized by Bazile Panek.

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.

All of Richard Scarry's characters walk from left to right as if in a parade.

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.

Small seedling being planted.
Big tree and little tree
Bicycle with greens in front basket.

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.

Global Competencies graphic lists six domains: Critical thinking and problem solving; Innovation, creativity, and entrepeneurship; Learning to learn, self-aware, and self-difrected; Collaboration; Communication; Global citizenship and sustainability.
UN SDG's #4, 9, 11, and 13 are supported by this teaching tool.

Activity 5: Share what you know with others


References

Abebe, Natania. (March, 2022). Climate Change and Mental Health. Press Books. Vancouver: British Columbia. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmA07vdOb2M .

Adaptation Learning Network. (2021). Climate adaptation competency framework. Climate Risk Institute. Retrieved from https://can-adapt.ca/canadapt-capability.

Agroecology Now. (2022). Putting Indigenous knowledge into practice for climate change: the Tribal Adaptation Menu. Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission: Wisconsin. Retrieved from,  https://www.agroecologynow.com/indigenous-knowledge-for-climate-change/ .

BBC. (November, 2022). The One Show: Greta Thunberg on how to tackle climate anxiety. London: England. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK_nBKtWyvk&t=1s. 

binary110. (May 20, 2022). Ottawa tornado (derecho) - May 21, 2022. Ottawa, Ontario. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWPyLEfE_kY .

Brown, Tim. (2016). Tim Brown: Design & the circular economy –  Circular Design Guide . Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved from  https://youtu.be/yAvkM7B7BBs .

Brunner, Wil. (2022). Self-guided sensory nature meditation. Soft-pine Wellness. Ontario: Canada. Retrieved from  https://www.softpinewellness.ca/resources--research.html .

C40. (2022). The C40 knowledge hub. Retrieved from  https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/?language=en_US .

Centre for Agroecology, Water, and Resilience. (2015). Agroecology: Voices from social movements. Coventry: England. Retrieved from,  https://youtu.be/Ab82gAfh554 .

City of Ottawa. (2022). Checklists for emergency preparedness. Ottawa Health and Public Health: Ottawa, Ontario. Retrieved from  https://ottawa.ca/en/health-and-public-safety/emergency-preparedness/emergency/checklists-emergency-preparedness .

City of Ottawa. (2022). Ottawa, Engage Ottawa: Ontario. Retrieved from  https://engage.ottawa.ca/climate-resiliency .

City of Ottawa. (2022). Flood mapping and climate change. Engage Ottawa: Ottawa, Ontario. Retrieved from  https://engage.ottawa.ca/climate-resiliency/news_feed/flood-plain-mapping-and-climate-change .

City of Ottawa. (2022). Health and built environment. Ottawa Health and Public Health: Ottawa, Ontario. Retrieved from https://www.ottawapublichealth.ca/en/public-health-topics/health-and-the-built-environment-.aspx.

City of Ottawa. (2022). Ottawa's vulnerability and risk assessment. Engage Ottawa: Ottawa, Ontario. Retrieved from  https://engage.ottawa.ca/17951/widgets/96535/documents/83467 .

City of Ottawa. (2022). What is the urban heat island effect. Engage Ottawa: Ottawa, Ontario. Retrieved from  https://engage.ottawa.ca/climate-resiliency/news_feed/urban-heat-island .

City of Peterborough. (2022). Derecho. Retrieved from  https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/84c5b004e0f14e39b7aa46caf8819fcf .

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. (September 29, 2022). The southern Ontario derecho of May 21, 2022: An environment and climate change Canada perspective. Environment and Climate Change Canada: Ottawa, Ontario. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_TMkcvauAY.

Cain, Dennis. (2022). Development of a dercho. NOAA. Retrieved from  https://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/derechofacts.htm .

Climate Atlas of Canada. (2018). World out of balance. Retrieved from  https://youtu.be/fNkE_QCM3Dk 

Climate Interactive. (May, 2015). The Whole System. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNelPDgOcjs&t=18s 

Climate Risk Institute. (2022). PIEVC Network Map. Retrieved from,  https://changingclimate.ca/map/#z=4&lat=58.42862399306741&lng=-97.68022174999959 .

Corfidi, S. (2022). About derechos. NOAA-NWS-NCEP Storm Prediction Center. Retrieved from  https://www.spc.noaa.gov/misc/AbtDerechos/derechofacts.htm .

Corfidi, S., Evans, J.S., and Johns, R.H., et al. (2022). A proposed revision of the definition of a dercho. NOAA. Retrieved from  https://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/corfidi/der-def.pdf .

Dabringer, Ingrid. (June, September 2022). Images from Pinhey's Forest and P19 in Ottawa's greenbelt [Graphic]. Ottawa, Ontario.

Environment and Climate Change Canada, (2022). Edéhzhíe National Wildlife Area and Dehcho Protected Area. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpbDVijxcCM .

Esri, (2019). Climate Action Map. Government of Canada. Ottawa: Canada. Retrieved from  https://inhoyrrujppwn07k.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=ac1f6bf38dda48a89467e9605061b8c9 

Esri, (2019). Renewable Energy Power Plants. North American Cooperation on Energy Information (NACEI). Retrieved from  https://inhoyrrujppwn07k.maps.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=71bec67acfdb49b0aeb6019736739dca 

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Kelner, Nicole. (2022). Map of climate Anxiety. Florida: United States. Retrieved from  https://nicolekelner.darkroom.com/ .

McCouver, Amanda. (2022). The horizon, the ocean, the sky. Retrieved from  https://amandamccavour.com/ .

MOMA. (2023). Assemblage. NY: NY. Retrieved from  https://www.moma.org/collection/terms/assemblage 

National Wool Museum. (2021). The history of quilting in four minutes. Melbourne: Australia. Retrieved from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGgFsNuvk3E .

Native land Digital. (2023). Native land digital. Retrieved from  https://native-land.ca/ .

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Popova, Maria. (June, 2022). The age of the possible [Screen grab]. The Marginalian. N.Y.: N.Y. Retrieved from  https://soundcloud.com/brainpicker/age-of-the-possible .

Seat at the Table. (May, 2022). Grieving for Earth: How to Cope with Climate Anxiety. Retrieved from Real Stories,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn2f-B_Gzcg .

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Von Wong, Benjamin. (2022). #TurnOffThePlasticTap. Retrieved from  https://blog.vonwong.com/turnofftheplastictap/ 

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Contributors! Many hands make lighter work! Thanks to all who brought this to life.

AdaptED Project Architect

Digital Learning Experience Designer