Canadian Climate Of Mind

The twenty-first century is a period of great environmental and social transformation as climate change increasingly marks lives at levels that are personal, familial, communal, national, and global. A Canadian Climate of Mind presents stories that emerge from the waters, lands, and climate of Canada, and which have the potential to renew a compassionate energy for changing human relations with each other and with our world. The turbulent effects of climate change are popularly discussed in the modern language of scientific knowledge, political policies, economic mechanisms, and technological innovation. While there is much to be learned from these views, Timothy Leduc suggests a more profound call for change by returning to past understandings of the land and climate. He argues that the world is initiating us into a broader and humbler sense of what it is to be human in an interconnected reality. The world is doing this by responding to unsustainable practices such as our devastating reliance on fossil fuels. Weaving together voices from numerous backgrounds and time periods with Indigenous views on present and past environmental challenges, A Canadian Climate of Mind illuminates a world that is being shaken to its core while we hesitate to act.

Canada’s Top Climate Change Risks identifies the top risk areas based on the extent and likelihood of the potential damage, and rates the risk areas according to society’s ability to adapt and reduce negative outcomes. These 12 major areas of risk are: agriculture and food, coastal communities, ecosystems, fisheries, forestry, geopolitical dynamics, governance and capacity, human health and wellness, Indigenous ways of life, northern communities, physical infrastructure, and water. The report describes an approach to inform federal risk prioritization and adaptation responses. The Panel outlines a multi-layered method of prioritizing adaptation measures based on an understanding of the risk, adaptation potential, and federal roles and responsibilities.

Picking Up the Slack examines how Canadian law has failed to address climate change and offers an accessible basis for a new approach.

Here’s a clear, believable book for Canadians concerned about our situation — and it offers a solution. It’s a brilliant mix. To “Canada’s best mind on the environment,” Mark Jaccard, who won the 2006 Donner Prize for an academic book in this area, you add Nic Rivers, a researcher who works with him at Simon Fraser University. Then you add Jeffrey Simpson, the highly respected Globe and Mail columnist, to punch the message home in a clear, hard-hitting way. The result is a unique book. Most other books on energy and climate change are: (a) terrifying or (b) academic or (c) quirky, advocating a single, neat solution like solar or wind power. This book is different. It starts with an alarming description of the climate threat to our country. Then it shifts to an alarming description of how Canadians have been betrayed by their politicians (“We’re working on it!”), their industrialists (“Things aren’t that bad, really, and voluntary guidelines will be good enough.”), and even their environmentalists (“Energy efficiency can be profitable, and people can change their lifestyles!”) All of this, of course, reinforces the myths that forceful policies are not needed. Hot Air then lays out in convincing and easily understandable terms the few simple policies that Canada must adopt right away in order to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades. It even shows how these policies can be designed to have minimal negative effects. With evidence from other countries that are successfully addressing climate change, Hot Air shows why these are the only policies that will work — and why this is a matter of life and death for all of us.