The Little Island that Can

This post was written and submitted by Simon Wheeler, a member of the Cathedral Climate Actions Through Stewardship (CATS) group. 

What can we do?  Heat domes, wildfires, rising sea levels, extended droughts, damaging wind storms….the list goes on.  Climate change is here and we had better prepare for it.  The name of the game now is not just reducing greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) but also adaptation, understanding what the local effects of global warming will be and preparing to meet the challenge of those changes.  So we need to plan. Most municipalities and districts have already spent time and money on producing their version of Climate Action Plans (just Google “climate action plan Vancouver” for a good example).  We need to read them and ensure through our local councillors and ourselves that we are implementing the plans and meeting the targets. We need to work through this together, as a community.

If you read this before June 18th consider coming to the Cathedral Forum at 9.15am on that day.  I will be presenting a story of how Salt Spring Island is preparing with, amongst other things, their own climate action plan, boosting emergency preparedness at the island-wide and local levels, promoting electrification of the transport systems, ferry, bus and plane and individual choices of electric bikes and cars and encouraging everyone on the island to be part of the solution.  Please join me on the 18th.