“The most important thing you can do to fight climate change is to talk about it”
Katherine Hayhoe (Hayhoe, 2018)
I was first introduced to Katherine Hayhoe in my Royal Roads University course SPCC614: Science and Impacts of Climate Change. It was by chance that I stumbled upon her TED talk and other YouTube videos. If I remember correctly, I was searching on YouTube for climate models or scenarios videos which were week 5 and week 6 topics for the SPCC614: Science and Impacts of Climate Change course. This was exactly what I needed and was looking for in my position.
I was originally hired as a Climate Change Coordinator by NunatuKavut Community Council (NCC) to help develop proposals, manage projects, and engage members on climate change issues. Since climate change has an impact on everything, I sometimes struggled with suggesting what types of projects that NCC should focus on. As with all programs within NCC, community involvement is paramount. It became apparent that an NCC-specific Climate Change Strategy was needed, and a committee was formed to help guide the process. All this happened prior to enrolling into the Graduate Certificate Course for Climate Action Leadership (GCCAL) and was a catalysis for me to enroll in the program amidst my very busy work and home life.
The GCCAL program permitted me to take the SPCC614 course in the winter of 2021 instead of the summer CALS500: Climate Change Science, Impacts and Services course. Therefore, I had the privilege of having some of the climate change science background prior to this course (CALS501). One of the things that stand out in my mind is Indigenous ways of knowing and living, and how the program incorporates it as an important part of course material. As I stated in my earlier blog, Indigenous ways of knowing is transdisciplinary thinking (Kippenhuck, 2021). I also believe that Indigenous peoples have always lived and adapted to their environment. Their traditional knowledge has documented their culture, environmental changes, and their resilience that has been passed down from generation to generation. Indigenous peoples will be one of the first to feel the impacts of climate change though they are contributing very little to the problem (Whyte, 2017; Canadian Geographic, 2018; Brinkman, 2016). The colonial version of science does not necessarily consider the vast knowledge of Indigenous people. I admit, in my younger naïve years and fresh out of university I too could not reconcile how to incorporate traditional knowledge into science. I have since come to realize that traditional knowledge does not need to be incorporated into science, but it must be considered and respected the same way as science through transdisciplinary thinking and learning.
This brings me back to my work with NCC and how to inspire climate action within our communities. The current GCCAL course, CALS502: Communication for Climate Action, is focused on building a better climate communicator through developing a better story. It provides an overview of communication theories and strategies which is applied through analysis of climate content as well as the creation of climate content for inspiring action. One of the required readings or rather video in the very first week was Katherine Hayhoe’s TED talk that I mentioned above. For me, this was one piece that I keep thinking about throughout the course. The climate change story that we want to tell will need to tailor to a specific audience, framed in a way that speaks to the audiences’ heart, focused on local impacts, and provide guidance on how the audience can be involved. Team Braiding incorporated these features within our design challenge assignment and refocused our prototype specifically to youth within the Canadian secondary school system to empower them into local climate action through a friendly design challenge competition.
References
Brinkman, T.J., Hansen, W.D., Chapin, F.S., Kofinas, G., BurnSilver, S. & Scott Rupp, T. (2016). Arctic communities perceive climate impacts on access as a critical challenge to availability of subsistence resources. Climatic Change, 139, 413–427 https://doi-org.ezproxy.royalroads.ca/10.1007/s10584-016-1819-6
Canadian Geographic. (2018). Indigenous peoples’ Atlas of Canada. Royal Canadian Geographical Society. https://indigenouspeoplesatlasofcanada.ca/
Hayhoe, K. (2018, November). The most important thing you can do to fight climate change: Talk about it [Video]. TED talks. https://www.ted.com/talks/katharine_hayhoe_the_most_important_thing_you_can_do_to_fight_climate_change_talk_about_it/reading-list?language=en
Kippenhuck, C. (2021, May). Indigenous ways of knowing is transdisciplinary thinking. https://webspace.royalroads.ca/ckippenhuck/indigenous-ways-of-knowing-is-transdisciplinary-thinking/
Whyte, K.P. (2017, February 28). Indigenous climate change studies: Indigenizing futures, decolonizing the anthropocene. English Language Notes, Forthcoming. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2925514