Are you a climate champion or climate destroyer?
Ecological quizzes and carbon-footprint calculators can help you find out. For those interested in learning how to live more intentionally and treat the Earth more kindly, the free resources make it a lot easier to be a climate hero.
The Green Action Centre offers all kinds of ways to make small changes with a big impact, shrinking carbon footprints and increasing social well-being. Staff are busier than ever spreading the word that being a climate hero can benefit everything and everyone.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Alexa Dawn, compost and waste reduction program co-ordinator at the Green Action Centre, has always been interested in environmentalism.
The centre, which recently celebrated 40 years in operation, offers workshops and presentations to schools, offices, community centres and public libraries. It will even take a team to a residential building to educate tenants interested in worm composting, among other things.
Workshops cover everything from exploring more natural alternatives to household cleaning products (a significant source of chemical pollution), to having a greener holiday season by spending less. The Green Action Centre team is well-versed in teaching composting basics, how to green the workplace, reduce waste, increase recycling, save energy and improve commuting options. Those with an interest in learning more can sign up for a newsletter or become a member.
Alexa Dawn is the compost and waste-reduction program co-ordinator at Green Action Centre. She’s always been interested in environmentalism, and in her previous career volunteered to create a green team for staff.
“The idea is to try to look at all of our daily habits, our consumption, what we use, how we live, the things we buy and how we get around,” says Dawn.
“We try to trace our environmental impact. How much fossil fuel are we using? What products are we buying? How are they manufactured?
“There’s a long supply chain. At every step along that chain, an extraction of resources is required: transportation of goods to different factories, refining and manufacturing, creating waste and pollution and harming environments, using a lot of land… everything we do has an environmental impact. How can we reduce that impact, and start the potential to regenerate?”
Dawn says that topics such as climate change and environmental issues can leave people feeling overwhelmed and helpless, but there are things that can be done.
“It’s not about being perfect or doing everything right. It’s about doing what you can. We all depend on the system we currently live in. We depend on the food chain. There’s a limit to what we can do, but there are small lifestyle changes and ways to make that change,” she says, adding that if everyone makes one small change, it will add up to a big change.
For homeowners who want to insulate their homes, use solar panels or otherwise use less energy and fewer resources, Dawn recommends contacting Efficiency Manitoba to find out about rebates.
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Dr. Rafael Otfinowski is associate professor in the department of biology at the University of Winnipeg. Formerly with Parks Canada, he works on understanding links between plants and soils to conserve, manage and restore Prairie ecosystems. His most rewarding challenge is to teach students about the evolution and function of grasslands and to learn from Indigenous and community members about the history, cultural uses and conservation of grassland ecosystems in Canada and around the world.
In both his teaching and his research, Otfinowski maintains a curiosity about things. He does so inside, with his research in the lab and outside in the grasslands and community gardens.
“You get to see really beautiful things,” he says, noting his appreciation of students bringing their own experiences, questions and curiosities into the classroom, both inside and out.
“It’s a small university. You get to do things a bit more spontaneously.”
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Rafael Otfinowski, U of W biology associate professor, at the Langside Learning Garden (which is planted with native plants). He says there’s immense flexibility in nature.
In his early days, he collaborated with Spence Neighbourhood Association on community garden projects.
“It’s a really neat way to take advantage of the urban classroom,” he says. “The Langside Learning Garden is full of beautiful native plants that were seeded as part of the project. I still take my students there to show them the diversity of plants across the street, to touch the leaf of the plant — ‘this one is hairy, this one is waxy, this one smells like licorice.’
“It opens up the dialogue with students who come from so many backgrounds.”
He has hope that things that we do individually contribute to community and a shared caring about the environment.
From his work in the lab, Otfinowski has learned that there is immense flexibility in nature and there are things that can be done every day in the ways we manage lawns and gardens at home.
“The physiology of plants is all about adaptation and resilience,” he explains. “Over billions of years, plants and organisms have found ways to adapt. They are resilient and dynamic systems. Plants can respond to those changes and that can be a source of hope.
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“Below ground, roots are extremely important in accessing nutrients and water, the biodiversity of an ecosystem. The more different types of plants you have, the more ways they can access resources differently. Small plants with small roots and thick plants with thick roots, the way a natural grassland grows naturally more resilient to drought.”
Otfinowski has taken the carbon footprint quizzes too and, along with his family, adjusts some things they’re able to, noting that not everyone has the luxury of doing so.
“We do bring discussion of our diet, transportation, the footprint of flying, how big our home is, where we purchase our food, where it was grown. Those small things have helped us enter a community that feels good — one that gives you hope — and that’s empowering.”
Visit: https://greenactioncentre.ca.
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