Roberta Tevlin, Retired Teacher
roberta@tevlin.ca

Are you concerned about climate change? Do you wonder what you can do? A group of OAPT members have got together to help OAPT members to take action. We have some suggestions.

The urgency of climate change has changed dramatically over the past decade. Maybe, like me, you have been too busy to keep up or maybe you are scared of what you might find. We have put together a list of resources that you might want to look at over the summer. Many of these are free and the others are probably available through your public library.

• Perimeter Institute’s Free Teacher Resource: Evidence for Climate Change
  Are you going to teach grade-10 science next year? If so, this resource is for you! It is full of information and student-centered activities. If you can find the time, I highly recommend that you sign up for the online teacher course that runs August 9-16, 2023. It will help walk you through the materials and provide a chance to connect with other teachers. You can sign up here. [Link https://perimeterinstitute.ca/teacher-courses to the previous word “here”]
  

• Project Drawdown
  The horrors of impending climate doom can easily cause people to give up in despair. This website is focussed on the wide range of solutions that already exist. There are two video series — ‘Climate Solutions 101’ and ‘Drawdown Roadmap’ — and they are well worth watching. The content is very thoughtful and thoroughly researched. They walk you through the big picture of how the solutions already exist, what they are, and how they can be implemented.
  

• Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World (2021) by Katherine Hayhoe
  This is an excellent book. It is fully open about the severity of the problem but it manages to leave you feeling that there is still time to turn things around. It includes lots of science while remaining thoroughly readable.
  

• Active Hope by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
  It is full of wisdom and insight into how to bring true hope into discussion of climate change. Lots of good ideas about exercises that can be implemented to help people process their emotions in a healthy way. You can find this as a book or a free online course.
  

• The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac]
  The authors of this book led negotiations during the Paris Agreement. They understand the global political system and outline what it will take to get to a healthy future.
  

• Under a White Sky by Elizabeth Kolburt
  She interviews many scientists currently working on technologies to slow the progress of climate change.
  

• Teaching Science: Climate
  Robert Prior has a number of recommendations and description on his website. You can also find useful tips there that deal with topics other than climate change.
  

There are many things that we can do as individuals and as the OAPT to take action against climate change. The first action is probably to be well-informed, which is why we put together the list above. The next thing we can do is to make sure that climate change gets taught, and gets taught well, in our schools. We need to consider how to engage and inform our students while being supportive of their emotional needs — eco-anxiety is a growing problem.

The OAPT Climate Change Action group consists of Roberta Tevlin, Michelle Lee, Dave Fish, Robert Prior, Tom Eagan, James Ball, Adam Mills and Dale Simnett. We are just starting up and exploring ideas. We would love to have more people join us. We are looking for people who might like to write articles, try ideas in their classes, talk about eco-anxiety, learn about options for political action or anything else we can think of.

If you are interested in being part of this group, send me an email at roberta@tevlin.ca.

Tags: Climate