The following appeared in the Wednesday, January 11th edition of YFile.

In December, two York graduate students attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa as non-voting delegates with observer status.

On Thursday, Ewa Modlinska, an MES student in environmental studies, and Alex Todd, an MA candidate in geography, will share their observations on the COP 17 Debrief panel, in 120E Stedman Lecture Hall from 3 to 5pm.

Right: York delegates, from left, MES student Ewa Modlinska, Curtis Kuunuaq Konek and Jordan Konek from the Arviat Youth Project, and MA student Alex Todd

The COP 17 Debrief panel is hosted by York’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability, which successfully applied for delegate status to the conference on behalf of York University in 2009, and sponsored Modlinska and Todd.

Modlinska will speak about the importance of listening at international climate change conferences. It is the topic of her fourth and final blog posted about the conference.

COP 17 is short for the 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Established in 1992, it meets annually to set intergovernmental frameworks for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change. COP 17 took place from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9.

Modlinska went back and forth between the official conference inside and meetings organized by NGOs and other interest groups outside. She heard “a plurality of voices bringing different perspectives to the issue of climate change.” Official delegates focused on equity and development rights, while the protesters stressed climate justice, she said. “The biggest problem,” she told YFile, “was that there was not enough interaction between inside and outside.” Inside, they were proposing market-based mechanisms to mitigate climate change, profit-based solutions opposed by those outside.

Todd spent most of his time with protesters, so will have a different perspective on the conference, says Modlinska.

On the panel with her and Todd will be three others. Youth delegate April Dutheil attended the conference to set up a booth about how climate change is affecting Arviat, her home on the shores of Hudson Bay. From the Faculty of Environmental Studies, Professor Ellie Perkins specializes in globalization and the environment, and postdoctoral fellow Rachel Hirsch, in climate change and food insecurity in the North.

If you cannot attend the panel discussion, join the conversation online.

The following appeared in the Thursday, December 8, 2011 edition of YFile.

For a chance to win $50,000 and fund 75 better-planet projects at schools across Canada, York-based Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) has entered its EcoLeague program in Shell Canada’s Fuelling Change competition. Now it needs your vote.

EcoLeague is one of 14 entries vying for four $50,000 prizes in this competition. So far, it is in fifth spot and needs more online votes to push into the top four.

Through Fuelling Change, Shell Canada is granting $1 million to support environmental projects and organizations selected by voters that improve and restore Canada’s environment. This is the second competition in two years.

EcoLeague was established in 2006. It is one of several school-based sustainability action programs supported by LSF, a nonprofit Canadian organization housed at York’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) – and celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

EcoLeague, which offers  eight “recipes for action” on its website, would use the funding to facilitate action days and fund action projects up to $400. In 2010, the EcoLeague project review committee granted funds for 157 action projects across Canada and facilitated 18 action days at Toronto-area schools. Winning $50,000 in the Fuelling Change competition means funds for 75 action projects.

Left: Schoolyard naturalization is the most popular EcoLeague project

The goal of EcoLeague projects is to increase awareness about sustainability issues, engage students, and benefit the school and/or local community. After the project ends, students reports – including metrics, pictures, videos and stories – are posted on the EcoLeague website.

Greening projects are very popular, says Randall Brown, EcoLeague project coordinator. Schoolyard naturalization – planting native plants and food gardens – “is definitely a big one,” she says. So is “Ban the Bottle”, where kids raise money selling reusable water bottles to buy a filling station and discourage the purchase of bottled water. Other recipes for action include building a vermicomposter, cleaning shorelines, making reusable bags, campaigning to stop vehicles idling near schools, raising awareness about water pollution and electricity conservation. EcoLeague also encourages students to design their own projects.

This is the first time LSF has entered the Fuelling Change competition to help raise funds for EcoLeague, says Annette Dubreuil, IRIS coordinator. As a nonprofit organization, LSF is constantly fundraising to support its programs and has many corporate sponsors.

Left: Students handle the worms in their new vermicomposter 

LSF’s youth-engagement expenses in 2010 were $342,000. A $50,000 boost from Fuelling Change would cover material expenses for an estimated 75 action projects.

“Help support EcoLeague and celebrate LSF’s 20th anniversary by giving us a vote in the Fuelling Change competition,” urges Dubreuil.

To find out how to vote, visit the Fuelling Change website. Voting ends April 30.

By Martha Tancock, YFile contributing writer

The following appeared in the Wednesday, November 23rd edition of YFile.

In the face of climate change, does it make sense to use assisted migration techniques to save various species of plants, trees and animals? The answer seemed relatively simple a few years ago, but it is an increasingly controversial issue, says postdoctoral fellow and lecturer Nina Hewitt of York’s Department of Geography.

Hewitt is the lead author on “Taking Stock of the Assisted Migration Debate”, an article published in the Biological Conservation journal this fall that synthesizes the debate by looking at about 50 articles written on the subject. It is one of the journal's "most read" articles for November.

“Assisted migration is a policy that says we need to take a proactive kind of hands-on approach and help species that are slow-moving to achieve these northward or altitudinal migrations as climate belts shift, with climate change occurring at very rapid rates, beyond the species’ normal dispersal and colonization abilities. This will be further complicated by the difficulties of migration across human-dominated landscape,” says Hewitt, a Senior Fellow and postdoctoral researcher with York’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS).

The article is part of an IRIS research project on assisted migration, invasive species and climate change, funded by the Canadian Foundation for Climate & Atmospheric Sciences.

Left: Nina Hewitt

It involves taking a species which is vulnerable to extinction in its current ecosystem and transplanting it somewhere else. “But there is a risk: the risk of invasion of the transplanted species in the community into which it is introduced,” she says. Assisted migration would involve transplanting an endangered species to a community beyond its population margin, into a whole other landscape type, and hoping it can establish itself there without being overly aggressive and taking over the already established species.

“Some of these species have no impact; they just stay there or don’t do well, or they can be really successful and create a problem where native species become extinct,” says Hewitt

Take a look at the starling, which was transplanted into North America from Europe because someone wanted all the birds from Shakespeare’s sonnets here. They’re an example of an overly successful assisted migration. “And while no one is proposing such extreme, long-distance migrations, there can still be complications,” she says. “A number of scientists, also concerned with the effects of climate change, have said this policy opens the door to some very risky issues, especially if we don’t know and can’t predict if these assisted species will become problematic in the communities to which they are introduced.”

The level of controversy that has erupted over this issue in recent years, and that it remains unresolved, surprises Hewitt. She puts it down to the fact that the impact of climate change has become clearer and more urgent, and “so the need to actually do some of these drastic, interfering, proactive measures, such as take a species and transplant it en masse somewhere else, are being pushed more openly” by some scientists. This seems to have precipitated a reaction by those who argue against assisted migration, and those voices seem to have gotten louder in the last two or three years.

Hewitt worries that the debate will become so entrenched that it will stay in a kind of paralysis with policymakers unable to either embrace or reject the policy. There needs to be a better sense of whether to adopt assisted migration in certain situations, or abandon it. “With this paper, we were hoping to highlight the different sides of the debate so that scientists and policymakers can evaluate the risks and benefits and together make some progress so we don’t get stuck in that paralysis,” she says. "Taking Stock of the Assisted Migration Debate" was co-authored with postdoctoral Fellow Nicole Klenk and several IRIS researchers.

There are risks to proceeding with assisted migration, but at the same time there may be risks associated with doing nothing. “What I found was that the debate seemed to be stuck around what we call ‘other issues’ – neither direct risks nor benefits to implementing a particular assisted migration, but rather, counter arguments to the opposite side of the debate. These counter arguments need to be distinguished from direct risks and benefits because they can’t provide justification for scrapping or adopting the policy,” says Hewitt.

She thinks a careful, case-by-case consideration of relative risks and benefits is the way to go. Before assisted migration can be considered, there has to be a reasonable benefit to migrating the species that can be assessed in relation to risk. She hopes the article will help bring much-needed focus to the debate.

By Sandra McLean, YFile writer

The following appeared in the Thursday, November 10th edition of YFile.

An international panel of experts will bring global ideas to the Canadian public next week as it debates strategies and action for transforming work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The panel, Greening Work in a Chilly Climate: Canadian Challenges and International Perspectives, will take place Thursday, Nov. 17, from 5:30 to 8pm, in the Novella Room Bram & Bluma Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library, 789 Yonge St. in Toronto. It’s an outreach event of Work in a Warming World, a Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funded research program based at York of which Carla Lipsig-Mummé is lead investigator and York geography Professor Steven Tufts is the associate director.

Right: Carla Lipsig-Mummé

“Climate change is of intense concern to Canadians today, but its growing impact on existing jobs and on the next generation of workers is almost absent from the agendas of public policy, business and labour,” says Lipsig-Mummé, a professor of work and labour studies in York's Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. “This panel will look at what we can learn here in Canada about what’s being done elsewhere and how we can change workplaces to reduce their carbon footprint.”

Left: Steven Tufts

Governments of all political stripes, who are members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development, are crafting ambitious national policies that include the work world to reduce their carbon footprint. “In contrast, the political climate in Canada is decidedly chilly,” says Lipsig-Mummé.

But the world of work may be the most effective site for reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to a greener economy. Organized by Work in a Warming World, the panel brings expertise on the United Kingdom, China, the United States and Canada to the public.

Speaker topics and bios:

Linda Clarke, a professor of European Industrial Relations at the University of Westminster’s Westminster Business School in the United Kingdom, will discuss, “Bolt-on Skills for Low-carbon Construction? British Training in European Context”. Clarke does comparative research on labour, vocational education, skills and wage relations in a range of European countries. She has particular expertise in the construction sector in Europe and is on the board of the European Institute for Construction Labour Research. She is co-author of Knowledge, Skills, Competence in the European Labour Market: What’s in a Qualification? (Routledge, 2011) and co-editor of Vocational Education: International Approaches, Developments and Systems (Routledge, 2007).

Marc Lee of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) will look at “Climate Justice, Green Jobs and Sustainable Production”. Lee researches and writes on a variety of economic and social policy issues for the CCPA’s British Columbia and national offices. In addition to tracking federal and provincial budgets and economic trends, Lee has published on a wide range of topics from poverty and inequality to globalization and international trade to public services and regulation. Lee is the co-director of the Climate Justice Project, a five-year research partnership with the University of British Columbia funded by SSHRC, examining the links between climate change policies and social justice.

Sarah White of Boston University’s School of Public Health will talk about “Greener Partnerships: Building Movements, Delivering Equity”. White is a senior associate at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS), a national policy centre at the University of Wisconsin dedicated to high-road economic development. Her work at COWS focuses on the intersection of labour and energy policy at state and federal levels, and she is a national expert on jobs and training in the emerging green economy. White has written widely on education for sustainability and social change, including Greener Skills: How Credentials Create Value in a Clean Energy Economy, and Greener Pathways: Jobs and Workforce Development in the Clean Energy Economy. 

Charles Campbell, research director for the Canadian national office of the United Steelworkers, will examine “Hard to be Green but Easy to be Blue: Labour’s Environmental Agenda in a Tough Climate”. Campbell is the former research director at the Ontario New Democratic Party Caucus and a former researcher at both the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations and the Ontario Environmental Assessment Board, as well as a Washington, D.C.-based national environment writer for The Associated Press.

Andrew Bowerbank, former director of World Green Building Council, will discuss “China’s Strategy for a Green Economy”. His efforts have included advancing the development of Green Building Councils worldwide and supporting the development of The Living City Campus just north of Toronto. In 2007, Bowerbank received the Leader of the Year award by EnerQuality Corporation and the Ontario Home Builders' Association for his contributions to sustainable community development and green home design.

There will be a Q&A period at the end of the panel discussion, followed by a reception. To register, click here.

For more information, visit the Work in a Warming World website, or for speaker bios, click here.

The following appeared in the Wednesday, November 16th edition of YFile.

York University Professor Jose Etcheverry has received a prestigious CMHC Excellence in Education Award for bringing his commitment to sustainability into the classroom and extending learning beyond lectures.

A professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, Etcheverry researches topics such as climate change mitigation and renewable energy policies. In confronting these issues, he focuses on developing practical policy solutions through collaboration, and finding new ways to communicate solutions effectively.

Left: Jose Etcheverry

In addition to conducting research, training graduate students and teaching undergraduates, Etcheverry co-chairs the Sustainable Energy Initiative, established to build and strengthen the teaching, research and other partnerships needed to create new green energy economies in Canada and around the world.

“Jose Etcheverry is absolutely inspirational to his students. He talks about the need for sustainable energy with such passion that it is contagious,” said Barbara Rahder, dean of York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies. “And he works tirelessly to put his words into practice. If his students take up the cause with this same passion, we will be living in a different world much sooner than anticipated.”

CMHC (Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation) created the Excellence in Education Award in 2003 to honour outstanding educational contributions to sustainable practices. Etcheverry was selected for the award in the categories of Innovative Teaching and Sustainable Projects.

An example of this innovation is a project in which Etcheverry’s students will help the International Renewable Energy Agency to create a network of educational resources on renewable energy. As part of their course requirements, students will populate parts of the website for the organization, which represents 148 signatory nations that are devoted to promoting the sustainable use of all forms of renewable energy.

“We must involve students in this type of project so they get practical, hands-on experience that will set them apart when they graduate and give them confidence,” says Etcheverry. “We need to help students by stepping aside and letting them lead. At the end of the day, the future belongs to them.”

On receiving his award Monday evening, Etcheverry announced a new initiative that will further expand the student experience – a partnership between the Sustainable Energy Initiative in York’s Faculty of Environmental Studies and Aalborg University in northern Denmark. The exchange program will enable York University students to attend Aalborg University and learn hands-on at the Nordic Folkecenter for Renewable Energy, a partner organization in northern Denmark, which has a unique wind-testing facility. Danish students will come to York to learn hands-on at the Kortright Centre’s Photovoltaic Performance Verification testing facility.

To learn more about Etcheverry's work, see the February 2008 issue of YorkU magazine.