Summer Stevenson
Sustainability Coordinator, City of Thunder Bay:
-It’s not just about reducing emissions. It’s about improving the lives of everyone.
-How the city works determines how we work in it. How do we help make the way the city operates more sustainable so that we can help the people who live here live more sustainably?
-When we think about all of the structures that support our life on Earth, it all comes back to Climate Change. We have a huge crisis to confront and we have only so many years to do it. The net zero strategy recognizes this and responds directly to the Climate Emergency by outlining a technologically feasible pathway to achieve the scientific imperatives. So not an aspirational target, but the scientific imperatives of net zero Thunder Bay by 2050. It provides an opportunity for every single issue that comes to council to be looked at through the lens of Climate Change. We’re talking about reducing, in Thunder Bay’s case, a million tons of carbon dioxide. That’s going to take every single sector. That’s going to take changes in transportation, changes in land use planning, changes in how we manage our waste, our water, our buildings. It’s everywhere.
-The Climate Adaptation strategy is adapting to the climate change that is already locked in and the crazy weather and extremes and changes to natural systems that means. The adaptation is accounting for these changes through engineering and infrastructure to prepare for those higher extremes. The problem with climate change is your one in a hundred years storms are becoming every one in ten years, we’re seeing them happen at such a much more dramatic rate.
-Our City can be a leader. I think we underestimate the power that we have. Throughout human history we’ve done amazing, incredible things. We have the coolest technology, we have innovative people, we’ve got brilliant minds, we've got engaged youth - we have all of the pieces. It’s about coming together now. And I think it’s time. And it will benefit way more than just the climate. It’s about changing the way we organize our society and our systems. Climate action has the potential to benefit so many people.
-The better we are at adapting to extreme weather, and the better designed our systems are, the less we will notice the impacts. Which is a bit of a catch 22 because for a really long time we were hoping that once people started to see more extreme weather events, that would trigger a response. But what we’re finding is that is doesn’t, because we have this ability to pick up and keep going.
-It’s really hard because this job is having to look the Climate Crisis in the eye all of the time and having to operate in systems that aren’t moving as fast as you want them to. It’s hard because it’s urgent but change is not as fast or clear as we want. When we’re asking people to change, it’s a lot harder than when we ask them to stay the same.
- My mission was always to save the turtles. From a really young age. And in a round about way I am saving the turtles because they live on this planet too.
