Alberta Acts on Climate Change is a joint initiative of the University of Calgary's Faculty of Social Work and the Pembina Institute. It is fully funded by the federal government's Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council until July 2010.
Our mandate is to increase environmental citizenship in Alberta. We understand "citizenship" as participating in democratic processes on a particular issue to bring a certain outcome to fruition. In our case, "environmental citizenship" means helping to find solutions that avoid dangerous climate change. We seek to increase environmental citizenship in four ways.
Team
Our multi-disciplinary team currently consists of 1 full-time paid position, 3 part-time paid positions, 2 practicum students and a full-time academic as the project lead. Meet the team here.
Focus Areas
Community Engagement
We will be working with residents in at least six communities in southern Alberta to bring out the solutions they want. In several cases, the process we will facilitate will blend extremely well with community sustainability plans that town staff are already working on.
Faith Community: Climate Change as a Moral Issue
During previous and on-going social movements, the faith community has played a significant role. We see tremendous opportunity for religious institutions to engage their communities to live out their environment citizenship. All faith traditions have an ethic of stewardship for the environment. However, some faith traditions continue to reconcile the epistemological challenges that climate change presents: if people have the ability to alter the planet, how does that affect one's understanding of a deity? If the "developed" countries are responsible for the majority of the current and forecast climatic changes but "developing" countries are most likely to suffer the most, what are the implications to our understanding of justice? A series of retreats, panel discussions and dialogue moves through these and other questions.
Supporting On-going Climate Change Initiatives
Many groups are doing excellent work to help Albertans increase their environmental citizenship. Where appropriate, we support other groups' initiatives, mostly in the Calgary area.
Province-wide Virtual Conference
Environmental citizenship initiatives are taking place in all regions of the province of Alberta. A video conference focusing on climate change and community capacity building will allow members of one community to share their experiences and learn from members of another community. Outside experts will also contribute pertinent information and experience. We are currently planning for our virtual conference for March 12, 2010. Please direct inquiries to Andy Blundell at andy@c3t.ca.
