Stories & Updates

April + Earth Day Newsletter: Our story of adaptation

This morning, thinking about Earth Day left me feeling a deep sense of grief for the state of wildlife and nature globally. This, on top of the gloom of the pandemic. Yet I’m also finding great inspiration in how our communities have demonstrated the will to take swift and bold action to address an emergency. The remarkable stories of solidarity, adaptation and resilience in response to Covid-19 give me hope for our planet’s future. This is Be the Change’s story so far.

In mid-March, I called together our staff team and reached out to our board to discuss the new challenge facing our eco-social educational programming: schools are closed, and kids are homebound. We all agreed on a vision for Be the Change stepping up to support schools, teachers and students. Our goal: to be in genuine service to teachers during this exceptional and difficult time.  We envisioned creating a new collection of learning resources and activities to support teachers with online instruction and engage students remotely in authentic eco-social learning. Through a collaborative and iterative process, we developed the Climate & Connection Unit.

Climate and Connection Unit!

Be the Change has just launched the Climate & Connection Unit!

This new Unit from the Student Leadership for Change (SLC) program consists of 15 student Action Packs focused on two main themes:

• Climate: climate change, climate action and climate justice
• Connection: to myself, to my values, and to other people

March 2020 Newsletter

Be the Change recognizes that we are living in uncertain and exceptional times. We are committed to protecting the health and safety of our community, our teachers, and our students. With staff working remotely and program offerings moving online, Be the Change is working to do its part to slow down the spread of COVID-19 and “flatten the curve”. We encourage you all to continue following the recommendations of public health agencies and healthcare officials closely.

 

Navigating Eco-Anxiety

Increasingly, articles are popping up in mainstream media covering the rise of eco-anxiety, particularly among young people. And it is hardly surprising. Today, for example, when I do a quick scan of The Guardian’s Climate news, the headlines read of the severe consequences a 2 degree temperature rise would have on Antarctic ice melt, that fossil fuel pollution has been behind 4 million premature deaths annually, and that the 4 biggest fossil fuel companies (Shell, Chevron, BP and Exxon) have made almost 2 Trillion dollars since 1990 exploiting the fossil fuels that have contributed dramatically to climate change. Just scanning these stories- that highlight both the impacts of climate change is already having around the world, and that our governments and systems appear in-affective to deal with it, it is hard not feeling some sort of worry or fear about the future. It is also easy to understand why psychologists are reporting that people are coming to them for help to manage their worries and fears over climate change, and that climate change is now being recognized as a mental health issue.

What exactly is eco-anxiety?

One group of psychologists define eco-anxiety as the term to: “describe various difficult emotions and mental states arising from environmental conditions and knowledge about them. Eco‐Anxiety can result directly from an environmental problem, but most often it is an indirect impact. For example, a person may feel anxiety and sorrow because a woodland area next to him is cut down. But even more people experience anxiety because they feel that climate change is taking away their future.”

February 2020 Newsletter

SPECIAL EDITION NEWSLETTER:

Our newsletter this month is dedicated to supporting Wet’suwet’en land defenders and protesters, in solidarity with Indigenous rights, title and climate justice.

January 2020 Newsletter

Welcome to 2020! 
Here’s an update of what’s been going on with Be The Change
so far this year

Youth Climate Ambassador Workshops, Youth Action Stories Video series, blog series, welcoming our new executive director

Press Release: Youth Climate Ambassador Workshops

COLLABORATORS EMPOWER YOUTH CLIMATE AMBASSADORS!

Be the Change Earth Alliance and the UBC Climate Hub today announce a new joint project: Youth Climate Ambassador Workshops. These workshops will empower high school students to become community ‘Climate Ambassadors’ to engage peers, family, and community members in meaningful climate action.

Be the Change Earth Alliance has been presenting environmental workshops to build hope and agency among youth through a proven delivery model for ten years. This collaboration will augment their regular school programming in 2020 by providing high school classes with workshops facilitated by university students. 

“I love the dynamics of peer mentorship,” enthused Maureen Jack-LaCroix, Creative Director of Be the Change Earth Alliance. “These workshops deepen commitments for change with both the student facilitators from UBC and the adolescents they are inspiring. Our experience indicates that most youth are already well informed on the causes and impacts of climate change. These workshops will help transform their eco-anxiety into positive action. We’ll be supporting students to plan group projects and develop their voice to influence others.” 

5 tips for navigating conversations with young people on the climate crisis

 I delivered a Pro-D workshop to BC high school teachers this past fall on BTCEA's signature educational program, Student Leadership for Change. Over the hour long workshop our conversations kept coming back to the tensions many teachers felt as to how to teach about the climate crisis; Teachers were worried about presenting the facts about climate change in a manner that does not overwhelm students, while also not downplaying the major changes required by society to turn things around.

This group of teachers are not alone in wrestling with this challenge. Indeed, this has been an ongoing struggle in the world of climate communications. And rightly so, the climate crisis brings with it a lot of devastation, particularly for young people whose futures will be most impacted if swift action is not taken.

Announcing! New blog series: The complex world of climate change communications.

How exactly do we broach the subject of the climate crisis with students? Is there some sort of balance to be stricken between teaching the realities of the scale of the crisis while also maintaining a sense of positivity and hopefulness? How do we deal with rising eco-anxiety among youth that comes with learning and experiencing the climate crisis? These are the questions that teachers shared with me this fall.

The concerns that teachers expressed about wanting to teach students about the climate crisis without sending them all spiraling into a wave of eco-despair is well-founded. As we welcome in 2020, we enter a decade where the 2019 UNEP Report: Closing the Gap asserts greenhouse gas emissions globally have to fall 7.6% each year to maintain a chance of limiting warming to the 1.5°C Paris Target, designated as the safe limit for humanity. The scale of change and transformation that this requires is unprecedented, and can feel totally overwhelming, and even impossible. However, there is hope in that we do know the solutions, and public opinion on climate change is changing, and rapidly.