AIRIVA

There are many new solutions across Canada & the world addressing issues of Climate Change. Enjoy learning!. Here are a few general sites to start you off, then a few specific websites to explore:

1. The Solutions Project- https://thesolutionsproject.org/what-we-do/inspiring-action/why-clean-energy/ (an interactive map. Choose a country or city nearby to see how they could be completely fossil free by 2050).

2. David Suzuki Foundation: Search under “Climate Solutions” under “Our Work”. (See short video on “Kanaka Bar”)

3 Search the “Earthshot Prizes”, and “Ten Unbelievable New Ways of Generating Electricity” (makeuseof.com) and the James Dyson Awards! 

4. Articles from “The Oxygen Project”, eg. “22 Ways to Save the Planet”

5. https://www.quanta-cs.com/blogs/2021-4/5-most-innovative-solutions-in-renewable-energy

6. 10 Green Technologies that will change the world:

https://medium.com/climate-conscious/10-green-technologies-that-will-change-the-world-9f7a709c1a15 

7. Search “green walls” around the world, or “living green walls”, eg. Bosco Verticale in Milan. See “how to” by city of Sydney, Austrailia

8. https://www.sciencefocus.com/future-technology/future-technology-22-ideas-about-to-change-our-world/

9. https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/nature-tech-future-now/

10. Grist Magazine: https://grist.org/fix/.  This online magazine often shows great projects being used.

11. Look up Miyawaki Tiny Forests, being planted around the world.  Imagine small urban forests scattered broadly through the cities, in part of large parking lots, in part of every park--a ribbon of green biodiversity for human health and planetary health.  "A city in a forest."

12. Algae for supper? Or crickets?

https://grist.org/fix/food-farming/algae-farms-alternative-climate-resilient-protein/?fbclid=IwAR0RiP9W2dIGK-Ogy7pHrIrjW6NQzP5xrIJYHmSyCgqCGvd6ptsaSeaObs0

13. Watch this great show " 2040 ". It can be seen using Kanopy streaming services and a KFPL library card. https://www.kanopy.com/en/kfplWonderful solutions for the future!

14.                              Re-designing your city: (6  ideas)

1. Green rooves (or solar)? A large, flat roof on a store or plaza, hotel or parking garage is wasted space. Could it be a biodiverse meadow under solar panels? A food garden? You name it. Toronto has over 700 green roofs! Check this article out-- read these subtitles on the way to the photos of some amazing green rooves which exist right now. One is in Canada:

https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/green-roof-types-benefits-examples.php

2. Multi-family homes? Do they have to be tall concrete apartment buildings? Making concrete has created wars over sand and uses a lot of carbon. Yet, continuing to clearcut forests to build one-house-on-a-lawn neighbourhoods that stretch on forever, is not great either. 

Have a look at these neighbourhoods!

https://www.euronews.com/green/2021/10/19/welcome-to-the-milan-apartments-where-300-humans-live-in-harmony-with-21-000-trees

OR…

https://living-future.org/lbc/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=PPC&utm_campaign=LBC&msclkid=d59c1bd2a641194f480e788bb2901831

OR… low rise eco buildings to create communities? There are hundreds of them built across Victoria, B.C., with trees all around. Sometimes, on the fourth floor, your wide deck has a small garden and you can reach out and touch a mature tree. (We are trying to find photos of them all.)

https://www.dreamstime.com/brand-new-low-rise-apartment-building-sunny-day-british-columbia-canada-brand-new-apartment-building-sunny-day-british-image154306100

OR... look up Augustenborg Eco-City, Sweden to see a sustainable neighbourhood  or the town of Vauban, Germany! 

3. City traffic? Does it seem that cars have more space and rights than humans sometimes?

In Paris, France, constant terrible car traffic was what everyone saw. Then…

see NBC article: https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/paris-olympics-city-reduce-air-pollution-rcna153470

OR… in Waterloo & Kitchener, Ontario, they laid a train track right up the main streets! See their new Light Rail Transit. Very fast and quiet!

https://youtu.be/aCmTtmci-bE

4. Are there rivers near you with a good flow? You can create electricity from them. Have a peek:

Look up the company "RivGen" and see what they did in Alaska and what they are doing in the St. Lawrence River now, beside Montreal.

5.  Crazy but fun way to create electricity from a river? Look up "Energyfish" now being tested in a river in Germany.

6. Are solar panels old-school, boring? Hah! They are covering homes, canals, parking lots, greenshouses and farm fields in the Netherlands.  Kingston Ontaro and Disneyworld in Paris both have a parking lot covered in solar panels! Switzerland has now laid a narrow strip of solar panels along their ordinary train tracks . Trains can travel over them without trouble. If it is a very snowy winter, these can even roll up like a carpet temporarily.  Look up an old city airport in Edmonton, Alberta, being transformed into a Sustainable neighbourhood and a city electrical generating plant. The modern new townhomes have heat pumps and solar roofs, making their own electricity and making it for the Edmonton grid.  Germany has plug-in solar panels people can purchase and hang over their balconies, to help create electricity for their electrical grid, for everyone. Now California has voted to begin offering plug-in solar. Will Canada allow this affordable technology?