Sustainable Future

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Equitable Communities Ep. 5

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 19:42:08 +0000

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Equitable Communities Ep. 5 Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 06/12/2023 - 15:42

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

School of Cities

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Faculty of Arts & Science

Sustainability

Subheadline

How can addressing climate change help us build a more equitable world?

The final instalment of the University of Toronto’s five-part series, Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted!, explores the intersection between equity, the environment and the economy.

Imara Rolston, assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and founder and director of the Community Climate Resilience Lab, talks about the importance of listening to leaders in the Black, racialized and marginalized communities most impacted by the effect of climate change.

“One of the ways to sort of stabilize a city, and I think that’s what a lot of folks don’t recognize, is to advance racial equity and racial justice,” he says. “When you advance that through policy, through sustained investment, through evidence and research and academia, then you can get ahead of what’s going to happen, and you can actually stabilize the whole city in ways it wouldn’t be if racial equity wasn’t centred.”

Karen Chapple, director of �鶹��Ƶ’s School of Cities, an institutional strategic initiative, and professor in the department of geography and urban planning in the Faculty of Arts & Science, says students and researchers are coming up with new ways to address the challenges of affordable housing and energy efficiency – and the next step is to put those ideas into practice.

Ron Saporta – �鶹��Ƶ’s acting vice-president, operations and the co-chair of the President’s Advisory Committee on the Environment, Climate Change and Sustainability – adds that �鶹��Ƶ is leading by example through initiatives across the university’s three campuses, including the installation of Canada’s largest urban geoexchange field.

Watch Episode 5 of the Sustainable Future series

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Sustainable Future

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Climate Justice Ep. 4

siddiq22 — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 17:35:35 +0000

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Climate Justice Ep. 4 siddiq22 Thu, 06/01/2023 - 13:35

Topic

Our Community

Sustainable Future

Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Environment

Faculty of Law

Indigenous

John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture

Sustainability

Truth and Reconciliation

How is Indigenous sovereignty and justice fundamental to climate change policy and action?

The fourth episode of the University of Toronto’s five-part video series, Sustainable Future - Challenge Accepted!, explores the climate justice work of Indigenous researchers at the university, the challenges they face and how they are leading change.

One way Indigenous communities learn about law is through the land, says John Borrows, professor in the Faculty of Law and inaugural Loveland Chair in Indigenous Law at �鶹��Ƶ.

“When I take my students out in the land, they get an opportunity to experience the land directly and hear about the stories, the garments, the water, the birds and the insects,” he says.

To enrich land-based learning, Liat Margolis, associate professor in the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, and Elder Whabagoon, an Ojibway Elder who is the First Peoples Leadership Advisor to the General Manager of Transportation Services for the City of Toronto and the Daniels Faculty’s former First Peoples Leadership Advisor to the Dean, co-founded the Nikibii Dawadinna Giigwag Youth Program at �鶹��Ƶ.

The program provides Indigenous youth with employment, mentorship and pathways to post-secondary education in fields related to design and the environment.

Angela Mashford-Pringle, assistant professor with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and associate director of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health, says when she teaches her students about land-based learning, she’s telling them about the beliefs of Indigenous health policy as well.

“[It’s] the balance between the spiritual, the emotional, the physical and the mental,” she says.

“That helps students to connect not only to the work, but then they can see how it connects to the world.”

Watch Episode 4 of the Sustainable Future series

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Green Tech & AI Ep. 3

siddiq22 — Thu, 18 May 2023 16:23:30 +0000

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Green Tech & AI Ep. 3 siddiq22 Thu, 05/18/2023 - 12:23

Topic

Our Community

Sustainable Future

Artificial Intelligence

Climate

Climate Change

Computer Science

Faculty of Arts & Science

Research & Innovation

Sustainability

How can technology be used to examine the impacts of climate change, accelerate sustainable innovation and empower communities to advance environmental justice?

In the third episode of the University of Toronto’s five-part video series – Sustainable Future - Challenge Accepted! – researchers share how they are using artificial intelligence, machine learning, climate informatics and data crowdsourcing to help inform an equity-based response to the climate crisis.

“We’re really trying to think about a human-centred, local, place-based approach to climate informatics that centres questions about equity and justice,” says Robert Soden, assistant professor in the department of computer science and School of the Environment in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

Vanessa Gray, a researcher in �鶹��Ƶ’s Technoscience Research Unit and co-lead of the Pollution Reporter App, reflects on how Indigenous data sovereignty is equipping communities with information and tools to protect themselves and hold polluters accountable.

Meanwhile, Laura Rosella, epidemiologist and associate professor at �鶹��Ƶ’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, explains how AI-powered data analysis can help illuminate the complex links between climate change and the health and well-being of populations.

Watch Episode 3 of the Sustainable Future series

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Climate Resilience Ep. 2

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 04 May 2023 13:27:53 +0000

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Climate Resilience Ep. 2 Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 05/04/2023 - 09:27

Topic

How does climate anxiety affect students and how do they feel about the future of a warming planet?

In the second episode of �鶹��Ƶ’s five-part video series – Sustainable Future - Challenge Accepted! – students from the University of Toronto Scarborough share their thoughts on eco-anxiety, the global impact of climate change and a path forward to sustainability.

“To reduce climate anxiety is really to take action… and as students we have the power to do that as well,” says Yao Yang Huang, a fourth-year student studying environmental chemistry at �鶹��Ƶ Scarborough.

A student-led effort, the video was directed and filmed by Charlotte Wargniez, who studies environmental geoscience at �鶹��Ƶ Scarborough, with additional camera work by Huang and editor Joel Famadico Jr.

Watch Episode 2 of the Sustainable Future series

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Changemakers Ep. 1

siddiq22 — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 18:08:02 +0000

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Changemakers Ep. 1 siddiq22 Thu, 04/20/2023 - 14:08

Topic

Global Lens

Sustainable Development Goals

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Startups

Sustainability

�鶹��Ƶ Mississauga

Sustainability is at the heart of the University of Toronto’s mission – from academic programming to research, innovation, partnerships and operations.

The �鶹��Ƶ community members who are leading this change are featured in a new five-part video series: Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! The first episode in the series – Changemakers –focuses on alumni who are championing new discoveries and initiatives in climate innovation, social justice, green tech and more.

“Even if sometimes the situation does look bleak, there is always hope to bring about change and to take action,” says �鶹��Ƶ alumna Kehkashan Basu, who co-founded Green Hope Foundation when she was only 12 years old.

From centering the needs of youth impacted by the climate crisis to developing grid-free electricity for communities in Africa via a portable solar-powered battery and taking on the fashion industry by developing sustainable textiles, �鶹��Ƶ community members are leading the way toward a more sustainable future.

The Changemakers episode features:

Kehkashan Basu, president and co-founder of the Green Hope Foundation, a youth-led not-for-profit with operations in 25 countries
Olugbenga Olubanjo, founder of green-tech startup Reeddi
Avneet Ghotra, co-founder and chief technology officer of biomaterials startup ALT TEX

Sustainable Future

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Equitable Communities Ep. 5

Watch Episode 5 of the Sustainable Future series

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Climate Justice Ep. 4

Watch Episode 4 of the Sustainable Future series

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Green Tech & AI Ep. 3

Watch Episode 3 of the Sustainable Future series

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Climate Resilience Ep. 2

Watch Episode 2 of the Sustainable Future series

Sustainable Future – Challenge Accepted! Changemakers Ep. 1

Watch Episode 1 of the Sustainable Future series