Please join Unify Toronto in collaboration with Pachamama Alliance for "An Introduction to Drawdown," led by Jon Love and Satya Robinson of JLS-Global.ca. By donation. Students attend free.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the constant stream of stories about Climate Change (aka Global Warming) that imply there's little we can do about it, or that it’s not really happening? Are you feeling despair that the proposed solutions are too little and too late? Having pangs of guilt that you aren’t doing more? 

Well there is a research-based project underway to actually reverse global warming - to pull carbon out of the atmosphere, as opposed to merely slowing down the rate of emissions. It is not only possible, but feasible and eminently practical. The graphic record above, from the first introduction session on January 31st, gives you an idea of the energy and enthusiasm of the 140 participants, and offers a sense of the possibilities for effective action. 

Come and find out what you can do to help reverse global warming!
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This very interactive evening program will present an inspiring, uplifting and empowering approach to the issue, based on the latest research from a team of over 200 scientists and researchers from around the world.  

This four-session course is designed to take participants deep inside the work of Drawdown.org, including a much greater familiarity with many of the solutions presented in the book, Drawdown, edited by Paul Hawken. You will have a chance to actually get into action on one or more of your chosen solutions as well as learn how to communicate Drawdown to people in your life.

The course is full of useful tools and tips to empower you to have a real impact, as well as how work more effectively with others.
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The course is 4 sessions of 3 hours each, with research assignments between sessions, and an "Action Break” between sessions 3 and 4 to allow you complete a learning project, either on your own or with a team from the course.

Dates and times:
Wednesdays: June 13, 20, 27 & August 1, 6:30-9:30

Promise of the Course

You will:

• Gain a basic understanding of how it is possible to reverse global warming, accelerate and expand the work being done
• Know yourself as someone truly making a difference in reversing global warming with a new attitude of hopefulness,
• Be engaged in one or more solution(s) and/or become an “ambassador” for Drawdown

Join Unify Toronto for the third and fourth of seven Drawdown sector summits. On July 25, learn about Electricity Generation sector solutions, and on August 29, about Buildings and Cities-related solutions to global warming that are already in place and in action in Toronto. 

Discover how you can help empower humanity's response to global warming by accelerating what is already working. By donation.

Project Drawdown has identified, researched and modeled the 100 most substantive, existing solutions to address climate change, grouped into seven sectors. Put together, they reveal a path forward that can roll back global warming by 2050. 

In each informative and collaborative evening:

• Learn more about the solutions in those sector identified and modelled by Project Drawdown
• Hear from experts who are making change with related solutions at the individual, corporate and government level:
• Build a long and local vision for accelerating solutions in those sectors in Toronto to their fullest potential
• Offer what you can give and/or request what you need, to help move forward those solutions in Toronto and reverse our greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The transport sector accounts for 23% of energy-related emissions, which is around 14% of all emissions. Project Drawdown has identified 11 of the most impactful transport-sector solutions for reducing emissions. These include less fuel-intensive shipping, airplanes and trucks, increased use of hybrid cars, electric bikes, electric vehicles, electric trains, mass transit, high-speed rail, and ridesharing, as well as telepresence. 

In the second of seven Drawdown sector summits, participants learned more about the transport sector solutions identified and modelled by Project Drawdown. Then they heard from Toronto experts who are making change with transport solutions at the individual, corporate and government level:

• • Tim Grant – Green Party of Ontario transportation critic 
  • Tomislav Svoboda, MD PhD – Active transport advocate
  • Hamish Wilson – Cycling activist
  • Isabelle Boulard – CarpoolWorld
  • Kamilla Petrick – TTCriders
  • John Filion – Toronto city councillor 
    
    

Toward the end of the evening, they met in three groups to built a long and local vision for accelerating transport sector solutions in Toronto to their fullest potential and to make offers and requests to help move forward transport solutions in Toronto and reverse our greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Below you'll find notes from the discussion groups:

1. MUNICIPAL ACTION 
What’s happening now?

• Dominance of the suburbs
• Municipal election
  
• Mini (Super)PACS
  • Can raise up to $25K each
  • Corporate donations are OK
• Commercial interest groups
  • More involved than public interest groups
  • Some of their names sound like they are in the public interest
  • “Non-political” or “Non-partisan”
    

How could we get engaged?

• Volunteer for local campaigns
• Identify high-leverage seats to influence
  
  • Willowdale
    
  • Progress Toronto
    
  • Do this with other people – Make it fun
    
• Get involved in the mayoral campaign
• Form a PAC?
  • For non-candidates
  • A climate PAC
  • Change the mind set—Have a “spiritual side”
  • A values-based PAC…a vision
• ​Become identified as a “Climate Voter”
  

​2. Improving mass transit in the GTA
Interests:

• Transit is a key equity issue
• Parking costs—do the math!
• Free transit
• Faster transit

​What is happening in the GTA:

• 2-hour transfer
• Under 12 travel free
• “Fair fare coalition” – Discounts
• Community bus program (to get to common destinations)
• Uber pod – not so great
• Too many cars
• ​King Streetcar Pilot
  
  

Possible actions:

• Express bus network
• Fund (attach $) to the relief line
• Advocacy
• Return the tax exemption for fares (for cross-jurisdiction transfers)
• Pay an extra fare for a bike
• “Bus n’ Bike” – Dedicated bus for just bikes
• Equip all buses with a bike rack (do it!)
• More accessibility for special needs
• How to get more mass transit, 1st mile / last mile efficiency in the suburbs
• Couple free/discounted TTC with free entrance to venues
• Tax break for leaving car at home
• Road tolls
• BIA initiatives
• Employer subsidy of TTC passes
  
  

​​Take action

• Join/help TTCRiders.ca
• Support “free transit day” (sponsored by a corporate donor, as on New Year’s Eve)
• Read lemming5 blog (climate change and automobiles)
• May 23 day of Action – TTCRiders
• June: book launch about free transit

3. ACCESSIBLE, SAFE CYCLING IN THE GTA
What is happening in the GTA now?

• We need better infrastructure
• Cycle Toronto
  • Giving a voice to cyclists in TO
    
  • Scarborough Cycles
    
  • Ward groups
• ARC: Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists
• Improved snow clearing in TO? – Erratic
• Cyclist education:
  • Libraries
    
  • Workplaces
    
  • Schools
• ​Bells on Danforth ride—June 16th

Action: What is possible?

• Network: Identify cycling groups in TO and bring them together
• Hold events at bike shops to engage them in advocacy
• Advocate for better quality pavement?
• Hamilton: example of how to change streets with little material—paint
• Getting kids on bikes
• Work with councillors for change
• “Passholes”: cyclist education and bike etiquette
• ​Copenhagenize – look at what works elsewhere

How will you/we engage?

• Speak with my councillor
• Support my friends
• ​Keep riding