Paying it forward, a local environmentalist is presenting a workshop next week in Elmira to share the information she gleaned from her time at the Al Gore-led Climate Reality Project last year in Pittsburgh.
Sandra Bray will be speaking Tuesday evening at the Elmira library.
Last year, she took part in the Climate Reality Leadership Corps, which provides citizens with the tools to create change in their communities, for action on climate. Over the three-day course, Bray and her fellow trainees learned from Gore, world class scientists, communicators and climate experts on how to become climate reality leaders back in their own communities.
Bray’s presentation will feed on that and help to share the up-to-date information she learned.
“This is like an introduction, it is probably an updating for some people who have some knowledge of what is happening. You need to see the big picture. To sit down and go from point A to point Z makes a big difference in your understanding of where you want to fit in, what you can do, what suits your lifestyle, what suits your budget, what suits your goals for yourself – that’s essentially what this will do. I believe it will give people a big overview that starts large and keeps going to our particular situation,” said Bray.
“I hope to be able to give people resources that they can go home with and can look up and further.”
Over the two-and-a-half-hour session, she will be presenting Gore’s take on climate change, looking at topics such as how it is effecting us and what is being done and what we can do.
Bray says she will be adapting that to our particular area in the Region of Waterloo, with supporting information from the universities and region itself. In between, she hopes there will be time for people to meet one another, make connections and network.
“I am also tailoring this particular presentation to homeowners,” she said. “In our area there are a lot of new homes going in, a lot of new home buyers – a lot of people who are buying their first home and we also have an aging housing stock that we have all around the downtown core, so homeowners responsibilities are increasing all the time in relation to climate change. The government is offering incentives, I am hoping that people go away with a better understanding in how those might benefit them, how they might use them to better prepare.”
All in all she hopes the talk will help to spread awareness and education and to get support for our local governments helping them with action.
There is no cost to attend, nor is there registration required, but Bray does encourage you to bring pen and paper – or some other way to take notes – in case anything piques your interest for later discussion or research.
The Climate Change for Homeowners talk will be happening on April 17 from 6-8:30 p.m. at the Elmira Public Library.
