Why We’re Doing So Much Climate Coverage This Spring

For our Green Issue, I passed the reins to Gillian Grace, Chatelaine’s most environmentally minded editor. I’ve learned a lot about living a more climate-friendly life from Gillian, and I’m sure you will, too. —Maureen Halushak

The little girl holding a hand-painted sign asking us to “save [her] future” in the picture below is my nine-year-old daughter, Lucy, at last September’s March To End Fossil Fuels in Toronto. Climate anxiety can affect anyone, parent or not. But my worry about the world Lucy and my 12-year-old son, Jasper, will inherit is my biggest motivation for pushing for a greener future. In our fourth Green Issue, we aim to do just that, serving up healthy doses of inspiration and doable actions to help the planet.

Our hope is that after you’ve read it, you’ll feel fired up. So often, the environmental message we get is personal: make lifestyle changes to save the earth. And while personal efforts are important (and we have lots of ideas for them in this issue!), don’t forget that the concept of the carbon footprint was popularized by the oil company BP. It puts the blame inward rather than placing it on one of the 20 companies, BP among them, that the Guardian estimated in 2019 were responsible for a third of the world’s carbon emissions. The climate crisis is so big and so urgent that we have to focus our efforts on where they’ll have the biggest impact: outward, to drive systemic change. Recycling and reusable grocery totes alone aren’t going to get us out of this. It’s time to get political.

Got kids? Speak out at a school council meeting. Work for a large company? Ask them to offer fossil fuel–free pension plans. (Our parent company will start offering sustainable funds as part of its RRSP program later this year!) Have money at one of Canada’s big banks? Switch to a credit union, because those banks are some of the world’s biggest investors in fossil fuels. Live in a city? Write your councillor in support of transit and bike lanes. Of voting age? Ask political candidates what they’ll do to fix the climate crisis. Ignore the people who say Canada can’t make a difference on its own—and remember that our country is the fourth-largest producer of crude oil in the world, and the fifth of natural gas.

Also remember: Any action you take doesn’t have to be flawless. (If it did, nothing would ever happen!) I try to live as greenly as possible, but I also have an old gas furnace that I can’t yet afford to replace with a heat pump; I love cheese—and so does my giant dog; I write shopping content for our website; and I spend far too much time looking at wide-legged denim online. I am also guilty of judging others—you flew how many times last year!? But, as Rebecca Gao explains in “You’re Worried about the Climate Crisis. Your Parents Are Not,” our judgment isn’t helping anyone. Instead, we should redirect that energy at (all together now!) reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and at government policies that are either holding back positive change or not doing enough. (I mean, I live in Ontario, where gas plant use has tripled since Doug Ford took power and his government wants to spend billions building Highway 413 through the Greenbelt and habitats of at-risk and endangered species to save, one expert panel estimated, 30 to 60 seconds of drivers’ time.)

Some of the other climate content on deck in this issue: All of our delicious recipes are vegetarian, and more than half are vegan—because animal agriculture accounts for up to 20 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. There are also four profiles of Canadians offering positive solutions to Canadian environmental problems, from learning to embrace “good fire” to managing flooding. And there’s some native-plant gardening inspo and as well as expert advice on how to refresh your wardrobe with secondhand clothing. After all, not only can we save the future, we can make it better, too.