Calgary Climate Hub wraps up Climate Justice summer series
Bella Coco, News Editor & Manveet Kaur Waraich, Contributor
The Calgary Climate Hub is changing with the seasons as they wrap up their climate justice summer series, which was held for the first time last June.
The hub, a volunteer-driven non-profit, launched its climate justice program this year with the University of Calgary (UofC) and Mount Royal University’s (MRU) social work departments.
Jared Blustein, executive director of the Calgary Climate Hub, explained that by weaving together concerns about the intersections of race, income, gender and ableism with environmental action, the program aims to build “solidarity, allyship and supporting one another across various movements.”
“The idea grew from a growing awareness across all equity movements that we need to be more aware of the intersectionality of oppression that people face,” Blustein said.
The first semester of collaboration between the hub, UofC and MRU was centred around the idea of green social work. Blustein explained that while the hub travels to visit newcomer and immigrant communities, the conversation evolves into much more than taking climate action.
“We’re talking about housing security, transit, food security, et cetera. Then we’re really trying to address climate issues through those experiences,” Blustein said. “You know, weaving together those issues with this quality of life and cost of living really makes it more experiential and brings more people.”
Climate justice all summer long
After a successful first semester of hard work, Calgary Climate Hub Community Connector Sophie Burns joined to work with Moyin Sanyade, the Climate Justice program coordinator.
The summer series was funded through the Catherine Donnelly Foundation, and a small honorarium was contributed from the Building Connected Communities (BCC) initiative, which focused on asset-based community development (ABCD).
Burns described the BCC initiative as “a way of building community around empowerment and people’s strengths, gifts, talents and passion.”
July’s kickoff was the Climate, Community, and Care Zine-Making Workshop at Shelf Life Books. Sanyade described the event on the hub’s website as a warm and welcoming space to explore ideas such as environmental degradation, Indigenous justice and the love for the planet through the creation of zines. Not long after, in August, the hub hosted Land-Based Walk + Talk featuring local gardeners and the chance to build anti-racist and decolonial community building.
Each gathering encouraged participants to “dig a bit deeper into what climate justice means to us in this part of the world,” Burns said.
The finale paired a screening of the short film, “Sh*t We Believed,” directed by Chris Hsiung, with deep reflection amongst local changemakers about the meaning of justice, community, and activism.
The documentary opens with a simple metaphor from local food advocate, Gerald Lajeunesse.
“Gardening to me is very much like social change in the sense that you don’t know what the outcome is going to be,” Lajeunesse said. “Is it a sunny year? Is it a wet, cold, year? You just go into it at the beginning. Saying, I’m going to work at it- despite the obstacles. And I’m going to accept the final outcome.”
The sense of patience in the garden, and sitting with uncertainty, strikes a parallel in activism. Indigenous educator, Chantal Chagnon reminds the audience that, “when you’re pushing and pushing… as an activist… you want to see that change right away. But you don’t realize it’s a marathon… not just a race.”
Expanding on that concept, artivist Sharon Stevens noted that a marathon of activism doesn’t look the same for everyone.
“It just means something as simple as phoning a member of government or joining a volunteer board,” Stevens said. “You can be active by attending a rally that someone else has organized …[or] by donating money to different causes.”
While the pace and form of activism may look different for each of us, it is still a marathon we are running together. That shared journey became a central thread of the discussion, honing into the idea that community and sense of belonging is everything- we are all connected and none of us walks alone.
Emelia Connoly, director of Black Eco Bloom, took that sentiment beyond just solidarity, rooting it in our shared relationship to the land and the inherent indigeneity within each of us.
“We do have a type of knowledge and relationship with the land… even though we left it for whatever reasons; migration, refuge, whatever necessity… we don’t lose that when we move to a different place.”
As the night wrapped up, Adesuwa Opedun, the Community Connector of the Land of Dreams, reflected on the final sentiments echoing through the room.
“You hardly find people who genuinely care for nature—that don’t care for people.”
The attendants and speakers at Village Commons came together from many walks of life, reinvigorating the connection between themselves and their planet. Lajeunesse’s film-closing statement inspired and was etched into everyone’s memory as the hub organises its next events and protests.
“Hopelessness is the enemy of justice.”
Moving with the seasons
Beyond screenings and discussions, the hub is building tangible action through mutual-aid projects — from shared community gardens to cooling stations — and using those projects to highlight gaps in municipal policy.
“If we had strong municipal policies that supported food security across all of our communities, then we wouldn’t need mutual aid food-security projects,” Blustein said. The hub hopes to turn those lessons into advocacy, training residents in council speaking skills and op-ed writing to push for change at City Hall.
This fall, the hub will welcome new social-work practicum students and continue monthly climate justice working-group meetings. For Blustein, progress requires balancing realism with resolve and optimism.
“I’ll have to think of this quote by the famous Italian theorist, Antonio Gramsci. ‘Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.’ We are surrounded by all this hopelessness, this rising carbon, this increase in social inequity and social stratification, and cultural division,” Bulstein said. ”I think we really need to have a sobering perspective…we can still believe in the goodness of people and the desire for us to connect and be cohesive and to let our souls flourish, whatever that means to all of us.”
For Burns, the new season is opening up new doors for opportunity.
“I feel really hopeful about joy as resistance. Connecting to what makes us feel joyful, that’s really important, I think, in all of this. Ultimately, we’re coming together for a love of humans and the Earth,” she said.
