Text Set for Teachers: Climate, Social & Eco Justice by Diane Watt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf en-us 2023-09-14 12:14:07 UTC 2023-09-14 15:33:32 UTC hello@padlet.com dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704090485 FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD
ONE OF CBC'S BEST CANADIAN NONFICTION BOOKS OF 2022

An impassioned, informed perspective on eco-anxiety and staying sane amid climate disruption.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/647141/generation-dread-by-britt-wray/9780735280724 ]]> 2023-09-14 12:18:55 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704090485 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704092248 All We Can Save is a bestselling anthology of writings by 60 women at the forefront of climate work.]]> 2023-09-14 12:20:09 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704092248 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704096859 The Intersectional Environmentalist examines the inextricable link between environmentalism, racism, and privilege, and promotes awareness of the fundamental truth that we cannot save the planet without uplifting the voices of its people -- especially those most often unheard. Written by Leah Thomas, a prominent voice in the field and the activist who coined the term "Intersectional Environmentalism," this book is simultaneously a call to action, a guide to instigating change for all, and a pledge to work towards the empowerment of all people and the betterment of the planet. 

Thomas shows how not only are Black, Indigenous and people of color unequally and unfairly impacted by environmental injustices, but she argues that the fight for the planet lies in tandem to the fight for civil rights; and in fact, that one cannot exist without the other. An essential read, this book addresses the most pressing issues that the people and our planet face, examines and dismantles privilege, and looks to the future as the voice of a movement that will define a generation. ]]> 2023-09-14 12:21:24 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704096859 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704099013 An engrossing and revealing study of why we deem certain animals “pests” and others not—from cats to rats, elephants to pigeons—and what this tells us about our own perceptions, beliefs, and actions, as well as our place in the natural world

A squirrel in the garden. A rat in the wall. A pigeon on the street. Humans have spent so much of our history drawing a hard line between human spaces and wild places. When animals pop up where we don’t expect or want them, we respond with fear, rage, or simple annoyance. It’s no longer an animal. It’s a pest.

At the intersection of science, history, and narrative journalism, Pests is not a simple call to look closer at our urban ecosystem. It’s not a natural history of the animals we hate. Instead, this book is about us. It’s about what calling an animal a pest says about people, how we live, and what we want. It’s a story about human nature, and how we categorize the animals in our midst, including bears and coyotes, sparrows and snakes. Pet or pest? In many cases, it’s entirely a question of perspective.

]]> 2023-09-14 12:22:57 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704099013 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704103612 Not Too Late brings strong climate voices from around the world to address the political, scientific, social, and emotional dimensions of the most urgent issue human beings have ever faced. Accessible, encouraging, and engaging, it's an invitation to everyone to understand the issue more deeply, participate more boldly, and imagine the future more creatively.

In concise, illuminating essays and interviews, Not Too Late features the voices of Indigenous activists, such as Guam-based attorney and writer Julian Aguon; climate scientists, among them Jacquelyn Gill and Edward Carr; artists, such as Marshall Islands poet and activist Kathy Jeñtil-Kijiner; and longtime organizers, including The Tyranny of Oil author Antonia Juhasz and Emergent Strategy author adrienne maree brown. ]]> 2023-09-14 12:26:00 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704103612 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704106333 British-Bangladeshi birder, environmentalist and activist Mya-Rose Craig is an international force. In her moving memoir, Birdgirl, she chronicles her mother’s struggle with mental illness, and shares her passion for social justice and fierce dedication to preserving our planet.]]> 2023-09-14 12:27:42 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704106333 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704107848 Eco-distress is real. How to Live in a Chaotic Climate is here to help you rediscover meaning, joy, and connection as the tumult around us increases. Based on the Good Grief Network’s acclaimed10 Steps to Resilience and Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate program, this book unpacks the social, political, and spiritual nuances of the climate emergency, step by step.]]> 2023-09-14 12:28:45 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704107848 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704110402 What if animals and humans could speak to one another? Tom Mustill—the nature documentarian who went viral when a thirty‑ton humpback whale breached onto his kayak—asks this question in his thrilling investigation into whale science and animal communication.]]> 2023-09-14 12:30:12 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704110402 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704113182 In The Urban Bestiary, acclaimed nature writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt journeys into the heart of the everyday wild, where coyotes, raccoons, chickens, hawks, and humans live in closer proximity than ever before.

Haupt's observations bring compelling new questions to light: Whose "home" is this? Where does the wild end and the city begin? And what difference does it make to us as humans living our everyday lives?

In this wholly original blend of science, story, myth, and memoir, Haupt draws us into the secret world of the wild creatures that dwell among us in our urban neighborhoods, whether we are aware of them or not. With beautiful illustrations and practical sidebars on everything from animal tracking to opossum removal, The Urban Bestiary is a lyrical book that awakens wonder, delight, and respect for the urban wild, and our place within it.]]> 2023-09-14 12:32:04 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704113182 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704115532 This book examines the importance of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and how it can provide models for a time-tested form of sustainability needed in the world today. The essays, written by a team of scholars from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, explore TEK through compelling cases of environmental sustainability from multiple tribal and geographic locations in North America and beyond. Addressing the philosophical issues concerning indigenous and ecological knowledge production and maintenance, they focus on how environmental values and ethics are applied to the uses of land.Grounded in an understanding of the profound relationship between biological and cultural diversity, this book defines, interrogates, and problematizes, the many definitions of traditional ecological knowledge and sustainability. It includes a holistic and broad disciplinary approach to sustainability, including language, art, and ceremony, as critical ways to maintain healthy human-environment relations.]]> 2023-09-14 12:33:25 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704115532 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704118836 A neurosurgeon explores how our tendency to prioritize short-term consumer pleasures spurs climate change, but also how the brain’s amazing capacity for flexibility can―and likely will―enable us to prioritize the long-term survival of humanity.

Increasingly politicians, activists, media figures, and the public at large agree that climate change is an urgent problem. Yet that sense of urgency rarely translates into serious remedies. If we believe the climate crisis is real, why is it so difficult to change our behavior and our consumer tendencies?

Minding the Climate investigates this problem in the neuroscience of decision-making. In particular, Ann-Christine Duhaime, MD, points to the evolution of the human brain during eons of resource scarcity. Understandably, the brain adapted to prioritize short-term survival over more uncertain long-term outcomes. But the resulting behavioral architecture is poorly suited to the present, when scarcity is a lesser concern and slow-moving, novel challenges like environmental issues present the greatest danger. Duhaime details how even our acknowledged best interests are thwarted by the brain’s reward system: if a behavior isn’t perceived as immediately beneficial, we probably won’t do it―never mind that we “know” we should. This is what happens when we lament climate change while indulging the short-term consumer satisfactions that ensure the disaster will continue.]]> 2023-09-14 12:35:41 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704118836 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704120527 A youth movement is reenergizing global environmental activism. The “climate generation”—late millennials and iGen, or Generation Z—is demanding that policy makers and government leaders take immediate action to address the dire climate science predictions. Those inheriting our planet’s environmental problems expect to encounter challenges, but they may not foresee the feelings of powerlessness and despair that often accompany social activism in the face of a seemingly intractable situation.
 
Drawing on ten years’ experience leading and teaching in college environmental studies programs, Sarah Jaquette Ray has created an “existential toolkit” for the climate generation. Combining insights from psychology, sociology, social movements, mindfulness, and the environmental humanities, Ray explains why and how we need to let go of eco-guilt, resist burnout, and cultivate resilience while advocating for climate justice. A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety is the essential guidebook for the climate generation—and perhaps the rest of us—as we confront the greatest environmental threat of our time.]]> 2023-09-14 12:36:39 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704120527 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704122035 We still have time to change the world. From climate activist Greta Thunberg, comes the essential handbook for making it happen.

You might think it's an impossible task: secure a safe future for life on Earth, at a scale and speed never seen, against all the odds. There is hope—but only if we listen to the science before it's too late.

In The Climate Book, Greta Thunberg has gathered the wisdom of over one hundred experts—geophysicists, oceanographers and meteorologists; engineers, economists and mathematicians; historians, philosophers and Indigenous leaders—to equip us all with the knowledge we need to combat climate disaster. Throughout, illuminating and often shocking grayscale charts, graphs, diagrams, photographs, and illustrations underscore their research and their arguments. Alongside them, she shares her own stories of demonstrating and uncovering greenwashing around the world, revealing how much we have been kept in the dark. This is one of our biggest challenges, she shows, but also our greatest source of hope. Once we are given the full picture, how can we not act? And if a schoolchild's strike could ignite a global protest, what could we do collectively if we tried?

We are alive at the most decisive time in the history of humanity. Together, we can do the seemingly impossible. But it has to be us, and it has to be now.]]> 2023-09-14 12:37:46 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704122035 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704123543 As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings—asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass—offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.]]> 2023-09-14 12:38:51 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704123543 dadwatt https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704126462 Drawing from her experiences as an Indigenous scientist, botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer demonstrated how all living things―from strawberries and witch hazel to water lilies and lichen―provide us with gifts and lessons every day in her best-selling book Braiding Sweetgrass. Adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith, this new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us. With informative sidebars, reflection questions, and art from illustrator Nicole Neidhardt, Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults brings Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the lessons of plant life to a new generation.]]> 2023-09-14 12:40:46 UTC https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704126462 An example of funded opportunities for students, the Youth Climate Action Grants: https://padlet.com/dadwatt/jpcju1ajudplmzvf/wish/2704433120 The Youth Climate Action Grants provides funding to support Toronto District School Board (TDSB) student-led projects, activities and events that directly or indirectly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Grants of up to $1,000 are available for each eligible project.

The purpose of the grants is to:

  • help TDSB students take and/or advocate for climate action in their schools and communities
  • educate students, families and/or community members about actions they can take to reduce GHG emissions
  • help accelerate the reduction of community-wide GHG emissions in Toronto to net zero by 2040, in support of the City’s TransformTO Net Zero climate action strategy
This funding initiative is a partnership between TransformTO and TDSB . In the coming years, we hope to include other Toronto school boards.

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Youth Climate Action Grants accordion panels


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