On this episode of Plugged In, author Alice Irene Whittaker discusses her new book Homing: A Quest to Care for Myself and the Earth and the importance of personal stories of care, love, and humanity in addressing climate change and social justice. We give you a sneak peek into our favourite sections of the book and topics including staying awake for the revolution, emphasizing care as a radical community endeavor, the importance of local community disaster recovery and care stories, the importance of nurturing, self-sufficiency, and resilience in children for an uncertain future, and finally the need for feminist and feminine approaches to climate action, emphasizing care, collaboration, and creativity.

Kim Nicholas’ book, Under the Sky We Make: How to be Human in a Warming World, was the book that had the most impact on me in 2022. 

It woke me up to the urgency of the climate crisis in a way that I hadn’t felt before.

Specifically, how laser focused we need to be on eliminating fossil fuel consumption and extraction for a livable planet for humans. Period. 

Jordyn Burnouf, an Indigenous leader in clean energy, climate and community divides her time between many impactful pursuits including advising the Vice President of the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan, Co-Charing Student Energy’s SevenGen Indigenous Youth Energy Summit, hosting a new podcast with the David Suzuki Foundation, advising Efficiency Canada and getting out onto the land as a guide with her family’s land-based camp.

You will hear the voices of Britt Wray, Jordyn Burnouf, Kim Nicholas, Miranda Baksh, Shawna Henderson and Desiree Norweigan speak about how they are experiencing climate feminism in their climate work, including the importance of feeling our climate emotions, how empathy and emotional intelligence are critical when negotiating climate policy, how the feminine helps hold space for diverse voices and bodies in organizations and businesses resulting in unique and valuable collaborations and solutions, and finally what feminist approaches can teach us about emotional resilience during these challenging times.

Talking about climate change and having conversations about how climate is impacting the things we love can be a powerful tool for helping move the dial on climate action.

How confident are you about starting a conversation with family about climate change? How comfortable are you bringing up the topic of climate impacts when chatting with friends over a drink? Today’s episode is all about how to talk about climate and why it matters.

Katie Harper (she/her) is a Senior Advisor at Project Neutral and is currently helping to design and facilitate Talk Climate To Me, a fun, free, unscary online climate education experience for women-identifying people in Canada.

To fix climate change and the resulting social injustices and impacts, major systematic changes are going to be required. For Dr. Emily Eaton, Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Regina, she is championing a combination of decarbonization, decolonization and democratization as systematic changes required to get us to a clean, just energy transition.

Stephanie has been working at Yukon Energy Corporation for over 8 years and shares her unique insights of what it's like to be a resource planning engineer working for a small, remote, isolated utility with a grid in a geography and climate that are really not for the faint of heart.

Katherine and I talk about a range of topics from the relevancy of distributed energy resources (DERs) in the future of Ontario’s energy mix, the importance of equity and affordability in Ontario’s electricity market and insights on what’s it’s like to be - at times - the only woman in a room in this industry. She highlights the importance of diversity in this sector and emphasizes the value that diverse backgrounds, cultures, genders and professional experiences bring to the table and reflects on strategies to integrate diversity into innovative solutions.

On this episode I speak with Fatima Crerar, the Vice President of Strategy and Partnerships at The Atmospheric Fund we talk about change in the context of climate, carbon and gender, and what is going to be required to make the necessary pivots to a low carbon future and why it is hard for organizations, cities, movements and markets to change. She shares insights on the importance of using our voices as citizens and as women.

Carmen Henriquez is a filmmaker with real world media and is a co-producer, director and filmmaker of Power to the People - a television documentary series airing on Aboriginal People's Television Network through the end of April 2020 that explores the renewable and clean energy revolution empowering indigenous communities across Canada.  

On this episode of Plugged In, I speak to Erika Lontoc, a former Bay Street banker, who became a pioneer of low income energy conservation programming in Ontario and is an advocate for doing the hard work of collaboration and partnership building in this sector.

Raegan and I explored within the context of the clean energy transition how the rules, programs and opportunities are changing – how we need to move beyond switching out lightbulbs and look to renewables, energy storage, fuel switching, electric vehicles and demand response to start to move the needle even further.

It’s really important to me that on Plugged In I speak to men who are truly allies with women on issues of equality in the energy efficiency, energy management, and sustainability sector.   To be honest, the first guy that came to mind for me was Corey Diamond.  

This podcast is a focused dose of hope, insight and practical steps that we can take as citizens to elevate environmental protection.

On the first episode of Plugged In, Ersilia Serafini and I speak about some of the newest concepts in the energy efficiency industry, her personal journey to becoming a CEO and how she manages the day-to-day plus her views on women, leadership and courage.