Climate Action Group
This group is currently on pause. Stay tuned by registering to our e-news!
Fairfield Gonzales Climate Action Group
Want to make a difference for climate change? Join the Fairfield Gonzales Climate Action Group!
The Climate Action Group conducts research and educates the public about how residents can collaborate on bold and meaningful climate action.
- Learn more about how to encourage the City and other governments to take action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that cause climate change.
- Learn more about what changes on your street or block could help reduce GHG emissions.
The group is currently on pause.
Upcoming Events
Stay tuned for info on events happening around the city. If you know about an event, please contact us!
Fact sheets
Our first Fact Sheets are on Buildings/Energy and will cover topics such as converting from oil tanks to Heat Pumps, installing Solar Panels, insulating your home and more. Future Fact Sheets will be on Transportation (~2022), and Land Stewardship (~2022/23) including growing food.
Traffic on your street
Did you know that motor vehicles are the number one source of GHG emissions in Victoria and the number one cause of death for children and youth across Canada? Reducing traffic reduces both risks.
FGCA supports the City of Victoria’s Climate Leadership Plan, and its efforts to make it easier and safer for people to choose alternatives to the single-occupant motor vehicle. Making streets safer will enable more people to walk, bike, jog, and skate. In some areas, this will require traffic calming. Several neighbourhood streets could be made more friendly to self-propelled transportation, including: Fairfield Road (by Sir James Douglas Elementary School and FGCA’s child care facility); Maddison Avenue and Brighton Avenue (both are City-designated People Priority Greenways); Hollywood Crescent (adjacent to Ross Bay beach, and the site of numerous car crashes), and Cornwall Street (a narrow residential street often used as a cut-through to avoid traffic). See FGCA’s letter to City Council here. If you are interested in traffic calming on your street, please get in touch! Email event@fairfieldcommunity.ca
Other Articles of Interest
6 Inexpensive Things Cities Can Do To Be More Sustainable
This article shows that big, comprehensive plans are great, but small, low-budget changes can make a big difference, too.
Climate change and energy-efficient new homes
FGCA’s Climate Action Group and our Neighbourhood Improvement Committee (NIC) have been examining options for reducing GHG emissions in the community and the city. The two largest emission sources in Victoria are transportation and housing.
Question: Can we reduce emissions by replacing old, heat-leaking homes with new, energy-efficient homes?
Answer: It depends. A UBC study suggests that replacing old homes with new, energy efficient single-family homes will cause greater overall emissions.
But, under some circumstances, replacing old homes with denser development can reduce emissions. The closer people live to central destinations, transit services, and walking and bike lanes, the lower their transportation emissions. Victoria can reduce GHG emissions by making it more affordable for more people to live in central areas, rather than far-flung suburbs.
Check out this article from from UBC NEWS, “Study Highlights Environmental Cost of Tearing Down Vancouver’s Single-Family Homes”:
Residents in communities can also reduce emissions in their own homes. Here is some information on how to make your home more energy efficient.
Watch this page for upcoming facts and tips about home retrofits!
(Positive) Future Earth Stories
What kind of a future world do you envision for your children, grandchildren or even great grandchildren? Popular entertainment, literature and the news are full of dystopian visions of the far (or not so far) future but many of the solutions needed to combat climate change are available right now and just need more of us to demand them of our leaders (in terms of policies) or to make change at the individual level . Writer Eric Holthaus has written a whole book on this topic (The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What’s Possible In the Age of Warming). Local writer and activist Guy Dauncey beat Holthaus to the punch with his book Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible published in 2015.
Potential future project: Transportation Climate Pledge
The Fairfield Climate Action Group has developed an exciting new project that we may launch after the COVID pandemic is managed – a climate pledge pilot program to unite our community to take action in the current climate crisis. The first pledge will likely focus on transportation. The main goals will be to reduce our transportation footprint by reducing the number of car trips, increasing the number of people using public transportation, and contacting public transit authorities to advocate for public transportation improvement.
Why join the pledge program?
- To be leaders in climate action and set an example for others to follow.
- We are stronger when we act as a community in addressing climate change.
- To be empowered as individuals addressing climate change.
- To create a sustainable neighborhood for future generations.
Stay tuned for more information on this exciting new project. Together we can create a sustainable future for our community.