By Daria Maystruk
Local seniors and youth are painting a mural at Viscount Alexander Public School as a call for climate action, only six months after the launch of the advocacy group Seniors for Climate.
The mural, set to be painted sometime in early October, also marks the first National Seniors for Climate Day. The day was proposed by Seniors for Climate to highlight seniors’ desires to rebuild a healthier environment for future generations, according to the Seniors for Climate website.
Letitia Charbonneau, convener for the Seniors for Climate Action Now group in Ottawa, said the idea for the mural came to her after she ran into her friend, local artist Claudia Salguero, at a party.
“I saw Claudia across the room at the party, and this light bulb went off in my head. I went and I grabbed her, dragged her outside the party, and proposed that idea to her,” Charbonneau said.
Charbonneau said Salguero “didn’t even think twice,” despite a lack of funding.
Salguero is no stranger to painting murals in Ottawa. Her past works have appeared on the side of buildings and in schools such as Red Apron on Gladstone Avenue and Cambridge Street Community Public School.
She says painting murals is a way to bring communities and generations together.
“One of the things that I also believe in big time is that we need to bring wisdom to the new generations … And art is a big tool for this,” Salguero said. “When Letitia told me what this mural was about, I got very excited.”
Now both on-board, Charbonneau applied for an Awesome Ottawa award, which she received in August. The $1,000 award is supplied by ten trustees and given out monthly to support projects in the community and abroad, according to the Awesome Ottawa website.
Awesome Ottawa trustee Avi Caplan said Charbonneau and her group stood out to the organization for its engagement of the community in designing and producing the mural.
“Activities like this that leave behind something tangible are a great reminder that ordinary people can just roll up their sleeves and make things happen that they want to see in the world — something that we think is really awesome,” Caplan wrote in an email.
Charbonneau said she also hopes the mural creates a “dialogue between seniors and youth working together to bring hope.”
“It’s not to create anxiety about climate change, it’s the opposite,” she said. “It’s more to help students realize that they have a voice and how to use it, that what their ideas are are valid, and to give them a sense of their own agency.”
With a flash mob and conference also on the docket for Seniors for Climate Day, Charbonneau said the group will continue to fight for climate action.
“Seniors have nothing to lose. We’re mostly retired. We have children, we have grandchildren, we have youth in our lives, and we’re very concerned. We’re very worried about what can happen in the future. And we want our legacy to be that we did everything that we could to make sure that the following generations have the sustainable, healthy, pleasant future that they deserve,“ she said. “This is just the beginning.”
How climate change is impacting Canada
According to Natural Resources Canada, the country is warming at twice the global rate — about three times the global rate in the Arctic. There are concerns that sea-ice deterioration and changes in permafrost are expected to put communities and infrastructure in the North at risk.
The Climate Atlas of Canada says weather records from across Canada show that every year since 1998 has been warmer than the 20th century average.
The year 2023 was a historic one for forest fires in Canada. Over 230,000 people were evacuated because of potential dangers to life and health. A total of 6,623 wildland fires burned more than 15 million hectares of Canada’s managed forests. Smoke from the fires reached many North American cities, creating a haze which brought poor air quality.
Over the next 50 to 100 years, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are expected to double or triple. That will lead to global temperature increases of between 1.5 and 5.9 degrees Celsius over a very short period of time. In comparison, earlier global temperature changes took place over a period of 5,000 to 20,000 years.
The effects of climate change have been felt in Ottawa with many rare storms which have hit the Capital. They include tornadoes in 2018 and 2023, and a derecho in 2022. The historic Rideau Canal has also seen the effects of a warming planet. For the first time ever, it did not open in 2023 due to a lack of ice thickness. Still, the National Capital Commission spent over $1 million for upkeep. This year the canal was only open for 10 days, the shortest opening season on record.