Meet Local Climate Leader Sue Brandum

Meet Local Climate Leader Sue Brandum - theHumm October 2020

Sue Brandum is a local climate leader who has been instrumental in creating the Climate Network Lanark (full name Climate Action Network of Lanark County, Smiths Falls and Region). In this month’s column, she talks about her background, how she came to be so involved at a local level, and how she and many others are working to improve the future prospects of all of us.

Can you describe your background and how you came to be involved in environmental activism at the community level?

Sue Brandum: Back in the late ’80s I had transitioned from being a reporter and journalist observing and documenting things, to a corporate and government writer writing about big-picture issues. It still wasn’t enough — I wanted to be involved, to be making, creating the pictures. I joined a neophyte organization called the Coalition for a Green Economic Recovery. Its founders included Jack Layton. We were now in the deep recession of 1990, and the NDP government of the day was seeking ideas to help get our province out of recession and working again. The Coalition challenged itself to come up with a few ideas that created good work and economic activity and rejuvenated the natural world. When they came up with 50 ideas, they knew they were onto something. The government thought so too, and adopted a few of the ideas. It took until 1996 for others including Greenpeace to acknowledge that we had to both create jobs and save the natural world at the same time. It was no longer a competition between one or the other, even though today there are still some who are stuck in that old paradigm. Wayne Roberts and I then documented those ideas, and many more, in a book titled Get A Life! How to Make A Good Buck, Dance Around the Dinosaurs and Save the World While You’re At It.

Those were the real, grass growing between the toes, grounded ideas that I wanted to be a part of, at the community level. When I then moved here to Lanark County, I got involved with the Rideau Environmental Action League and started to implement some of them, including home energy audits and backyard composting, caring for your well and septic systems, and creating the REAL Deal Reuse Store as a social enterprise that has created local jobs, generated revenue for REAL, and put, literally, tonnes of good materials into the local Circular Economy.

But many of those programs that I ran were what are called “incremental”, they were based on taking small steps. We’re so long past that, we need to take giant steps now if we are to slow the decline, nevermind turn things around. And it has become abundantly clear to me that we have to work at the local level on the climate crisis. We can’t wait for international collaboration, we can make big changes “right here, right now,” as Greta Thunberg would say.

It’s also clear to me that I rely on my community for my security in a very insecure time — for food, for shelter, for companionship, for all sorts of supports. It’s a two-way street, I can’t take from my community without giving back, without supporting all my neighbours and local businesses. While I have long volunteered, I chose to run for municipal office in my township, Drummond/North Elmsley in the last municipal election. I so enjoyed running, meeting people at the door, and it was informative. I saw firsthand the change in the wind about the public concern for the climate crisis, and that people wanted action. That was the final straw for me, that pushed me into starting this new organization.

One initiative that many people aren’t aware of is that Climate Network Lanark was able to bring the architecture of a Local Climate Action Plan to the County Council and have it unanimously adopted. Can you describe that process and what it means to the wider global movement to help mitigate issues related to the climate crisis?

A few years ago, with the prodding of our predecessor (an informal group called the Lanark County Climate Action Network), the County signed onto the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Partners for Climate Protection program. This required them to develop a plan, but nothing was happening. Climate Network Lanark had met, had some 200 people engaged, and decided to move the County along. We met with and talked to Councilors about how critical the climate crisis was, and we organized the public to express their concerns. We presented to Council in October 2019 to what many said was the greatest public turnout ever in those chambers. Council ratified the motion in January 2020 and later budgeted $200,000 for the two-year planning process, required staffing and some actions.

While ecoPerth opened the door to local level climate action 25 years ago, it’s becoming clear that Climate Network Lanark is in the vanguard of bringing climate action down to this lower level of government in collaboration with the community. Many have mistakenly thought the climate crisis has to be addressed only on an international or national level, yet our municipal governments have authority over or influence just about 50% of our greenhouse gas emissions! More Canadian communities are forming community climate action networks now.

The LCN has people involved on 10 different working groups focused on the Climate Crisis and the Action Plan. Can you describe briefly what each of these groups is working on?

Communications (active). While each Working Group will do some of its own communications, we have a central group that is coordinating outreach to the local and social media, our own network members and local government and community leaders, that includes information on the effects of climate change here, actions we can all take, and activities that are under way.

Compost / 4Rs (first meeting Oct. 20). Organic waste in landfills releases methane and in Lanark County we have a lot of organic waste in landfills. This group is just getting going.

Energy (energy efficiency, renewables and supply, active). Focusing on home energy and increasing renewables here.

Farms (part of our ALUS steering committee, active). Working on bringing the Alternative Land Use Services organization here which would pay farmers for taking the actions they do that benefit us all and move to regenerative agriculture and working on a local testing program for carbon.

Food (local food / food security, first meeting Oct 22). We’re facing great food insecurity, yet we have great local opportunities that need support and growth.

Forests and Nature-based Climate Solutions (active). Taking advantage of what nature can provide us by increasing vegetation, forests and natural solutions can get us more than a third of the carbon storage we need.

Local Government (active). Working with the County to develop a Working Group that will advise the County on its Climate Action Plan and integrate the lower-tier municipalities and the community into the planning process.

Transportation (first meeting Oct. 27). Promotion and development of Electric Vehicles and public transportation systems.

Youth. We have a special Youth Working Group that is just getting organized and will be defining its own interests in the next little while. We’re especially inviting more youth to join.

Is there a need for more community members to help out the grassroots environmental work via the CNL? And if so, do people need any special skills?

We’ve got about 200 people engaged with the Network right now, some 70-80 serving on the various Working Groups. Of course, we need and welcome more people. Volunteering is always a great way to learn and develop new skills, so don’t hesitate to contact us even if you feel you don’t have anything specific to offer. That said, we are looking for experienced people with leadership skills for a couple of the Working Groups, for help with a database, with research and with fundraising.

Can you describe what people on an individual /family level can do to support the goals of the Climate Network?

One of the slogans of the youth in the climate movement is “System Change, Not Climate Change.” For the past 20-30 years, we’ve focused on individual action. What the youth are saying, and they are so right, is that we need to multiply those individual actions into societal changes, into system change. Everybody converting to electric vehicles isn’t going to solve our problem. We need to reduce our need for transit, live closer to where we work and have public transit to take us there – imagine having a service that sends an electric car to pick you up at home, and a few of your neighbours from their homes, then delivers you and them to your respective workplaces, and is partly subsidized because it’s a public transit system! That’s system change. And it’s viable in our local, small town, rural region. The Network will soon be covering our website as well as general and social media with actions people can take, right here, right now.

Act personally, act in your groups, and push for political change.

Lastly, can you say what your hopes are for the future of living in Lanark County — related to the inescapable issues of sustainability?

We all know we live in a special part of the world here in Lanark County and Smiths Falls. We are, on this Earth, in an enormous mess, with quite frankly a not promising future. We are fast heading to a 4-degree Celsius increase, if not greater, and our simple survival requires us to hold to a 1.5-degree increase. We’ve already increased by 1 degree, so we don’t have much wiggle room. Not lying, we are in for very hard times. But, my favourite slogan is “Change… or Be Changed”. I would far prefer to have a say over the changes that are coming, to have some capacity to manage them, because my community is informed and thinking and preparing, rather than to be taken off-guard by calamities. I know we have the breadth and thoughtfulness and ability of people here to do this.

Dear Readers, - theHumm October 2020

By Sarah Kerr

Hi Humm Readers! Did you know that Kris and Rob Riendeau, owners of theHumm, have been behind the scenes championing, promoting and empowering artists in the Ottawa Valley for over two decades? And that Kris’s superstar mom, Sally Hansen, has done nearly 250 incredible in-depth interviews with local artists to share their work on theHumm’s cover each month? Not only that, theHumm has shared almost every event from Burnstown to Westport on their calendar, and is constantly promoting local makers, co......

Meet Local Climate Leader Sue Brandum - theHumm October 2020