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News From CALL May 2022
Artwork by Barbara Amos, Creative Projects Interest Group
With climate change, what difference can one person make?
CALL’s virtual Community Conference May 7 will highlight positive impact of personal action
CALL’s fifth Community Conference, It All Adds Up: Individual Responsibility in Fighting Climate Change and Pollution, will feature wide-ranging discussion, compelling presenters and focus on the role that individuals can play in addressing the immense and often overwhelming challenges posed by climate change.
Register now, CALL members and non-members welcome.
Buffeted by reports, analyses, scientific discussions, statistics, speculations, conspiracy theories, political tirades, and many once-in-a-lifetime extreme weather events, it’s hard not to rollercoaster from hopelessness to hopeful and back again on climate change. We know that it is imperative that governments, scientists, and corporations take decisive action. We also know that we as citizens can contribute to the creation of a more positive future but how and what can an individual do?
Moving the needle
The recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) addresses the impact of individual action. In his analysis of the report for EcoAct, an international climate consultancy, Jordan Hairabedian writes that in fact the actions of individuals are central to the climate solution.
Writer, historian and activist Rebecca Solnit, in an article for the Guardian lists ten ways to confront the climate crisis without losing hope:
- Feed your feelings on facts
- Pay attention to what is already happening
- Look beyond the individual and find good people
- The future is not yet written
- Indirect consequences matter
- Imagination is a superpower
- Check the facts and watch out for liars
- History can guide us
- Remember the predecessors
- Don’t neglect beauty
At CALL’s conference we will hear from Shawn Bath and Staunene Whelan of Clean Harbours Initiative, who are on a personal mission to clean up their corner of the ocean. Matt Galloway, host of the CBC’s The Current, interviewed Shawn in January this year.
We will also hear from representatives from For Our Kids, City of Calgary Waste and Recycling Services and Green Calgary who will tell us about their initiatives.
| Register for the conference To register and to see more details about presenters and links to the CBC Documentary Hell and Clean Water and the conference program, go to the conference page. |
We can't all be Greta or Shawn but choosing not to throw up our hands in despair, we also know that in fighting climate change and pollution, it all adds up.
CALL Conference guest Shawn Bath hauling tires out of the water. Photo Credit CBC
May Events
Science and Environment
The Return of the Bison
Tuesday May 3, 7:30–9:30pm online with Zoom
Speaker: Karsten Hauer
Tens of millions of bison, commonly known as buffalo, once roamed the Great Plains and Eastern Slopes but the rapid decline of this population more than a century ago almost led to their extinction. In 2017 Parks Canada initiated a five year project to reintroduce this keystone species into Banff National Park. This presentation will provide a progress report and update on this important project.
For more details and to register, go to the Science and Environment page.
It All Adds Up: Individual Responsibility in Fighting Climate Change and Pollution
Saturday May 7, 9:00am–12:30pm online with Zoom
Speakers from across Canada will participate in CALL's Fifth Community Conference. Focusing on individual actions in fighting climate change and pollution, the speakers will highlight the choices individuals make and why they make them. What motivates individuals to join this fight? When so much is dependent on government and industry action, does it matter what individuals do? What evidence is there that individual actions can lead to real change?
Register now for It All Adds Up: Individual Responsibility in Fighting Climate Change and Pollution and bring your own questions. To register and to view the full program, speaker bios, and online resources, go to the Conferences page.
CALL Café Online
Aging and Creativity
Monday, May 16, 2:00pm–3:30pm online with Zoom
Speaker: Sharon Butala
The author of 21 novels and books of nonfiction, Sharon Butala has recently published This Strange Visible Air: Essays on Aging and the Writing Life. In her presentation, she will talk about the creative process, especially as it appears in the elderly and how, it is sometimes said, that creativity is never so strong as in the aged. In the professional writer it takes many years to develop the necessary level of craft, while at the same time, the writer's ideas and wisdom are growing clearer and more assured, humility growing alongside these. But writing is not purely an intellectual exercise. It also requires the hard work of staying in touch with the source of creativity, and thus is an enterprise of the spirit.
Do you struggle with engaging your creative self at this stage of life? Are you curious about how others explore creativity as they age? Register now for Aging and Creativity. You must be a CALL member to register, but the registration process allows you to bring 1 to 4 guests. To register and for more information, go to CALL Café Online
Treks and Travels
Life in Children’s Homes in Nepal and Bangladesh
Wednesday, May 18 7:30pm online with Zoom
Speaker: Colleen McShea
Since 2012 Colleen McShea has volunteered with Child Haven International, a charity that supports destitute women and children, with her first volunteer assignment in Chittagong in Bangladesh. In 2018 she returned to Kathmandu, Nepal for her second volunteer trip. Now that covid has been somewhat controlled she plans to return August 1. Colleen’s presentation is about life in the Child Haven Homes in Bangladesh and Nepal and the surrounding areas.
For more details and to register, go to the Treks and Travels page.
New Interest Groups
Tuesday Walks in the City of Calgary
Welcome Spring! the Tuesday Walks in the City of Calgary Interest Group has commenced its walks. Thank you to Merv Graham who has stepped up to facilitate this group. The next walk will be Tuesday May 3. If you have not reregistered for this group since it’s restart late April You must reregister at tuesdaywalkersyyc@gmail.com. For further details go to the Tuesday City Walks page.
Guitar Jam
Starting Thursday, May 12, 9:30–11:30am
Room 310, cSpace (1721 29 Ave. SW)
If your guitar is collecting dust in the closet, now is the time to dust it off and join us for some fun. Guitar Jam is an opportunity for guitar players to get together and play and sing their favourite songs. Participants are encouraged to bring a song or two that they would like to share with the group. Bring your iPad and a music stand if you have one. The group will meet May 12 and May 26 and then every Thursday in June.
For more details and to register, go to the Guitar Jam page.
Listening to the Wind
By Elaine Strom
A couple stands, embraced
Enduring stance against the wind
Heart on heart in silent oneness
Listening to the wind
Sweeping down from mountains
Over southwest prairie grass
To sandstone at foot of granite
Culminating in lichen-covered cliffs.
Hearing the sound of hooves, the pound of hooves
Downwind, from unsuspecting bison
Now stampeding bison, breathing blood
On a day when forty thousand fell
To the bottom—bodies broken, breath of death.
Subdued, surrounded by spirit of bison
Listening to the wind.
Photo: Wikipedia
CALL for Submissions to CALL Newsletter
The CALL Newsletter group invites members to submit photos, sketches, stories, poems, descriptions of projects etc. for use in CALL newsletters. We know that CALL members are creative. Do you have a photo taken on your daily walk or from your window; a poem written as you reflect on life; a sketch of a scene that catches your eye? Have you turned a memory into a short story or a response to something you have heard or read?
We will keep all submissions on file to use in future newsletters. Send submissions to newsletter@calgarylifelonglearners.ca, include your name and a sentence giving CALL permission to publish in the newsletter.
Your CALL Newsletter
The CALL Newsletter is our way to communicate what is going on in our community. It's a way to highlight events of interest, ‘peek behind the curtain of CALL’ and to give some general information about CALL groups and members.
You are invited to send your ideas and suggestions for future issues to newsletter@calgarylifelonglearners.ca. We reserve the right to edit submissions and to determine when submissions will be published.
CALL Newsletter dates for posting:
- May 13, 27
- June 10, 24
Meanwhile, be well, stay well in every sense of the word.