Climate change

The opportunity to teach our way out of the impacts of climate change is behind us.

By the time this year's kindergarten class graduates, the International Panel on Climate Change has made it clear that the planet will be beyond a tipping point if we fail to act now.

I trust our teachers to teach the science and social justice of climate change. What I expect of district leadership is an immediate implementation of the concepts students are learning in class.

Waste management in our schools is hit and miss at best. Where systems exist, it's likely because students have taken their own initiative. We trumpet this as student learning for a new world rather than adults failing to implement basic climate mitigation practices in our schools. Students are told that to responsibly dispose of lunch waste, their choices are to carry it home everyday, or start a club and do it themselves.

All schools should have a safe and convenient active transportation corridor onto school grounds. Our district's abandonment of bussing has led to a traffic nightmare at most schools. We must ensure that those students and staff who are making climate-friendly choices are not competing with motor vehicles for safe passage. Once at school, their storage options need to be secure and convenient.

Finally, the evolution of our district's design, or lack thereof, has made the individual family car pivotal to a child's education in Nanaimo-Ladysmith. Bussing was axed on the altar of cost savings, and magnet schools are the new norm. Families who have the means drive across town to get their kids to performing arts, sports, and even academic programming.

Kids from families who can't, go without.

It's too late to simply teach climate change mitigation.

We must live it.