Chatelaine_April_May_2019

ANA GONZALEZ GUERRERO and Dominique Souris

met as students at the University of Waterloo

and became energized by grassroots envi-

ronmental projects and UN climate meetings

with student delegations. Together, they

launched Youth Climate Lab, an organization

that helps young people around the world pilot

environmental projects with governments and

businesses and brokers relationships between

the boomers and Gen-Xers who are often direct-

ing climate policy and the millennials who will be

aff ected by it. So far, they’ve tested 10 projects

and joined two court cases in Saskatchewan and

Ontario that argued for the constitutional right

to price carbon. “We want to prepare young peo-

ple for a future where work will be impacted

by climate and business models,” Guerrero says.

“We need to create the jobs and the economy that

will engage with climate realities.” The Climate

Lab has consulted on youth environmental proj-

ects in the Seychelles and recently worked with

the United Arab Emirates to host a dialogue

series between young activists and government

ministers. In Canada, it partnered with Student

Energy and the Global Green Growth Institute

on Greenpreneurs, a 10-week accelerator pro-

gram for early-stage green start-ups. Their goal

isn’t to engage young people in climate change—

millennials are already involved—but to empower

them to do something about it. “There’s a huge

sense of urgency,” Souris says. “We need ambi-

tious targets, and government can’t do it alone.”

Warmer Great

Lakes mean

more invasive

species

The Great Lakes have

already warmed by

three degrees in

places, with the

biggest change

occurring in Lake

Superior. Warmer

water means warmer

fi sh, and warmer fi sh

eat more, which

throws ecosystems

out of whack, allowing

invasive species like

zebra mussels to

take hold. Scientists

warn that, while

more swimmable

temperatures might

sound pleasant, the

E. coli outbreaks and

algal blooms that

come with them may

make both swimming

in and drinking the

water dangerous.

Last year, there were some 6,800

forest fi res in Canada. Most were

in British Columbia and Northern

Ontario, and collectively the fi res

burned through more than 2.2

million hectares of Canadian wil-

derness. In B.C., it was the worst

season on record, with 5,000 people

displaced from their homes. This

woodland inferno is the direct result

of climate change, sparked by an

excess of fuel (dead trees from

droughts), more frequent lightning

strikes and a spike in dry, windy

weather that keeps the fl ames alive.

Julie Stankevicius, a fi re opera-

tions technician with the Ministry

of Natural Resources and Forestry

in Sudbury, Ont., is a hero straight

out of Backdraft. She started fi ght-

ing fi res on a summer contract in

2005. “I was looking for adventure
      and honest, meaningful work,” she
      says. Since then, she has snuff ed
      out fi res across the country, work-
      ing for the Ministry of Environment
      in Saskatchewan, the B.C. Wildfi re
      Service and the Jasper FireSmart
      crew. By the record-breaking sum-
      mer of 2018, she was in her current
      role with Ontario’s Ministry of
      Natural Resources and Forestry,
      where she manages several teams
      of dozens of fi refi ghters. In July,
      Stankevicius was stationed in
      Sudbury as an incident commander:
      She fl ew helicopters over the fi re
      to coordinate response eff orts,
      deployed crews and provided food
      and equipment to fi refi ghters on the
      ground. Later that month, she was

sent to Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater

Provincial Park in northeastern

Ontario, where she led a team using

bulldozers, skidders and other

heavy machinery to strategically

build a line of fl ames to direct the

rampaging wildfi re. At the end of

August, Stankevicius was back in

B.C., fi ghting the Shovel Lake fi re,

which annihilated almost 100,000

hectares of forest. She worked

alongside about 80 people from

across the continent, including

teams from Quebec and Mexico.

By the fi rst week of September,

the fi re was contained. In her

15 years of fi ghting fi res, she

says last summer’s were among

the worst, yet she knows the job

is just going to get harder. “Fires

are becoming more challenging

to manage,” Stankevicius says,

“and we need creative solutions.”

The activists helping young people

rewrite climate change policy

The fi refi ghter leading

the battle against the

growing inferno

APRIL/MAY 2019 • CHATELAINE 81

life REAL LIFE

Julie

Stankevicius,

35

Ana Gonzalez

Guerrero, 27

Dominique

Souris, 26

PHOTO, BAR PERRY AND BENJAMIN LUK PHOTOGRAPHY.