Salt Spring is One Cool Island: Get involved in local climate action!
Ready to take bold climate action?
We all want solutions — and Salt Spring Islanders are ahead of the curve in developing innovative and inspiring responses that build the resilient community we’ll need as the impacts from climate change accelerate.
Hear about how our island is planting seeds of sustainability, and how you can get involved in a cutting-edge climate action movement rooted right here on Salt Spring. Find out about the key risks our island faces from accelerating fire risks, deeper droughts, increasing storms, and rising sea levels. And dig into the challenge of discovering what we can do about them: together.
Together, we have spent thousands of volunteer hours to bring you the Salt Spring Island Climate Action Plan.
The Salt Spring Climate Action Plan 2.0 outlines 250 recommended actions to address the climate change crisis on our island home. Read it here.
The Climate Action Plan has several components.
Climate Risk Assessment Maps & Data
Coastal Douglas Fir Forests: Reducing Risk INFOGRAPHIC
The Salt Spring Climate Action Plan 2.0
(CAP 2.0) outlines 250 recommended actions
to address the climate change crisis on our
island home. Taking these actions will:
• reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses
50% by 2030
• help adapt our island community and
its ecosystems to the changes already
underway.
After more than a year of immersing ourselves in climate science and technical detail, and after hearing from thousands of islanders providing input, Salt Spring Island’s innovative new Climate Action Plan 2.0 is ready for release. Our team of 30 experienced volunteers — including engineers, ecologists, economists and educators—have discovered that now, without a doubt, that though the threats climate change poses are real, so is the power of our vibrant community to find creative solutions: together.
The warnings are in our island’s drying soils, struggling forests, wildfire risks, rising oceans, and falling freshwater levels. Now is the time to bring our community together around the audacious – and urgent – goal to reduce our emissions by 50% by 2030 and protect ourselves and our resources.
The Salt Spring Island Climate Action Plan 2.0 shows a way forward. The product of a year-long participatory community effort that involved hundreds of islanders, the plan is our blueprint to reduce emissions and build resilience into our island’s infrastructure and ecosystems. Because climate is linked to every other sector of society, the plan offers bold solutions to intersecting challenges like housing, food security, poverty alleviation and reconciliation.
What if, by pulling together, we could not only withstand the increasing stresses arising from climate change, but also build a more just, healthy, and cooperative community?
To get there: we need you. We’re calling on individuals, families, organizations, businesses, First Nations, and all other levels of government to get involved in making Salt Spring “One Cool Island” and leaving a legacy of justice and sustainability for future generations.
Islanders are invited to the
Salt Spring Climate Action Plan Live Zoom Public Presentation & Launch
with Bryan Young, Transition Salt Spring Society (TSS) Chair,
Gary Holman, CRD Director, and
Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament, Saanich-Gulf Islands