Civic Engagement Project
From Common Energy UVic
The Civic Engagement Project is a Planning Project to create a section of the Going Beyond Climate-Neutral Plan.
Contents |
[edit] Overview/Background
Original Project Question: How can Common Energy help forge pathways of meaningful engagement for the campus community and people in the region to go beyond climate-neutral?
What is “civic engagement”?
“Individual and collective actions designed to identify and address issues of public concern. Civic engagement can take many forms, from individual voluntarism to organizational involvement to electoral participation. It can include efforts to directly address an issue, work with others in a community to solve a problem, or interact with the institutions of representative democracy…
An underlying principal is that an engaged citizen should have the ability, agency and opportunity to move comfortably among these various types of civic acts.”
Source: Michael Delli Carpini, Director, Public Policy, The Pew Charitable Trusts.
What we’ve learned so far:
- Changes in individual behaviour, while important, are not enough to solve the overwhelming problems of climate change
- Working in isolation is disheartening
- Many people, especially youth, feel alienated from the political system and look for other ways to feel heard and engaged in issues of importance to them
- Social change happens from the bottom up through networks of people with common interest coming together to form communities of practice to create a system of influence (e.g. Common Energy)
- The university has the capacity to play a lead role in forging pathways of meaningful engagement for students, staff, faculty and for members of their communities
- Engaged citizens have the knowledge and ability to turn climate change mitigation into green cities and regions
- Our society can’t help but be a better place when citizens are engaged in the decisions that affect their lives and feel empowered to ask for better when the status quo isn’t good enough
[edit] Current Project(s) Status
Opportunities for civic engagement in climate change issues are enormous right now:
- Polls indicate huge awareness of the issue and willingness to make change
- Al Gore was here recently
- Legislated provincial targets of carbon neutrality by 2010 (provincial government) and 2012 (municipalities)
- All levels of governments are hungry for information from the public and other outside sources
- Revisions to the Regional Growth Strategy (CRD)
- Revisions to the Community Energy Plan (CRD)
- Have been asked by UVic’s Sustainability Office to help create process and plan for UVic’s new triple bottom line sustainability plan for the campus
- Have been asked to be involved with Climate Change Secretariat’s Climate Action Team
Project Areas Under Development by Theme:
CONNECT
- Develop partnerships and other alliances with local ENGOs working on climate change issues (e.g. Sierra Club of Victoria’s Cool Capital Campaign)
- Host more lectures on climate change issues with discussion periods afterwards
- Offer to make climate change presentations to local community groups, associations, schools, unions, etc. and emphasize ways people can get involved in creating solutions
EMPOWER
- Develop an online reference database of climate change information (Knowledge Base) with links to the best resources locally and globally
- Create a Citizens Toolkit (how to get involved and be heard)
- Create an inventory of what each municipality and the CRD are doing on climate change issues and research ways that citizens can be involved in the planning and decision-making processes (e.g. revisions to the Regional Growth Strategy)
- Consider coordinating a campaign school for youth wanting to run for political office or otherwise get involved with political campaigns in upcoming federal, municipal and provincial elections
- Encourage students to become civically engaged through the creation of scholarships and other awards related to climate change leadership
- Create a local government tool kit on best practices for local climate change policy solutions
FACILITATE
- Host networking meetings and workshops as appropriate (e.g. with municipal governments and NGOs)
- Make climate change presentations to local community groups, associations, schools, unions, etc. and emphasize ways people can get involved in creating solutions
- Link with Integrated Teaching and Learning to include civic engagement as part of new curriculum
- Develop proposals with other working groups on issues that require administrative decisions at the university
- Work with the Office of Community-Based Research and the Civic Engagement Task force on campus
[edit] Tools and Collaboration
[edit] Knowledge Base
The Knowledge Base is a source for climate change information, including summary and analysis materials assembled by Common Energy and information researched by individuals and Working Groups. It also includes links to climate change expertise and other groups working on related issues. (Include this)
What are the parts of the Knowledge Base that would be useful to someone who read this page? Display as a linked list:
[edit] Documents
Has the project produced any other documents? Again, display as a linked list.
[edit] Meetings
This project is part of the Civic Engagement and Governance Working Group. Please see that page for meeting details.
NOTE:if the project requires extra-working group meetings, please list relevant information in a style consistent with working group pages.
[edit] Contact
Contact information
