It’s easy to talk climate change, but if you are interested in how it’s affecting the Valley, Social Planning Cowichan will be surveying selected neighbourhoods.
The newly formed Cowichan Climate Change Collaboration — a partnership of concerned local groups — is conducting surveys this summer to see what residents know about the subject.
The idea is to find out where there is sufficient interest to undertake some sort of climate change project, but those decisions are for later on. Right now, the CCCC partners — who range from Cowichan Tribes to Cowichan Young Professionals to the Cowichan Land Trust — want to get some immediate feedback.
Climate change affects the community in many different ways, and that’s what Social Planning Cowichan wants to look at, said Michelle Staples, SPC executive director.
“Neighbourhoods in flood plains, neighbourhoods with different economic barriers: there are a whole lot of different criteria around the selection of who we survey,” she said.
The surveying should be done by the end of the summer when SPC will then be able to see which neighbourhoods want to work on a project and decisions can be made in consultation with them about what kind of project might be chosen.