This article was written by Manuela Vega and was published in the Toronto Star on June 11, 2023.

Last week, clouds of red and orange coloured the air, blurred skylines and prompted a return to masking. As smoke spread from wildfires burning in Quebec and Ontario, residents were urged to stay inside to avoid poor air quality or, in some cases, evacuate for safety.

Earlier this year, the world’s leading climate scientists called for a rapid, co-ordinated response to climate change in the next seven years in order to prevent increased natural disasters and irreversible damage to the earth. There are steps individuals can take to help, but there also needs to be a societal shift, one climate expert and a climate activist told the Star.

Spread the word

“Do what you can, but make it visible and social,” said Matt Hoffman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto and codirector of the Environmental Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

“We have to get societal and policy change,” he added. “The link between individual behaviour and individual choices and those societal changes are about making your choices part of the conversation and making your choices part of changing what’s natural in our society.”

Evelyn Austin, the executive director of Banking on a Better Future, also weighed in on campaigns to stop fossil fuel development and expansion projects.

Pressure politicians

In Hoffman’s view, the biggest thing many individuals can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is to help make climate change a non-partisan priority, where it’s seen as “natural” to take aggressive action on climate change, regardless of political association.

“Vote for candidates at every level who take climate change action seriously and are committed to acting aggressively on it,” Hoffman said. “And not only voting, but telling people in your family, in your neighbourhood, and telling your politicians why you’re voting.”

Change your RRSP investments

People whose RRSPs or pensions are invested in the oil and gas industry are “contributing capital to the industry that’s creating the problem,” Hoffman said.

“More and more, there are mutual funds and investment options that are more sustainable and fossil fuel free,” he added, but you have to explicitly choose to make it a priority.

Alternative banking options

According to a 2022 report, Canada’s Big Five banks — RBC, Scotiabank, TD, CIBC and BMO — have invested $911 billion into the fossil fuel sector since the 2015 Paris Agreement, when governments around the world agreed to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Laurentian Bank is the only major bank in Canada that has agreed to phase out its investments in the industry, Austin said. There are also a number of credit unions that don’t invest in fossil fuels projects at all. In Ontario, those include Alterna Savings Credit Union, DUCA Financial and Kindred Credit Union. Through Banking on a Better Future, Austin advocates for people to make the switch, arguing credit unions across the board are more democratic than banks and therefore can be more receptive to depositors who vote for it to phase out investments into fossil fuel development.

Switch energy sources, watch your food

Some of the most important individual changes can be made at home and on the commute, Hoffman said.

“One of the big things you can do in your house is get a heat pump instead of a gas furnace,” he said. “Changing your light bulbs to LED light bulbs is good at reducing electricity use in your house, but that kind of impact is overwhelmed by how we are stuck in systems that are really reproducing climate change.”

Other steps one can take is turning off the lights, eating less meat, walking and biking as much as possible, switching from a gas-powered car to an electric vehicle, and taking fewer flights, Hoffmann said.