LDSS student a member of climate task force

By Mark Ribble

LEAMINGTON — A Leamington District Secondary School student is hoping to change the world’s view on climate as she prepares to enter her post-secondary years.

Lily Stasko, a Grade 12 student enrolled in the International Baccalaureate (IB) program, is the youngest member of the Regional Climate Task Force in this area.

The 30-person task force is made up of industry leaders, municipal leaders, First Nation leaders, teachers and ERCA members, but Lily is the only student in the group.

To say the rest of the group is impressed with Lily’s dedication would be an understatement.

“The rest of the Task Force is blown away by Lily’s knowledge and commitment,” said Lisa Jeffery, a fellow member of the Task Force and also one of Lily’s ECO-Team teachers at LDSS.

For her IB program 4000-word essay, Lily chose to research and write about climate and energy issues across Canada.

“I wanted to compare Ontario to the rest of Canada,” she said. “I found out that we have some work to do.”

Lily actually went back to 2008 to investigate the Carbon Tax implementation in British Columbia, where she saw a significant improvement in that province’s emissions from 2008 through 2018, as opposed to numbers from 1998 to 2008.

Canada’s National Carbon Tax has only been in place since 2018, so with a smaller sample size, Lily has noticed no significant change here in Ontario and across other provinces.

LILY STASKO

Lily’s involvement in the local Climate Task Force came through her teacher, Lisa Jeffery.

“ERCA’s Climate Change Specialist, Claire Sanders, approached me to ask if I had a student who might be interested in being involved,” said Jeffery. “I immediately thought of Lily.”

Through her work, Lily has learned that homes here are only about half as energy efficient as the national average, and that’s a cause for concern.

“There are things regular consumers don’t know about how to save energy,” she said.

As for emissions problems, she said we could lower those with more car-pooling, taking public transit and utilizing the great trails in this area.

She has applied at several Ontario Universities with an interest in environmental engineering, and as part of the application process, has had to include essays, extra curriculars and community involvement.

“I hope that being part of the task force will give me a good basis of knowledge and help me with my University career,” she said.

As for local issues, when asked about the current greenhouse light abatement issue, she was quick to respond.

“Light pollution is a huge issue in this area,” she said. “It impacts migration of birds and other animals greatly. We need community involvement.”

She added that being part of the task force offers opportunities to solve a few problems with light pollution and the task force has already reached out to the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers to offer solutions like LED lighting and how it may reduce the need for greenhouses to vent their operations.

It’s a work in progress, however, and can’t be solved overnight by a few people.

“It will take all of us to solve this,” she said.