October 26, 2023 - Climate Issue

OCTOBER 26, 2023 VOLUME 117 ISSUE 4

since 1906

CLIMATE ISSUE

JI YOU GAZETTE

OPINION

FEATURES

Fanning the flames: Western students on the front lines

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Op-Ed: Western must stop greenwashing and divest from fossil fuels now P8 SPORTS

CULTURE

The science behind: ACL injuries

Western’s ‘dead bird guy’: Brendon Samuel P5

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NEWS | P2

CLIMATE ISSUE |

Western Senate discusses Brescia merger logistics ANDY YANG SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

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Western University’s official student newspaper since 1906

VOLUME 117, ISSUE 4 October 26, 2023 University Community Centre Rm. 263 Western University London, ON, CANADA N6A 3K7 Editorial editor@westerngazette.ca

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ESTELLA REN DEPUTY EDITOR MILES BOLTON MANAGING EDITOR MADELEINE MCCOLL

COORDINATING EDITOR (NEWS) ADSHAYAH SATHIASEELAN COORDINATING EDITOR (CULTURE AND SPORTS) CAT TANG ART DIRECTOR KATHERINE GUO NEWS JESSICA KIM VERONICA MACLEAN SOPHIA SCHIEFLER OM SHANBHAG ANDY YANG CULTURE ELA KANG DANIELLE PAUL PANIZ VEDAVARZ SPORTS RYAN GOODISON MANAN JOSHI VARUN REDDY

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he Western Senate spent a large portion of its Oct. 13 meeting addressing questions and concerns about the upcoming merger of Brescia into Western.

Western University announced on Sept. 21 that Brescia University College would be integrating with Western in May 2024, raising concerns among both the schools’ faculty unions who were excluded from consultation as well as Brescia students who expressed shock and anger.

Western president Alan Shepard began the meeting admitting “the consultation period did not start until the announcements were made” due to logistical reasons. The merger announcement, in Shepard’s words, has “created a wave of responses” within the community.

Florentine Strzelczyk, Western’s provost and vice-president academic, delivered a presentation about the integration’s next steps. She said she will bring the specific details of the merger to the Senate floor at their next meeting on Nov. 10.

Brescia’s Board of Trustees and Western’s Board of Directors will take a look at the plans for approval on Nov. 16.

“We are working with our advisors and Brescia’s advisors as well to create a continuity for students,” said Strzelczyk. “We want Western to be a place where Brescia faculty and staff can unfold their careers and realize their career ambitions.

We need to look at how to preserve and transform the women’s legacy at Brescia.”

Strzelczyk continued her presentation explaining how Brescia’s academic programs would be transferred to Western faculties. Most of Brescia’s arts and humanities programs will be integrated with their respective main campus programs.

The Faculty of Health Sciences is excited about the prospect of hosting the Foods and Nutrition program as well as the Family Studies and Human Development program — two programs only offered at Brescia, according to Faculty of Health Sciences dean Jayne Garland.

According to Strzelczyk, Western will finalize the host units for Brescia programs by November.

Discussions are also taking place between Brescia and Western to identify courses that Brescia students will need to continue with their academic programs.

SOPHIE BOUQUILLON GAZETTE Brescia Chapel, Sept. 22, 2023.

Jan Plug, acting dean of Arts and Humanities, said he was excited to welcome Brescia students to his faculty.

“We have really long standing relationships — not only with the programs, but with a lot of the people” from Brescia said Plug. “A lot of the programs already overlap or coincide really well.”

Plug added Brescia students can expect the “small class environment that you’re used to” in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

The Senate also discussed how they will build onto Brescia’s preliminary program — a foundation year that allows students to explore their options in a university setting while completing credits they will need to apply to a post-secondary institution.

“I’ve always been a supporter of pathway program, an observer of how they come into universities and the idea that [Western] could operate one,” said Lisa Henderson, the dean of the Faculty of Information and Media Studies.

Henderson added the opportunity to bring a foundational year program to Western would recognize the Brescia tradition of access to education.

But amid discussions about Brescia’s future, the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association president Rachel Heydon and Social Science senator Mark Cleveland raised concerns about the lack of consultation involved in the integration decision.

“Senate has responsibility for decision making on academic matters, and the decision to integrate Brescia falls within Senate’s authority.

But the Senate so far hasn’t been involved,” said Cleveland. “There’s concern about this, it seems as a disregard for the shared power between the board and the Senate and the Senate’s established processes.”

Cleveland continues that Western has “ignored the legal responsibilities of bicameral governance” and that any Senate “process would be a sham at best to legitmize a illegal decision after the fact.” UWOFA also provided a similar statement on Oct. 11 when the union filed for a judicial review, asking the courts to “quash” Western’s decision and stop the integration process.

Heydon echoed similar concerns about collegial governance before Shepard cut her speech off.

Shepard believed Heydon was engaging in “a legal argument on the floor of the Senate” before saying he was “not okay with the union position being articulated in the floor of the senate.”

Various student senators and Brescia University College Students’ Council president Maathangi Rudranantha proposed recommendations, including preserving Claire Hall as a women’sonly residence, providing transitional support for students as well as guaranteeing Brescia-specific programs and small class sizes. Strzelczyk noted the recommendations would be considered for further consultation and discussions.

The University Senate meets one Friday a month at 1:30 p.m. in the Arts and Humanities Building room 1R40, but on Oct. 13, the meeting was moved to Zoom shortly before it was scheduled to start.

A group of Brescia students announced on Oct. 10 that they would be holding a public sit-in at the Senate meeting on their Instagram account.

“The safety of the campus community is always our top priority due to safety concerns related to the labour disruption on campus on Oct. 13, Western’s Special Constable Service advised that the afternoon’s Senate meeting be moved to a virtual format,” wrote Western in a statement to the Gazette. The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 772 was on strike from Oct. 12 to 16, with picket lines on the perimeter of campus.

London Ward 6 councillor and Western Law professor Sam Trosow said in a post on X he planned to attend the meeting in person and was “surprised the live meeting was cancelled (apparently at the last minute) … Not good #UWO.”

London begins green bin delivery, sets collection for January JESSICA KIM NEWS EDITOR

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he City of London has begun distributing green bins to households and will begin collection on Jan. 15, 2024, making good on the commitment three years late.

The municipality’s website explains a green bin is “like a blue (recycling) bin, but for food waste such as fruit and vegetable skins, meat and chicken, spoiled leftovers, and other inedible food waste like bones.”

The city will deliver green bins to 120,000 households over the next two months along with a kitchen container, guide on how to participate and pickup calendar.

London is the largest city in Ontario that does not divert organic waste through a municipal green bin collection program. Its landfill is expected to reach capacity by 2024.

The city is currently awaiting approval from the Ontario government for a $80 million landfill expansion. The plan will expand the site’s height

by 25 metres and extend operations until 2049.

But the province requires London to reach its 60 per cent waste diversion target for approval of the expansion.

Since the green bin program’s budget was approved in March 2020, London has missed three of its own deadlines to roll out the initiative.

According to Jay Stanford, London’s director of climate change, environment and waste management, the delays were caused by pandemic-related city budget shifts and supply chain issues impacting the manufacturing of green bin collection vehicles.

“Different councils had other budget priorities that needed to be addressed first,” explained Stanford in a statement to the Gazette. “Shortly after funding was approved in the early part of 2020, the pandemic hit and operational priorities for the city changed.”

Starting next January, the city will shift to weekly collection of green bins and recycling

while moving garbage collection from an eightday cycle to a two-week cycle.

Geneviève Metson, an associate professor in the department of geography and environment at Western University, emphasized the need to reduce food waste before looking to compost.

“Composting is one way that we can recapture some of those resources by having decomposition break down that material into parts that then crops can use,” Metson said.

She explained the compost can be used as a soil, bringing nutrients back into areas like food production or landscaping.

“When we talk about individual action, we can think about what hats we’re putting on,” Metson said, listing an individual’s role as a waste generator, a voter, a citizen and a student.

Metson explained as a voter, you can make it clear that you want this program and as a student, you can make sure you are building skill sets to contribute to society.

NEWS | P3

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Tracking Western’s energy usage and what it means for the campus’ net-zero goal SONIA PERSAUD FEATURES EDITOR

Western has been making efforts to reduce its energy consumption in its buildings, but community members believe the university must do more to achieve emissions targets.

Western University’s overall goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent relative to 2005 levels by 2030, and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. The target is especially challenging because it aims to significantly reduce emissions — despite Western growing substantially as an institution.

ENERGY USE BY BUILDING TYPE ON CAMPUS Western used to share a publicly-accessible dashboard with real-time energy consumption information — electricity, water, steam and natural gas energy — across campus on their Sustainability website. The university has installed more than 550 utility meters across campus over the last 10 years.

The Gazette web-scraped data from the dashboard between Oct. 1 and 14 and compared it against information provided by Western’s Office of Sustainability to visualize Western’s energy usage over the day.

Data shows research buildings like the Chemistry Building or Robarts Research Institute are the most energy-use intensive buildings on campus — with Robarts taking the number one spot.

Heather Hyde, Western’s director of sustainability, explained these buildings contain elements like fume hoods for ventilation that have to be operational all the time and consume large amounts of energy.

Residence buildings also provide a “consistent load” on energy use for Western, according to Hyde, since they are occupied around-the-clock.

Administrative and academic buildings like the Ivey Business School mostly consist of classrooms and offices, and Hyde said Western uses building schedules to adjust energy-use components like ventilation based on the buildings’ occupancy levels — which is primarily during the day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.. The same goes for special facilities like the Thompson Arena and the WSRC. Hyde said Western tracks energy consumption to understand where the university is consuming

the most energy and where the biggest opportunities are to make things more efficient.

The dashboard link was taken down before publication of this article.

Hyde explained the large size of campus introduced complexity into the data and the Office of Sustainability is having issues with the dashboard’s vendor. But, she added the team continues to look at energy usage data internally to determine where to focus energy efficiency efforts.

The university has retrofitted fume hoods in some research buildings to reduce energy usage.

Hyde explained when the fume hood isn’t being used but is left open, an alarm will sound to remind the users to close it.

Despite steps to save energy in operations, the source of energy is also important — and at Western, it’s not particularly “green.” The majority of Western’s direct greenhouse gas emissions from campus operations come from the campus power plant, which runs on natural gas, a fossil fuel. The power plant’s boilers burn natural gas to create steam, which heats campus buildings and produces hot water.

But the Office of Sustainability is working to reduce the natural gas used by replacing one of the natural gas-fired boilers with an electric one that draws power from Ontario’s energy grid, which is primarily hydro and nuclear, both zero-carbon sources.

Hyde said Western’s Office of Sustainability seeks to be a leader in climate action.

“I think Western wants to show their leadership in climate action — not only from our responsibility as a large building owner and space, occupier and emitter — but also, we are teaching the next generation of leaders and so showing that impact is important,” said Hyde.

pus operations and scope two which represents emissions from purchased energy like electricity, steam, and water.

The university has not reported on scope three emissions which refers to indirect emissions from investments into the fossil fuel industry, commuting to campus, and transportation of goods to campus.

Western has not divested from the fossil fuel industry but the Climate Crisis Coalition, a student-run organization, has long advocated for the university to do so.

Lynn Logan, Western’s vice-president operations and finance told the Gazette in December 2022 that the university will advocate for fossil fuel companies in their portfolio to adopt climate-friendly strategies — and has committed to divesting from companies that do not by 2030.

“We recognize that it’s something that we need to tackle,” said Hyde. She said the Office of Sustainability is currently looking into aspects of scope three that would be feasible to report such as emissions incurred from business travel.

Hyde added that even though Western doesn’t measure scope three, the university is still trying to reduce its scope three emissions — for example, by working on a sustainable procurement pro-

gram.

“When you look at the buying power of Western, it’s pretty significant. So there is work going on, despite the fact that we don’t measure it at this point,” said Hyde.

Western environment and sustainability professor Brennan Vogel says Western’s carbon goals are ambitious — which he thinks is good.

Vogel is pleased Western is considering scope two as part of their approach, but still thinks the university will need to put in more work to achieve their goals.

While the university has significantly decreased greenhouse gas emissions relative to 2005, by 26 per cent as of 2022, progress appears to have stagnated to an extent. Western will need to reduce emissions by 33 per cent from 2022 levels over the next seven years in order to hit its 2030 target.

Vogel advocates an “ambitious and aggressive” retrofitting program to reduce emissions.

“The best energy is the energy you don’t expend.

Better conservation, better efficiency, and then looking at where sources of energy are coming from, that’s ultimately what will be the magic formula,” he said.

WESTERN’S ELECTRICITY USAGE BY TIME OF DAY IN KWH

COMMUNITY ADVOCATING FOR MORE EMISSIONS REDUCTION ACTIONS Even though Western has made strides towards reducing carbon emissions on campus, some students feel the university should be looking beyond its direct emissions.

Western uses the global Greenhouse Gas Protocol to track carbon emissions, divided into three scopes. Western currently reports on scope one, which represents direct emissions from camSONIA PERSAUD GAZETTE Western University’s core campus buildings’ average electricity useage, in kilowatt hours, is shown for weekdays and weekends.

Data shown is from Oct. 1 to 14, 2023

Ivey Women in Asset Management program expands across the country ALLYSON WU NEWS INTERN

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vey’s Women in Asset Management program will expand to take applications from second-year students at all Canadian universities as it aims to increase female involvement in finance on a national scale through work experience opportunities.

WAM aims to address gender disparities in asset management in Canada with four weeks of in-class training, followed by a 10 to 12-week paid internship with an asset management firm. Students can intern with companies such as RBC Global Asset Management, Scotiabank 1832, CIBC, Mackenzie Investments and PSP Investments.

The program aims to support woman-identifying students’ career development and prepare them for a job in the industry — aligning with Ivey’s emphasis on equity, diversity and inclusion.

According to Morningstar Direct, women are notably underrepresented in the Canadian asset management industry, with only 12 per cent of Canadian mutual funds having at least one female portfolio manager.

The Ivey Business School first launched the summer program in 2022, limiting applications to Western woman-identifying students, and opened applications to McGill University students for the summer of 2023. Ivey was able to grow the pro-

gram from 33 to 42 participants due to an increase in sponsorships.

“The program was developed to try to move the needle and increase the participation rate for women in the asset management industry,” said Steve Foerster, Ivey finance professor and co-program director of WAM. “We want to try to have as much coverage as possible, and so we’ve decided to open it up to all women at all Canadian universities.”

Foerster does not expect a nationwide expansion to create any “substantive change” in the structure of the program besides a slight increase in cohort size — he estimates a total of 45 students will be admitted. He also noted that for students who live outside of Ontario, there may be an interest to find a summer internship that is closer to home.

“We’re really pleased with how well the model is working now,” said Foerster when asked about developments he envisioned for WAM in upcoming years, adding that he is excited to see the alumni networking growing.

Second-year BMOS student Renee Gao believes that “it’s great that they’re expanding across Canada since the whole point of the program is accessibility.”

The 2023 class included three students from McGill University and 39 Western students from six undergraduate programs — 10 students from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, two from me-

GAZETTE STAFF GAZETTE The Richard Ivey School of Business, Mar. 28, 2018.

dia, information and technoculture, three from the Faculty of Science, 19 from DAN Management and Organizations studies, two from the Faculty of Engineering and three from the Faculty of Health Sciences.

Gao is looking forward to potentially applying for the 2024 cohort, and appreciates that “the program prepares you for the job by teaching fundamentals that are difficult to learn by yourself.”

Corporate sponsors cover all program costs, including tuition along with accommodation for the month of classroom learning, course materials, meals and networking events.

“It’s so gratifying to see the transformation in these women in a very short period of time,” said Foerster when asked what his favourite part of his position was. “We see it from the beginning to the end of May — we see their development, we see their confidence grow, we see their enthusiasm for the industry. We also see it at the end of the summer, once they’ve been immersed in an internship experience.”

Applications for the 2024 cohort will open Nov. 6 and close on Jan. 4, 2024.

NEWS | P4

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Swapping purple for green: Western alumni working for environmental change COLIN ANGELL NEWS INTERN

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he climate crisis poses an unprecedented and universal challenge to our global community.

The Climate Atlas of Canada states that greenhouse gas emissions among other human activities contribute to the worsening of climate change, that in turn affects the magnitude of other environmental issues like rising temperatures and extreme weather events.

On the front line of the fight against climate change and environmental issues, many Western University alumni find themselves rising to the challenge.

RACHEL GOLDSTEIN Rachel Goldstein most recently was an environmental consultant at the global professional services company, Stantec, where she led aquatic and socio-economic development projects.

Goldstein graduated from Western in 2017 with a double major in biology and arts and humanities, followed by a master’s in biodiversity and conservation from Trinity College Dublin.

“I worked for Ontario Parks during the summer while I was at Western,” said Goldstein. “I realized that conservation was the direction I wanted to go in”.

Goldstein’s time as a consultant had her primarily involved in outreach to Indigenous communities about the proposed construction of a natural gas liquefaction facility in coastal British Columbia.

The project had potentially-serious environmental consequences as operations at the facility generate large amounts of industrial pollutants.

Goldstein worked to ensure equitable and sustainable development practices were followed.

“Environmental consulting is a really good pathway because I got to do a lot of fieldwork out there in the ocean and in the lakes,” said Goldstein.

She added it provides a way for those who want to pursue environmental careers to apply their knowledge in real life.

KRISTYN ING Climate issues have long been an interest of Kristyn Ing, a 2020 Western graduate who studied environmental science and biology.

She worked at Environment and Climate Change Canada for a year as a policy analyst, researching the practicality of circular economies. “[We] did a lot of research and stakeholder engagement to see whether a circular economy would be a feasible platform in the Canadian context.”

A circular economy refers to a production model that stresses reusing and reintroducing products to manufacturing rather than extracting new materials in an effort to minimize waste and the use of new materials.

Circular economic policies carry many benefits in curbing environmental issues, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss.

After completing a master’s degree in environ-

mental sustainability at the University of Ottawa, she has since worked as a geographic information systems analyst and cartographer at Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.

In her role, she maintains the Aboriginal and Treaty Rights Information System — a tool that organizes the various claims, treaties and court cases related to Indigenous people’s sovereignty over their land.

“We help people understand where they should begin their legal duty to consult Indigenous peoples for various projects,” said Ing, highlighting the importance of working hand-in-hand with Indigenous people when approaching climate solutions.

“I felt at least that it was my responsibility to find a way to learn more about where the Indigenous perspective would come into addressing climate issues in Canada,” said Ing.

KARLO BOBINAC Karlo Bobinac, a 2017 Western graduate with a master’s in water resources engineering works full-time at Stantec as a water resources designer.

He also takes on a part-time role in sustainability at Jones Family Greens — an ecologically-conscious farm in Guelph.

For his master’s thesis project, Bobinac worked with the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority to investigate nutrient loading in local waterways which led him to his position at Stantec.

“Seeing how climate change is impacting the world around us, this role constantly forces us to

plan for resiliency, and minimizing the impact we have on the environment while building the infrastructure that we need,” Bobinac stated in an email to the Gazette.

After a few years of consulting, he decided he needed a new challenge and enroled in the sustainable agriculture program at Fleming College. The program focuses on teaching students the fundamentals of environmentally-friendly farming.

Environmentally-friendly farming refers to the application of environmental stewardship to agricultural practices such as crop rotation, integrating livestock and crops and reducing plowing.

After doing a co-op term at Jones Family Greens and graduating from Fleming College, he wound up working at the farm long-term.

“Eating locally and buying seasonal produce from farmers that focus on growing sustainably is something that we can all do to lessen our impact on the environment,” Bobinac wrote.

There has been increased interest among sustainability circles to redefine what a “green career” means.

Goldstein and Bobinac encourage students to chase whatever opportunities come their way when looking for a career.

Ing suggests students worried about climate change do “what you’re passionate about and apply it to the climate movement because it applies to every sector.”

“If we all do that, cumulatively, there will be change.”

Western to open first net-zero energy building on campus JENNY ZHANG CONTRIBUTOR

Rakhimbekova noted any net-zero energy building should have all the features any standard building would have to ensure the comfort of its users. “[If, as an] everyday user of the building, I don’t feel any difference in terms of how comfortable I’m feeling and how I’m using it, then I think it’s like they did a really good job,” said Rakhimbekova.

The new building is also part of the campus energy loop, a system meant to capture and transfer excess energy from one building on campus to another. Of the buildings on campus, eight have been deep-energy retrofitted for the loop.

“The buildings will have the capacity to be able to provide their own energy, but when it’s available through the loop, we can take advantage of that first,” said Heather Hyde, director of sustainability at Western University.

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estern’s first net-zero energy building — the Ronald D. Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation — is expected to open this fall.

A net-zero energy building generates energy onsite using renewable resources over the course of one year in a quantity greater than or equal to the total amount of energy it consumes.

Architectural firm Perkins&Will designed the Ronald D. Schmeichel building, aiming to provide environmental benefits throughout the architecture’s lifespan. The building is currently under construction between the D.B. Weldon Library and Western Road.

The completed four-storey building will be 105,000 square feet and house a range of entrepreneurship and innovation resources, including some from the Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship which is powered by Ivey Business School.

Students from all faculties will have access to study and co-working spaces. The building will also feature a maker space with 3D printers, a digital laboratory and woodworking tools.

According to senior architect David D’Andrea, the construction team employed many features to help the building reduce energy consumption, such as the hybrid aluminum and limestone cladding, eight inches of insulation and triple glazed windows. Solar panels installed on the roof will also contribute to renewable electricity of the building.

“It basically involves having a really high performance envelope on the building as a starting point,” D’Andrea said about designing the building. “That just means we have to heat and cool the building less than the normal.”

According to environmental science professor Brennan Vogel, there is significant work required to reduce greenhouse gasses in existing buildings.

“Eighty per cent of the buildings that will be here in 2050 are already here now,” said Vogel. “So as much as new buildings can help the problem in the future, there’s a lot of work to be done today.”

KAI WILSON GAZETTE Boom lift being used for the construction of the Ronald D. Schmeichel Building for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Oct. 18, 2023.

Vogel emphasized the need to lower energy consumption globally, noting global energy consumption must be lowered by 45 per cent in order to achieve 1 .5 to two degrees above the pre-industrial

Windows take up 35 per cent of the total facade area. Engineering professor Sabina Rakhimbekova said the ratio of windows to walls help the building be comfortable and use less energy.

“The triple glazing I believe will be really important for thermal, preserving that the heat [and ensuring it] doesn’t escape from the building so everything is retained, but at the same time also, it’s well conditioned and well ventilated, so everyone’s

feeling comfortable in that,” said Rakhimbekova.

Much of the heating and cooling will come from the 45 geothermal wells buried underneath the building according to Andrew Frontini, the design director for Perkins&Will Toronto. The geothermal system will provide heat in the winter and cool in the summers by exchanging the building temperature with the more constant temperature of the earth.

warming level by 2050.

Another factor to be considered when building anything new is the supply-chain and the building materials’ cost to the environment, explained Vogel.

“Any efforts to label buildings as net-zero need to factor in the total lifecycle cost of carbon that would be associated with a new build.”

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Western’s ‘dead bird guy’: Brendon Samuels SONIA PERSAUD FEATURES EDITOR

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rendon Samuels never thought he would be known as the “dead bird guy” on campus.

Brendon, a fifth-year biology PhD student, saw a dead bird on Western University’s campus for the first time in 2019. He was walking around the buildings on campus, trying to understand the scope of his new doctoral research on bird-window collisions.

According to Environment and Climate Change Canada, 16 to 42 million birds are killed every year in Canada from collisions with windows. Brendon’s data shows hundreds of those are killed each year from colliding with windows at Western.

“I found a shocking number of birds that were killed and injured,” Brendon says. “It forced me to question a lot of assumptions I had about the natural world and buildings and our role within this.”

Since then, Brendon has emerged as an environmental activist known for organizing cleanups, cataloguing biodiversity on campus and fighting for the university to implement bird-friendly window policies.

Brendon is also the Society of Graduate Students’ inaugural sustainability coordinator, where he’s helped to implement composting at the Grad Club. Outside of campus, Brendon runs a local bird conservation organization called Bird Friendly London and serves on a City of London sustainability committee.

“If I can identify a few things at a time, and ask questions and apply pressure, I can limit some harm,” he says. “Every bird that doesn’t bump into a window at Western because the window’s been treated — that’s a life saved, right?”

Preventing bird-window collisions involves modifying windows’ appearance so that birds recognize them as solid objects to avoid. This can be accomplished through a variety of means, including by placing closely spaced dots on windows to make them less reflective.

Brendon’s large body of advocacy work is a collection of small, individual steps. When he began seeing dead birds on campus, he used social media to ask Western community members to send him photos of dead birds they found — data he used to strengthen his case when advocating for bird-friendly changes at Western. As he began engaging in advocacy work with biodiversity conservation, he noticed other problems on campus, like

SOPHIE BOUQUILLON GAZETTE Biology PhD candidate and environmental activist Brendon Samuels pauses on Western’s iconic bridge. The bridge is on the verge of a redesign that could see it partially closed to personal vehicles, thereby reducing Western’s carbon footprint. University Drive Bridge, Sept. 29, 2023.

trash by the river, and organized events to address those, too.

Through Brendon’s advocacy work, Western has retrofitted buildings across campus — including the International and Graduate Affairs Building, Elborn College and the Western Interdisciplinary Research Building — with bird-friendly window treatments. In 2021, the university also said it would integrate “bird-strike-deterrent” features on windows for new construction.

Brendon’s philosophy as an environmental activist is centred around compassion.

After years of research on bird-window collision, he’s seen a lot of wildlife death, and in many ways has become desensitized to it. But when he sees others caught off guard by witnessing wildlife death for the first time, or getting involved in climate activism, he wants to let them know that it’s going to be okay.

“I always let people know they need to forgive themselves for the stuff they can’t change, the stuff they’ve done in the past, the things that they indulge in now and try to focus on incremental changes,” Brendon says.

Brendon wasn’t always the outspoken environmental champion he is today — his academic background before his PhD was in psychology and neuroscience.

After completing an undergraduate degree in psychology at the University of Guelph, Brendon spent a few years as a baker. But in the fall of 2017, he decided to return to school and begin a master’s degree in neuroscience at Western, with the vague idea of maybe becoming a music therapist.

He spent two years studying the differences in how humans and songbirds perceive the rhythmic organization of sound for his master’s degree, before deciding he wanted to focus on more applied research and switched from neuroscience to biology for his PhD at Western’s Advanced Facility for Avian Research.

After being at Western for over six years, Brendon says he’s seen a lot of change in sustainability on campus and in the London community.

According to Brendon, when he started at Western, sustainability wasn’t a focus for the school — now, it’s in Western’s strategic plan. It’s not just the university — Brendon says community members have placed more emphasis on sustainability too and that environmental activism is increasing on campus.

“The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, conversations around biodiversity, our conversations around the river and the fact that it runs through our campus, I feel [they] have really

transformed the culture in the past few years,” says Brendon.

But there is still more to be done — like divestment from fossil fuels and better managing natural spaces like the Medway Valley Heritage Forest.

“There are still legacy issues. We are still a colonial institution,” Brendon says. “We still look like one in a lot of ways with our turf grass, manicured lawns and with how we govern ourselves.”

Brendon thinks Western is a special place when it comes to the environment. The campus is located in the Carolinian life zone — the most biodiverse region of Canada. Western is rich in natural features including wetlands, grasslands and old growth forests, as well as spaces like pollinator gardens and the arboretum.

“The Thames River itself is one of the most biodiverse freshwater ecosystems on the continent — not a lot of campuses have access to that right in their backyard,” Brendon says.

He is optimistic students from Canada and around the world will become more concerned about the environment after being exposed to Western’s biodiversity, and bring that knowledge of the environment to their lives after graduation.

Brendon hopes students will start by thinking about what they can change within their own communities.

“What do you have in your immediate surroundings that you can change for the better?” he asks. “Talk to your family about it. Talk to your neighbors. Show people, and take pride in the work that you’re doing.”

Brendon also encourages students to think about the effects of their actions over a longer period of time — the way the seed of a tree planted today can provide sustenance years into the future.

“Everything we do, for better or worse, ripples through time — in the ways that we affect other living things and the ways we leave impacts on the land for future generations,” he says.

“We’re walking in the shadows of decisions that were made decades to centuries ago. Try and situate yourself as a tiny little piece within that. And when you do, you’ll find peace in recognizing that whatever happens in the grand scheme of human history, you did what you could.”

Western offers redesigned climate change course online TIANA O’CONNOR NEWS INTERN

W

hen a student approached Katrina Moser saying they enjoyed her climate change course but left feeling depressed, she knew she had to make a change.

This led Moser, a geography and environment professor at Western University, to redesign the course to make students feel empowered to apply their learning and work on initiatives to mitigate climate change.

“I was taking my students to a really dark place, and then leaving them there, which of course, was not my intention,” said Moser. “I really wanted to help them take action.”

Connecting for Climate Change Action is a 12week asynchronous course open to the public for free through Coursera, a global online learning platform. In September, the course saw 600 registrations, with upcoming sessions planned for January and May. The course is adapted from Geography 2133: Climate Change, which is still offered for credit at Western. The reimagined course offers a new approach to climate change activism by blending Indigenous knowledge and Eurowestern science.

Moser was inspired to integrate more Indige-

nous perspectives into the course, upon connecting with curriculum and pedagogy advisor Sara Mai Chitty from Western’s Office of Indigenous Initiatives and graduate research collaborator Serena Mendizabal.

Together, they formed a dynamic team along with assistant professor Beth Hundey and curriculum specialist Hawlii Pichette, an artist from the Mushkego Cree community.

“There’s a gap in science literacy about climate change,” said Hundey, whose background is rooted in the Eurowestern science tradition. She said collaborating with Indigenous perspectives helped to bridge this gap, which ultimately deepened her understanding of climate change.

Hundey further explained how the limited perspectives in Eurowestern science are perpetuated by companies spreading misinformation about the environment to benefit businesses.

Chitty also drew attention to the North American economy’s historical ties to colonialism and capitalism, which involves a deep-rooted sense of entitlement over the land and resources.

“A big part of why what is now known as North America was colonized was for resources,” said Chitty. “I do think that this desire to profit is clouding the thoughts of a lot of people when it comes to

thinking about the impact on the land … and future generations.”

Chitty said Indigenous voices and actions are often suppressed and misrepresented. She pointed out despite the treaties including Indigenous rights in environmental law and justice, these provisions are continuously undermined by the Canadian government.

“We see land protectors going to jail for protecting the land,” said Chitty. “According to our teachings, according to our culture, that’s what we need to do … and that’s part of our treaty agreements too.”

She explained by embracing Indigenous teachings in the approach to climate change activism, the course brings back a human element which has been lost in the current system.

As the course continued to develop, the team expanded to include students and contributors from various disciplines.

Bridget Koza, then a fourth-year visual arts student, was recruited as a member of the animation development team for the course.

Koza said working with the team was a unique experience for her. She emphasized the importance of including students in the course creation

process, particularly in considering design elements.

“Little details that you may not think [of ] as a professor gives personality and flavour to the course, which allows students to really engage in it,” said Koza.

The course has won the Vice-Provost Award for Excellence in Collaborative Teaching at Western and D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning — a national award — with the students working on the course being co-recipients of the awards.

“I hope we can be an example of how just listening and relationship-building can lead to looking at things in a completely different way,” said Hundey. “We didn’t invent new information, but we decided to listen to each other and work together.”

Hundey says her goal for the course is for students to start thinking about how climate change is their business, and not just another topic they have knowledge about.

“This course is a lot about being open to different perspectives, and also a lot about listening,” said Koza. “The more you listen, the more you engage, the more you’re gonna get out of it.”

CLIMATE | P6

CLIMATE ISSUE |

A glimpse into littering at Western University SOPHIE BOUQUILLON SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR VERONICA MACLEAN NEWS EDITOR

T

he aftermath of student events such as OWeek and HOCO see significant litter contribution to London streets, including beer cans, pizza boxes and various plastics.

Litter contributes indirectly to climate change by decomposing in the environment and being transported to waste disposal sites, increasing greenhouse gas output as a result.

“As we weaken biodiversity and we weaken the strength of our ecosystems by poisoning them, we make them more susceptible to diseases, to invasive species and to environmental changes, like climate change,” said Western University English and writing studies professor Tom Cull.

Cull is the founder of the volunteer group Antler River Rally which organizes monthly clean-ups along the Thames River.

“There is littering, there are folks who do that practice, and we want to kind of change that behavior,” said Cull.

During busy student events such as Homecoming or St. Patricks’s Day, Western’s off-campus housing services hired a Madvac outdoor cleaning vehicle to clean up litter on and around Broughdale Avenue.

Student volunteers with the Western Sustainable Leaders Program and through Orientation Serves helped clean up garbage on campus and in surrounding neighbourhoods following this year’s HOCO and Orientation Week, said Western’s Off-Campus Housing Services and Western Sustainability in a statement to the Gazette.

Advisors from the university’s off-campus housing services office also voluntarily clean up litter around campus one to two days each month.

The impacts of littering go far beyond dirty streets — it has a large effect on animal and human health as well, explained Cull.

“Plastics are made up of petroleum oil, basically, and so there’s a lot of harmful chemicals,” said Cull. “They’re not natural, they don’t break down and so that is poisonous, that is pollution.”

He also added, when chemicals from garbage and litter impact our food and water systems, the environmental pollution directly affects human health.

“If we’re polluting the environment, we’re polluting ourselves.”

SOPHIE BOUQUILLON GAZETTE Empty cans left behind my HOCO partiers on Broughdale Avenue collected by the Olszewski couple to exchange for money, Sept. 23, 2023.

SOPHIE BOUQUILLON GAZETTE Community member, Tad Olszewski picks up empty cans littered on Broughdale Avenue left behind my HOCO partiers, Sept. 23, 2023.

SOPHIE BOUQUILLON GAZETTE Full garbage can spills onto Richmond Street outside of King Richies, Sept. 23, 2023.

SOPHIE BOUQUILLON GAZETTE Litter in the alley from Western to Broughdale Avenue, Sept. 7, 2023.

SOPHIE BOUQUILLON GAZETTE Tad Olszewski with empty cans left behind my HOCO partiers on Broughdale Avenue, Sept. 23, 2023.

CLIMATE | P7

CLIMATE ISSUE |

Fanning the flames: Western students on the front lines HANNAH ALPER REPORTER

T

hey drove along dirt roads, not able to see five feet in front of them. To their left and right and all around them, all they saw was smoke, fire and the real-world consequences of climate change.

As firefighters from across the world travelled to Western Canada from May to July, Western University students, twin brothers and Alberta natives John and Will Naylen Sorrell heard about the urgent need for help. They took jobs as emergency medical responders in Alberta’s affected areas to help thousands of people.

Instead of spending their summer at a summer camp or cottage, John, a third-year biochemistry student, and Will, a third-year neuroscience student, fought the blazes of Canada’s unprecedented wildfire season — worsened by climate change.

Research shows changes in climate create warmer, drier conditions, which leads to longer and more active fire seasons. As the air becomes drier and vegetation becomes more susceptible to burning, climate change increases the flammability of fuel available for wildfires.

Extreme and early forest fires led to Alberta declaring a state of emergency on May 6. Over 24,000 were soon evacuated and forced out of their homes in the northern areas of the province amid hundreds of fires.

The wildfires also disproportionately impacted Indigenous communities, as many of the affected communities in Northern Alberta were remote reserves. Many evacuees sought refuge in Edmonton until it was safe to go home — people’s lives were changed forever.

About 45.7 million acres burned in 2023’s wildfire season, which continued into September and surpassed the previous high of 17.5 million acres, according to records dating back to 1983.

By early June, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was on track for its “worst wildfire season” in recorded history. From coast to coast, especially in Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories, the fires cast a shadow over the summer.

For residents of Northern Alberta, it would have evoked traumatic memories of 2016, when forest fires raged into Fort McMurray.

Long summer days choked with wildfire haze as smoke filled the skies across the United States-Canada border. In Toronto, the air quality was once ranked worst among major cities of the world due to the forest fire smoke, according to a ranking provided by air quality tracker IQAir. Skies turned orange. Horizons and skylines disappeared.

Typically, wildfire season runs from March to the end of October when Canada expects to see the least amount of precipitation and the most lightning. The government usually has staff and resources prepared for the summer, but when the wildfire season arrived much worse than expected, the world wasn’t ready.

“It was definitely busy. And it is very, very real,” Will says.

J

ohn and Will worked from 12 to 14 hours every day for months in the spring and summer, with few breaks. They would meet with the firefighters and safety crews in the early morning to go over the day and their instructions. Then, they would hop into trucks — the same ones they would occasionally sleep in — and drive directly to the fireline where other firefighters would be trying to contain the flames.

W

KAI WILSON GAZETTE John and Will Naylen Sorrell sitting in the 3M building courtyard, Oct. 23, 2023.

COURTESY OF JOHN AND WILL NAYLEN SORRELL Smoggy skies caused by wildfires in Alberta, 2023.

COURTESY OF JOHN AND WILL NAYLEN SORRELL A wildfire seen from a distance in Alberta, 2023.

If they were needed for medical emergencies, the twins would go off to the side, but otherwise, they would be on the fireline. Later, they would go back to camp and sleep, either in their tents or in their trucks.

They would do it all again the next day.

Meanwhile, locals and residents of northern Alberta Indigenous communities — up to 450 of whom were trained in firefighting — rarely took breaks when they were volunteering. They wanted to save their own communities and homes.

The locals were up first and went to bed last.

“I have never seen any group of people work so hard. That was truly inspiring to see how even though it was just a home, it was their home — and it mattered so deeply,” explains John. “They wouldn’t even take their lunch breaks.”

The dedication of those he met working for their communities inspired John throughout the season.

“People were completely uprooted. A lot of the people then took it upon themselves to work for the government and help fight these fires because they felt like they needed to. When we’re out there, we’re working maybe two kilometres away from their home,” John says. “All they really care about is, ‘I want to keep my home safe.’”

A peer-reviewed study found 37 per cent of the total burned forest area in Western Canada and the United States between 1986 and 2021 can be traced back to just 88 major fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers.

Researchers determined the emissions have increased widfire activity and resulted in an additional 80,000 kilometres squared being burned — an area 190 times bigger than London.

The research is part of a growing field of study known as attribution science, which attempts to measure how climate change directly affected recent extreme weather events.

Mark Mosicki, a Western geography and environment professor, says the risk of wildfires is increasing because of climate change. Studies have shown the probability of seeing a fire season similar to what Canada saw this year was twice as likely as it would have been without human-caused climate change.

“All the ingredients came together this year to cause the worst wildfire season Canada has ever seen. In May and June, much of Canada experienced temperatures several degrees above longterm averages,” Mosicki told the Gazette in an email.

“Combined with below-normal precipitation in many areas, this dried out vegetation and greatly enhanced the risk of wildfires. As these fires grew and intensified, many of them became unmanageable and continued burning through the summer months.”

A

s John and Will fought fires in Alberta, researchers studied the link between wildfires and climate change. They found carbon emissions traced back to the world’s major fossil fuel producers.

ill worked in several areas with different active wildfires burning close together over the summer. One of the fires he responded to was an extremely high-priority fire and for part of the time, he was the only emergency medical responder on site.

On Will’s worst day of the fire in May, his team had been evacuated from the fire line several times because of shifting winds. Leaving the fire line for safety reasons wasn’t unusual, but that day, they were also evacuated from the town.

At the next morning’s safety meeting, the fire chief emotionally described walking the perimeter of the fire and past an old campground where he learned how to bike. The same campground “had been burned just completely to a crisp.”

Will saw the efforts of the Fox Creek Municipal Fire Departments as well as local and Indigenous firefighters, who were on the front lines every day — some of their homes were within 900 metres of the blaze. His role was to follow the firefighters down to the fire line and act as a life support and emergency work crew member.

Through all the nerves and the fear of being on the direct fire line, Will says the people he worked with increased overall morale and got him through the days.

“The wildfire crew that I had been tasked with, I took care of them in terms of medical attention, and they would take care of me,” he says.

One day, firefighters received a radio transmission to evacuate the area — but Will’s radio wasn’t working. Those around him ensured he got to a safe and secure area. John and Will both say knowing every person around them was looking out for them kept morale high when they needed it most.

Firefighters came from around the world to Alberta to help because the province’s team was stretched so thin.

“Where my previous experience had been working directly with the communities whose talent or their homes were threatened, now it was working with an international effort from across the globe focused on saving Canadians,” he says.

Firefighters from South Africa were waking up for the day at 5:30 a.m. with singing and dancing while everyone else could barely get out of bed.

Australians were telling jokes all day. Indigenous people constantly showed their commitment to save their communities. At the end of the day, it truly was the people that kept spirits high.

As the autumn rain washes away the summer smoke, the 2023 forest fire season has slowly come to an end, leaving communities coming together to rebuild their homes.

John and Will are open to returning next summer. Like the locals and Indigenous people who stayed behind as the fires raged toward their homes, the twins won’t hesitate to help those who need it most.

“It is something that I liked doing, and I want to keep doing it. So come next summer, I’ll be scoping out the territory. Forest fires in Alberta happen every year. This is certainly an opportunity that if I could come back to, I definitely will. That is something I’ll be looking forward to next summer,” John admits. “I guess, what would you call this, our vacation?”

OPINIONS | P8

CLIMATE ISSUE |

COMMUNITY

Op-Ed: Western must stop greenwashing and divest from fossil fuels now

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roud to go to the most sustainable university in the country? We wish we were.

This summer, the devastating effects of the climate crisis became impossible to ignore. The worst wildfires in Canadian history turned our skies ablaze from coast to coast.

In the face of this crisis, public institutions like Western University have the power and responsibility to act. But unfortunately, at a time when we need urgent climate leadership more than ever before, Western is delaying action and instead promoting half-measures and false solutions.

Twelve Canadian universities have taken a stand against fossil fuel corporations, recognizing they are the primary drivers of the climate crisis and some of the largest perpetrators of racial and colonial violence.

These universities acknowledged owning shares in fossil fuel companies was actively financing the destruction of the very futures they were supposed to be preparing their students for. These institutions have committed to removing their investment funds such as endowment funds from the fossil fuel industry — a process known as divestment.

Since 2020, the Climate Crisis Coalition has been advocating for Western to do the same and divest from fossil fuels.

But Western has not yet done so. Western is proud to deliver a “world-class education,” yet they refuse to listen to their own experts.

They ignore the faculty who have devoted their life to researching climate change and who called for immediate fossil fuel divestment. And they ignore about 200 other faculty, staff and graduate students who have echoed these calls for divestment.

They ignore us, the students whose futures are on the line. They ignore the tireless work of student advocates, like the students in the University Students’ Council who passed the 2021 policy paper explicitly calling for Western to divest by 2026 and the more than 700 student allies who signed divestment petitions in 2020 and 2022.

So, what has Western said about divestment?

In response to faculty calls for divestment, Lynn Logan, vice-president of operations and finance, claimed as an investor, they have the ability to pressure fossil fuel companies to change their practices — a tactic known as shareholder engagement.

Unfortunately, this claim is riddled with contradictions and false solutions. Western’s own financial reporting tells a very different story.

Western owns an endowment fund worth over a billion dollars and they hire external fund

managers to invest this money. Western also self-reports their sustainability performance to the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System.

But in the report, Western stated they have not engaged in proxy voting and have not filed or co-filed any shareholder resolutions that address sustainability in the past three years. Second, when prompted to provide examples of how the institution has engaged with corporations in its investment portfolio on sustainability issues, the university provided no response.

This means Western has no evidence of active engagement despite their claim that it is a “key component of [their] responsible investing approach.”

In reality, Western is not worried that they will lose their ability to “achieve greater impact” by divesting — they are afraid of taking moral responsibility for the destruction their money encourages.

To placate demands for divestment, Western’s Investment Policy was updated in 2022 to specify that “divestment will be considered where engagement has failed or is not feasible.”

Unfortunately, this is meaningless because the policy has no clear and objective threshold for engagement that fails or is not feasible. Additionally, no investment fund manager or univer-

sity official is mandated to determine when or if engagement has failed.

Fundamentally, shareholder engagement is not a credible alternative to full divestment because it is impossible to engage with a company whose entire business model is based on burning more carbon than a safe climate can allow.

But there’s good news! Western can stop greenwashing and follow the lead of thousands of other institutions by divesting from fossil fuels.

In an in-depth examination of Western’s Investment Policy and 2022 Responsible Investing Report, the CCC outlined clear recommendations for Western to stop greenwashing and live up to their commitments to sustainability and decolonization.

We are far past the time for false solutions.

The time for bold and tangible climate action is now.

— Eva Deligiannis, first-year master’s student in neuroscience and Climate Crisis Coalition outreach lead, and Kiera Taylor, fifth-year climate change and society and Ivey Business School HBA dual degree student and Climate Crisis Coalition research lead To submit a community opinions article, email hannah.alper@westerngazette.ca

COMMUNITY

Op-Ed: Go touch grass, it’s good for you

O

ne of the first things students learn in Biology 1001A from Dr. MacDougall-Shackleton is we are all connected; you and I share an ancestor with Taylor Swift, and also the geese on UC Hill. If your module allows for it, some courses will revisit this theme of interconnectedness when studying the environment and the beings within it.

During my four years at Western University, I have learned how rocks from the Earth erode into sand and minerals which feed root systems of plants and their symbiotic fungi before feeding animals, including us.

I have come to appreciate how all physical bodies will eventually feed back into these systems, contributing to new life on Earth as cycles of regeneration push onwards. The natural order of Earth is founded on cycles and interconnected relations between all beings, both living and nonliving.

We are all inherently connected by invisible strings of genetic ancestry and organic atoms.

Our Earth is in danger, the central being anchoring all interconnections, and whether or not She is worth saving is somehow controversial.

As someone who spends quite a bit of time dedicated to finding ways of making environmental stewardship engaging, I’ve been thinking about interconnectedness a lot — it helps me recenter.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t necessarily feel connected to those who will shame me for buying coffee in a disposable cup. I also don’t necessarily feel connected to those who further pit us against each other in a battle to blame someone for the inconceivable losses that constitute environmental degradation and climate change.

But, to me, interconnectedness is about more than just getting along or phylogenetics or the ways in which carbon fluxes through the earth — it’s about a collective understanding that we must care for each other for a sustainable future.

It’s appreciating that Earth and all Her beings have been naturally doing so since time began.

It’s about tuning into our birthright connectedness to contribute wholly and meaningfully in tackling the biggest problem facing Earth today, together.

It can feel overwhelming at times learning about climate disasters and environmental injustices, and it can be difficult to resonate with the associated losses when many of us are privileged to be removed from it. Those of us not in Pakistan in 2022 did not see one-third of our nation flooding. Those of us not in Hawai’i this summer did not feel the heat of the fires.

But those who did are no different than you or I — they are beings with dreams, families and things to do. Their lives were undoubtedly disrupted and permanently altered due to ever-intensifying disaster events. There is no amount of recycling a single individual can do to fix that.

It’s not all doom and gloom though — as a unified front, we can work towards a future that sustains efforts to mitigate climate change. To do so, we must understand our most powerful weapon is knowledge — knowledge in environments, in equitable systems and in justice — even if, and when, it is overwhelming and difficult.

I urge you to reflect on your connections and relations to Earth. Next time you pass by the Antler River on campus, think about where it comes from and the countless beings, including

you and I, that rely on it. Then, think about all those whose rivers are destined to run dry without climate action. If you are studying history, think about times societies have united; think about what colossal losses have been felt when they haven’t.

If you are in medicine, think about how your dedication to lifelong learning can transcend academics and into sustainable innovation for the betterment of public health. Think about the green spaces on campus, the life it sustains and what these lands would look like without them.

Even if you never stepped foot in Biology 1001A, think about what it means to be connected to anything and everything. Think about what it means to actively take part in saving it all.

— Allison Pert, fifth-year Honours Specialization Environmental Science & Major Biology, Executive Co-Lead of the Western Sustainable Leaders Program

To submit a community opinions article, email hannah.alper@westerngazette.ca

CULTURE | P9

CLIMATE ISSUE |

Climate anxiety: A growing concern PANIZ VEDAVARZ CULTURE EDITOR

W

hen it comes to discussing climate change, its impacts on mental health aren’t typically considered a priority.

This past summer, Canadians witnessed a series of abnormal weather events — floods, droughts, wildfires and unusually-warm weather swept across the country.

In London, smoke from forest fires in northeastern Ontario and Quebec resulted in increased air pollution and a decline in air quality.

For many people, these types of events can evoke a deep sense of fear for the future, giving rise to what is commonly called “climate anxiety” as they grapple with the consequences of climate change in their everyday experiences.

Owen Kapsis, a third-year integrated science student, found the unseasonably-high temperatures in the final week of September this year triggered some of his own anxieties.

“I see things in the news, or just in London, it was 25 degrees in the last week of September,” said Kapsis. “Things like that, where we can feel the effect of climate change in our daily lives, can really lead to that looming sense of dread and overall panic that I think climate anxiety describes.”

Charles Ogunbode, an assistant professor of applied psychology at the University of Nottingham, explained climate anxiety falls under the broader term of “ecoanxiety,” defined as a “chronic fear of environmental doom” by the American Psychological Association.

“It’s not just about feelings, it’s also about the involvement of physiological responses,” said

Ogunbode. “So the feelings, as well as the effects on people’s ability to carry on and live their normal lives, come together under the umbrella of what we describe as climate anxiety.”

In a 2021 study surveying 10,000 respondents aged 16 to 25, about 45 per cent of respondents reported their emotions related to climate change had a negative impact on their day-to-day functioning, while 75 per cent expressed a genuine fear of the future.

Climate anxiety differs from regular anxiety in its unique source, arising from climate change’s long-term and uncertain nature. Ogunbode explained while traditional anxiety can be eased by taking concrete actions that can have positive outcomes, with climate anxiety, the future is too unpredictable.

“You could do everything in your power as an individual to cut your carbon footprint to zero.

Even if you do everything you can, the problem will probably not be resolved in your lifetime,” he said.

Climate anxiety may manifest as difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating and disruptions in personal relationships. The decreased likelihood of a positive future can make people feel less motivated to set long-term goals.

“I think that there is the possibility that we are the last generation to live an everyday life that isn’t constantly affected by natural disasters, famine, heat and stuff like that,” said Kapsis. “Those factors really do play a lot into my considerations of how I want to live my life.”

Allison Pert, a fifth-year environmental science and biology student, shared similar frustrations.

“It has been discouraging in an acute sense,” said Pert. “I’ll go home at the end of a long day and sit there and reflect on the purpose of pursuing a degree and wanting to pursue higher education, when the good life that we’re all used to now is going to change a lot — for better or for worse.”

Ogunbode explained while these feelings may have negative consequences, they can also be a driving force for taking action on climate issues, highlighting the importance of staying informed and engaged.

“People have to be worried because if they’re not worried, they wouldn’t really be motivated to do something,” he said. “But we also have to give them the tools to be able to look after themselves psychologically, to be able to sustain that effort over a long period of time.”

For Kapsis, his climate-related concerns serve as a motivator for his career aspirations. He currently specializes in physics, seeing it as a stepping stone to finding solutions to climate issues. He hopes to pursue a career related to climate action and clean energy.

Meanwhile, Pert has discovered that community-based learning is remarkably effective in nurturing positive emotions regarding climate change.

She is currently enrolled in a community-based research in Indigenous studies course, where she actively participates in ecological restoration in Ross Park while engaging with Indigenous leaders from Walpole Island.

“It’s about community-based methods of education and really recentring and reconnecting with

the land to be motivated to take care of it,” said Pert.

Pert’s experiences with community involvement mirror Ogunbode’s advice on how to cope with climate anxiety — understanding climate change’s local impacts and engaging with others who are equally-concerned.

“If you’re experiencing strong climate anxiety, I think that the first thing comes from knowing that you’re not alone in this,” said Ogunbode. “My first recommendation is to find a community where you can share your feelings and experiences that could help ground you.”

Despite the challenges at hand, Ogunbode sees a silver lining in the situation. Since climate anxiety is a collective experience, it has the potential to create more informed discussions around mental health.

“What’s quite interesting about climate anxiety is the emergence of the concept in public discourse. Public consciousness has enabled a whole range of more sophisticated language around emotions to evolve.”

From studying at Western to directing the UNHCR, alumna Diane Goodman shares her story DANIELLE PAUL SENIOR CULTURE EDITOR

D

iane Goodman knows a thing or two about following your heart — she’s followed hers all over the world.

Since graduating from Western University in 1979 in history and English, Diane has done human rights work with organizations like the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

In 2006, she joined the UNHCR as a senior legal officer, working in Sudan, Cambodia and Nepal, where she would meet with asylum seekers and help legally protect refugees.

Following her years working in various countries, Diane relocated to Geneva in 2013 and became the deputy director for emergency operations in Europe.

Diane recalls her most recent experiences helping the refugees and migrant emergency in Europe where Syrian refugees were fleeing, and coming to different countries like Greece and Italy. “[I was] seeing the strength and the courage of refugees, walking with them on their path and trying to make their reception better because the reception conditions in Europe were terrible. They were appalling, worse than I’ve ever seen in many other countries that I lived in,” says Diane.

But human rights work wasn’t always her career choice. After her years at Western, she then went on to earn two more advanced degrees at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. She briefly worked at a large corporate law firm but realized the job didn’t align with what she wanted to do — so she took a leave of absence and never went back.

Diane’s older sister, Joanne Goodman, tragically passed away in 1975 during her second year studying history at Western. The loss impacted Diane’s life.

“My sister’s death really changed everything for me,” says Diane. “I’m not sure I would have lived

the life that I ultimately chose to live if she hadn’t died. It made me really appreciate everything I had, and appreciate life and make sure that I really did something that I love.”

In 1975, the Goodman family established the Joanne Goodman Lecture Series in Western’s history department — where every fall, a distinguished historian comes to speak on important historical events at the university for a few days — in honour of their daughter.

Diane was in attendance at this year’s lecture series on British colonialism in Africa. She believes the lectures are a great way to carry on her sister’s legacy.

“They pass away, and especially when they’re young, nobody knows about them in a way,” says Diane. “Now it’s been almost 50 years, and her memory is kept alive. It’s nice for me.”

Diane started at Western just after Joanne passed as a way of “keeping the connection” to her sister.

When Diane left her corporate law job in her late 20s, she ended up in Norway. There she started her humanitarian work on women’s and children’s rights at the Humans Rights Institute.

One of her biggest challenges was pursuing her passion for humanitarian work and maintaining a family life.

Diane was always working at a family-duty station, which meant she could live with her husband and children. However, when she lived in Sudan, the station’s conditions changed and she would not be able to live with her family.

It was a challenging time for Diane, because she was instructed to put her children in boarding school — something she didn’t want to do. She sought advice from the ombudsperson, who helped support her to be stationed at a family-duty station in Nepal, where she worked from 2009 to 2013.

Following her role as deputy director, in 2018

COURTESY OF DIANE GOODMAN

she became the senior coordinator for prevention and response to sexual exploitation and abuse and sexual harassment.

Diane’s position was new for the UNHCR and was created in response of the more global “#metoo” movement – which was a global social media movement against sexual violence, led by survivors.

The goal of the position was to find ways to look into the systems within the UNHCR, create an effective system of reporting and figure out how to support survivors of sexual assault and abuse — between colleagues, and also between workers and refugees.

“There were challenges of sexual exploitation and abuse by humanitarian workers or staff of refugees, which is terrible. No one wants to talk about that and sexual harassment of colleagues,”

explains Diane.

She explains she met many amazing women in that role and every one of them she was able to draw huge inspiration from.

Diane stayed in the role until she retired from the UNHCR this year — but she prefers to use the word “graduated.” She believes there are many negative connotations attached to retirement, and still wants to be able to work, contribute and learn all throughout her life.

Now, Diane is figuring out what her next steps are. Geneva has been her homebase for the last 10 years, but now that’s shifting.

“Being and living in so many places and trying to create a home wherever I was, and drawing on the culture and the influence in the art — that was a great aspect,” says Diane. “I still don’t know if I’ll have a permanent home. I’m sure I’ll find one.”

CULTURE | P10

CLIMATE ISSUE |

Western’s Pride Library holds grand re-opening to celebrate 25th anniversary ALEX D’ENTREMONT-SMITH DIGITAL EDITOR

T

he Western Pride Library reopened its space in Weldon to the public on Thursday, celebrating its 25th anniversary as Canada’s first and only university 2SLGBTQIA+ library.

Due to a backlog of books to catalogue, ongoing renovations in the D.B. Weldon Library and the COVID-19 pandemic, the Pride Library had been closed since 2019.

With the renovations complete and the majority of the books catalogued, the Western University community can enjoy a space of over 15,000 books discussing 2SLGBTQIA+ identities.

The celebration kicked off at 4 p.m. in the Weldon Community Room, offering snacks to attendees while they listened to speakers like acting associate chief librarian Kelly Hatch and provost and vice-president of academics Florentine Strzelczyk highlighting the library’s importance.

James Miller, professor emeritus of languages and cultures and founder of the Pride Library, thanked the community and donors for their contributions to the library’s revitalization.

Attendees then migrated to see the Pride Library space itself, tucked in the back of Weldon’s first floor.

John Stracuzza, Miller’s Spouse, explained the collection started in Miller’s office but kept moving to different rooms in University College to accommodate its growing size. Then in 2005, former university librarian Joyce Garnett granted Miller the space in Weldon, and it opened in 2006. Western Libraries later granted the library $60,000 from their restoration fund.

“I think, at the time, the university and the library administration realized that having a gay library was something that was valuable,” said Stracuzza.

The collection, which began as 60 books in 1998, now has over 15,000 books sectioned into sexuality and queer theory categories. The library is composed of donations and Miller’s own purchases, with about 120 boxes remaining to be catalogued.

It also houses the Hudler Archives, a collection of queer literature by Richard Hudler, former president of the Homophile Association of London Ontario.

Stracuzza said Weldon has been helping to catalogue the books and integrate the collection into the Omni database as part of their donation.

The newest renovations to the space are the displays and seating area outside the Pride Library.

The shelves boast the original Pride Library signage, and Miller’s favourite bedazzled vests lay in the display cases, accompanied by information on dandyism from various periods.

The revitalized space, filled with Turkish carpets and purple chairs, also pays homage to queer creatives at every turn. The stained-glass windows list the names of authors who navigated queer identities in their works, and art of queer bodies hang on every wall.

For Miller, the Pride Library is evidence of a

“story of fighting, against prejudice, against exclusion, against a kind of non-intersectional thinking.”

“But in a truly intersectional spirit, I want to say that there are many other stories as well, not just the story of fighting the systems — the story of romance, story of mourning, the story of tragedy, the story of spirituality,” Miller said. He hopes this library will continue to reflect every facet of the queer experience.

— With files from Adshayah Sathiaseelan.

ADSHAYAH SATHIASEELAN GAZETTE Pride Library in Weldon Library, Oct. 19, 2023.

Bar crawl: Wine Wednesday at Delilah’s TAYLA DOYLE CONTRIBUTOR

W

hen I arrived at Delilah’s on Wednesday at 9 p.m., the line had already wrapped around the street and was filled with students wearing polo button-ups and knee-high black boots — a reflection of the trendy and sophisticated vibes inside the bar.

Delilah’s is a popular bar amongst Western University students, located on Richmond Row. The layout of the venue, accompanied with the seamless mix of old classic songs and new popular music, all help create a fun atmosphere I haven’t experienced at any other bars in London.

London nightlife is particularly busy on Wednesday nights: Jack’s has Dollar Beers, McCabe’s offers half-priced wine and live music and Wink’s has a trivia night. Personally, Delilah’s strikes me as the

go-to on Wednesdays because of their discounted wine bottles and lively party scene.

Once my ID was checked and I walked through the front door, I was immediately surrounded by music and laughter. The space was filled with chatting patrons, many of them singing and dancing.

“It’s a fun place to see friends outside of class and have a break from studying,” says Mikayla McGowan, a third-year psychology and criminology student at Western.

There is a vast variety of discounted red, white and rosé wines to choose from at Delilah’s on Wednesdays — that are within a student budget.

The most expensive option is a $160 Red Caymus Cabernet Sauvignon and the prices of screw-off bottles range from $23 to $76.

The interior of the building is a fairly narrow area that opens up as you walk towards the back.

Booths and tables line the walls of the main floor, which is designed with two large bars where multiple bartenders take orders.

The staff, which included hostesses, bouncers, servers and bartenders, helped facilitate my fun night with their thoughtful and engaging service — swiftly taking drink orders and putting effort and kindness into our interactions.

The upstairs area is a bit of a different scene than the main floor: the space is much smaller and less crowded. The second floor, accessible from the right side of the building, is a great place to order a drink from a smaller bar with a shorter line.

On warmer nights, the patio is open and serves as a sanctuary outside the congestion inside the venue. I felt like I was entering a whole new space: high top tables and booths surround the occupied courtyard, leaving just enough room to dance and sing along to.

The patio is open during the summer months, and warmer nights in the fall and spring.

“I really like the atmosphere of it, especially when the patio is open,” says Elaine Whitmore, a fourth-year medical sciences and Ivey Business school student, adding that Wine Wednesday is a great way to break up her week.

Though Delilah’s might not be a great scene for someone who doesn’t enjoy loud music or busy spaces, people who like dancing and spending time with other students in a vibrant environment should definitely add Wine Wednesday to their mid-week plan.

The music, venue and crowd blended seamlessly, making Delilah’s the perfect place for me to unwind on a Wednesday night.

Western cheerleader Noa DiBerto stars in drama film TARA YANG CULTURE INTERN

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rowing up dreaming of being an actress in the spotlight, Noa DiBerto achieved a milestone by starring in Backspot, a film that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival this fall.

The second-year Western University student and gymnast says her character in Backspot, Rachel, is the biggest role of her acting career so far.

The film that tackles the reality of cheerleading is executively produced by Umbrella Academy star Elliot Page and directed by Canadian DJ and drummer D.W. Waterson.

Because Backspot is a low-budget film, DiBerto explains, the cheerleaders in the movie are all played by people with real-life cheerleading experiences.

DiBerto is part of Western’s Mustangs cheerleading team. She started her gymnast career when she was 18 months old and began cheerleading in her first year of university. She has also acted for seven years, starting with childhood theatre productions and eventually signing with an agency, which helped her get her role in Backspot.

The film exposes the authentic daily lives of cheerleaders, breaking the stereotypes of big bows and sparkly pom poms and destigmatizing the glamorous face often portrayed by the media.

“There’s not really one scene where someone looks good. We’re all in the gym. We’re training.

We’re not going to be beautiful,” says DiBerto.

Prior to filming, the directors asked DiBerto and her co-stars whether they had tattoos or scars. Although DiBerto was initially nervous about showing off her injuries from cheerleading on camera, they reassured her that they wanted to showcase all of them.

“I’ve got bruises everywhere on my body, I’ve got scratches, [practice] is hours and hours and hours a week that [cheerleaders] are not allowed to miss,” she says. “This movie literally changes the dynamic of cheer completely by just showing the reality of it.”

During filming, DiBerto’s experience playing the character Rachel closely resembled her personal experience as a cheerleader — from Rachel’s goofy personality to her perseverance under pressure.

DiBerto described Rachel as “the funny and happy friend,” serving as comedic relief for the drama film. But by embodying Rachel and acting out her mental breakdowns, she was reminded of the importance of checking up on those “happy” friends. Rachel is also a tumbler, just as DiBerto is in real life.

Backspot captures the pressure and challenges that come with high-level sports and how this impacts athletes’ mental health.

Having experienced panic attacks herself, DiBerto describes the accuracy of how anxiety is represented in the film.

“I love the way the movie showcases anxiety with the shaky camera because you feel like you’re shaking, the lip biting, the looking down. If you’ve had a panic attack before, it’s exactly what it feels like.”

Combining gymnastics and performance skills, the double threat is an inspiration to young athletes and actresses trying to pursue their dreams.

COURTESY OF NOA DIBERTO

SPORTS | P11

CLIMATE ISSUE |

The science behind: ACL injuries MANAN JOSHI SPORTS EDITOR

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he 2018-19 season was supposed to be Skye Barbato’s best season yet, but a single misstep in the last quarter of the final preseason game changed everything — she tore her ACL. Barbato, then a second-year psychology student and wing on Western University’s women’s basketball team, had proved herself in the 2017-18 season and earned a starting position by the team’s final game.

When she was ready to carry that momentum into her second year, the incident happened during the game as she dropped to the floor, screaming in pain. Barbato knew it was an injury that was going to affect the rest of her season.

“I never dealt with an injury that severe before,” Barbato recalled. “I honestly felt like my knee shifted out of place. I was freaking out — it was the most pain I’ve ever felt in my life.”

The anterior cruciate ligament — commonly referred to as the ACL — is a main structure linking the shin, femur and thigh bone. ACL tears are one of the most common injuries suffered by basketball, soccer and hockey players, among many other sports.

Dr. Robert Litchfield, medical director of the Fowler Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic said there are two major factors that contribute to ACL injuries — environmental and patient.

Environmental factors can include the playing surface, the type of shoes being worn and how fatigued the player is late in the game. Patient factors include genetics, alignment of the leg and the ACL size.

“When someone tears their ACL, it’s usually a

ARISIA QARRI GAZETTE

twisting type injury,” said Dr. Litchfield, adding that it can come from contact when hit by another person, or more commonly non-contact, like someone planting their foot to try and change direction.

“You exceed the strength of that ligament to protect you and the knee gives way and the ACL tears.”

After Barbato’s injury, there was little time for her to think. She was quickly diagnosed and then immediately booked for surgery.

“As an athlete, I felt like I didn’t really have time

to process,” said Barbato. “They book you in as soon as they can, which is usually about a month after, which is very fast for if you know anything about getting surgeries,” said Barbato. “The [physiotherapists] at Western [were] the number one reason why I kept going.”

Dr. Litchfield said the ACL recovery process can be broken down into phases.

The first phase is all about getting the initial inflammation to settle down by getting the knee moving again, which can take anywhere from two

to six weeks.

Depending on if the athlete wants to return to their pre-injury sport, surgery is offered to reconstruct the ACL. The reconstruction involves making a new ACL by taking a piece of tissue from the patient and repurposing it into an ACL. Barbato went through a structured regime on a week-by-week basis where she started by walking, then running, then jumping and eventually back to playing basketball. The whole process usually takes about nine to 12 months.

Barbato went on to recover from that tear and return to the Mustangs — before tearing her ACL again in her fifth year.

She once again planted her foot wrong in the fourth quarter of a late season game and immediately knew what had happened.

“I was like ‘oh that hurt,’ and then boom it was, ‘oh, this is the last game I’m ever gonna play as a Mustang.’ So I was very upset. I was just really sad in that moment,” said Barbato.

Despite her struggles with injuries, Barbato was a vital cog of Western’s women’s basketball team on and off the court. She took on the role of the team’s social butterfly, from organizing team lunches to acting as support for teammates going through their own battles with injuries.

Barbato advises athletes currently suffering from ACL injuries to try doing things off the court and being part of the team in other ways.

“Find other things that will bring you joy — other than your sport,” said Barbato. “Look for social support, because that was the biggest thing for me.

Find the people who really care about you.”

Mustangs stomp on Golden Hawks’ comeback, finish season undefeated RYAN GOODISON SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR

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he Mustangs football team defeated the Golden Hawks 33–30 on Oct. 21, clinching first place in OUA and earning a first week playoff bye and home field advantage.

With two minutes left to play, Western University’s third-year backup quarterback Jerome Rancourt faked the handoff and found sixth-year receiver Savaughn Magnaye-Jones running a corner route — Jones made the catch and took it into the endzone.

“We knew they were going to do that all week. I saw the look, and then I knew where I was going to pre-snap,” said Rancourt.

The touchdown was Western’s only score in the second half, giving them a five point lead over the Wilfrid Laurier University Golden Hawks. The Mustangs tried for a two-point conversion but failed on the attempt.

The game was a story of two halves: the Mustangs went into the locker room at halftime with a 27–0 lead over the second-place Golden Hawks — but it took the Laurier offence about 10 minutes of game time in the third quarter to score 28 points and take a one-point lead over the Mustangs.

“I think what bothers me the most is how unproductive we were in the third quarter on offence,” said Mustangs head coach Greg Marshall.

Laurier stopped Western multiple times throughout the third quarter, including intercepting fourth-year quarterback Evan Hillock twice.

During one of Western’s punts, the Laurier team took advantage of the sleeping Mustangs, blocking the punt and carrying the ball downfield for another touchdown.

“We didn’t play well enough on special teams,” said Marshall. “We didn’t punt well, we missed field goals, we didn’t cover kicks, we returned well but we didn’t cover well.”

During the third quarter, the Mustangs gave Golden Hawks’ fourth-year quarterback Taylor

Elgersma tons of time in the pocket to throw deep balls. Elgersma finished the game with a monstrous 369 passing yards and two touchdowns.

“It’s not like we didn’t know that’s what they were going to throw, probably both times we were in cover-four,” said Marshall. “How are they getting behind us? I don’t know — I’ll have to look at the film.”

Despite the Golden Hawks’ quick turnaround in the third quarter, the Mustangs’ defence was able to stand tall and quiet down Laurier’s passing game.

After the Mustangs’ go-ahead touchdown, the Golden Hawks made it down the field to Western’s 30-yard line. The Laurier offence had to go on third down with 50 seconds left, and Western closed the door.

“We’ve been doing this all season, stopping teams short, and we’re going to continue to do this and we’re going to continue to get better so that we can bring this trophy back home,” said Mustangs fourth-year linebacker Lourenz Bowers-Kane.

The Mustangs’ defence broke through this week, putting up five sacks on Elgersma and getting much-needed stops on the Laurier offence.

“We know that a lot of teams are looking at us, and they think that we can’t get pressure, but we wanted to prove to the nation that they’re wrong,” said Bowers-Kane. “We’re a strong defence, and we’re going to come out and fight and put it on you.”

Despite Western’s win, the post-season will only become more challenging as key injuries riddled the team throughout the game.

Hillock went off in the fourth quarter after he was tackled — Marshall confirmed after the game that the fourth-year signal caller was in concussion protocol.

Early in the first quarter, Mustangs sixth-year running back Keon Edwards went down as he was about to run into the endzone for a touchdown.

You could hear a pin drop at Alumni Stadium as his

ney to a third straight Yates Cup. teammates carried him off the field.

“We really needed that with a lot of guys going Later in the game, it was confirmed that Edwards had suffered a broken right foot — the news down today and then past injuries. We needed that even worse as the day before the team announced bye, and honestly, that’s what we were playing for that third-year running back Keanu Yazbeck had today,” said Rancourt. suffered a broken fibula.

“It was a physical game, and I’m sure they had a few bumps on their side too. But yeah, losing Keon is a huge blow,” said Marshall.

With Edwards in his last season of eligibility, this might be his last time in a Mustangs uniform.

After his injury, Edwards was on the sidelines in crutches with his foot in a boot — despite what had transpired, he was still smiling with his teammates. “[Edwards] is that silent leader on our team: he didn’t need to say much, but everyone has so much respect for him,” said Marshall. “He’s such a great kid. His injury will impact our guys.

I know they will go out and play hard for him.”

With their win, the Mustangs will play every OUA playoff game at home and will receive a first-week playoff bye, which will help them rest up before their jourSOPHIE BOUQUILLON GAZETTE

P12

HOMECOMING ISSUE |

GO GREEN Note: The asterisks, or “stars”, are used to mark clues that are related to the puzzle’s theme. See entry 34-across for more details.

ACROSS 1. Fuel 4. It follows “Do Re Mi” 7. Texter’s “in truth” 10. Phrase meaning “to the stars” 12. Large Brazilian city, for short 13. * Colourful DC superhero 14. Shop clerk on “The Simpsons” 15. Watch closely 16. Uses a towel 18. One of the five senses 20. Quaint, quaintly 21. * What a gardener is said to have 23. A photographed subject may strike one 26. Longtime NCIS agent Leroy 29. _____ nous (secret) 31. Greek letter used to symbolize “change” 33. Small battery size 34. Have a positive environmental impact... or how to understand the starred entries 36. One of many for a smoker, for short 37. Had a hunch 38. Where trauma doctors work 39. Take five 40. Sneaky, like a fox

DOWN

1. Women 2. Change for the better?

3. Japanese electronics company 4. Bad odour 5. Bruins’ great Bobby 6. * Large northern territory owned by Denmark 7. Be behind 8. Human or kangaroo, for example 9. * Site for off-season farming 11. More stubby

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JEFFREY MARTINOVIC GAZETTE

17. Cops’ counterparts in a playground game 19. Embrace 22. Relatively high age bracket in youth sports 23. * Organization known for eco-activism 24. Live, as a TV show 25. Male deer

27. Give good fortune 28. Strong building material 30. * Food served alongside ham in a Dr. Seuss book 32. Child in “Toy Story” 35. “Yes” to a Francophone Hey Chase, don't you fly south for the winter?

Not any more, climate change is getting pretty serious

LANEY ARMSTRONG GAZETTE

Email your comics to managing@westerngazette.ca or come to UCC 263 and ask about volunteering for our graphics section!

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