Climate change is poised to worsen the refugee crisis badly as people flee floods and fires, as life becomes untenable in places with prolonged droughts, and rising seas swallow low-lying islands.

The suffering of vulnerable people has not always received much attention from the environmental community.

Instead, there’s a disturbing history of people being displaced in creating parks and protected areas.

As we seek a future in which people and nature coexist harmoniously, today we’ll delve into the refugee crisis and the systems we have in place to resettle refugees from someone who has experienced these firsthand.

A key theme in today’s conversation—this season’s last episode—is community. Understanding the community in the refugee system will help us welcome refugees warmly and without backlash. It also offers insights into how we might build a community to effect the system change necessary to combat the climate and ecological crisis.

If you want to support the refugee community in BC, donate or volunteer at mosaicbc.org or other local refugee organizations.

The path to sustainable futures is one that overcomes polarization, not just about the climate crisis and solutions to it, but all manner of things. We can’t change systems to work for people and the planet if we’re deeply divided and fighting about the most basic issues.

Our guest believes, and shows, that art and effective communication are key to overcoming divides, that they offer a path to empathy, and that if we can laugh together and cry together, we can work together.

But neither art nor communication is intrinsically powerful. They are only powerful in the context of our audience, and the relationship we build with them. So today’s themes are diversity, listening, actually hearing people, and building relationships.

Maia joins as well virtually due to a case of covid at the time!

Self-sacrifice: We tend to celebrate it. But when celebrating self-sacrifice becomes a culture of overworking for the sake of one’s employer and one’s own career, as if that’s heroic, the economy seems to grow, but people suffer. Families suffer. And the planet suffers.

When we overwork, we often lose sight of what really matters. We’re too busy for key relationships or being good citizens. We overspend, and that fuels a cycle of resource extraction and production that pollutes the planet, warms the climate, and degrades nature. Join Dr. Chan in talking with Derek Strokon!