You might think that you have to be a catchy slogan writer or a PhD in atmospheric science to be an effective champion for the climate but this just isn’t so.
Laurence Letarte-Préfontaine and her friend Vanja Lugonjic are in the news for designing and producing “a card game to allow players to have honest and hopeful conversations about their relationship with nature and the climate and to choose actions to protect it.”
Letarte-Préfontaine, who is just 28 years old, says that the idea for the Connect Deck Climate Change grew out of her participation in the Ocean Wise’s Ocean Bridge program in which, along “with 25 other young people, we went to a small community in northern Quebec to learn more about climate change and the oceans from scientists and Indigenous people. Then we attended online events and seminars for five months.” Participants were expected to come up with a project to help with the climate crisis and the seed of the Connect Deck Climate Change was planted.
Letarte-Préfontaine concludes the interview by saying:
“I had no background in the climate justice movement or in anything related to this project. But people are willing to help and opportunities for finding a community of support do exist if you are open to them.”
She also reveals that she has left her corporate job “to take some time to discern how I can apply my data management, analytics and math skills to work on climate change. I am learning that being engaged is a path to resilience.”
How might you use your special skill set to work on climate change? Maybe you could be that ‘community of support’ for someone – young, old or in between – in your town or city that just needs a bit of encouragement or helping hand to fulfill their potential and serve as the catalyst for community-wide action.
Subscribe to The Daily Difference by The Carbon Almanac HERE.
