Download Climate Change in our Backyard: A Multi

Climate Change in our Backyard: A Multi-­‐faith Symposium on Extreme Weather Resilience Purpose: A symposium to support faith-­‐based preparation for extreme weather emergencies in the GTA. Participants will learn about: •
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Expected GTA extreme weather impacts and our shared vulnerability Importance of faith based action to enhancing community resilience to extreme weather impacts Local community extreme weather emergencies resources for faith groups Date & Time: Thursday, October 1, 2015, 8:30am –3:00pm Location: Scarborough Civic Centre, 150 Borough Drive, Toronto ON M1P 4N7 (McCowan Road and Ellesmere Road) •
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Registration will take place in foyer outside Council Chambers. Symposium will take place in the Council Chambers. Morning refreshments & lunch will be served in Committee Room 1&2. Council Chamber’s Member’s Lounge will be designated as a prayer room. Agenda: •
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8:30 8:50 9:05 9:30 10:00 10:30 11:30 Registration Welcome, Mr. Zul Kassamali, Toronto Area Interfaith Council Opening Prayer, Ms. Fredelle Brief, Jewish/Muslim Dialogue Toronto Moderators, Mr. Muaz Nasir, Khaleafa.com & Rev. Dr. John Joseph Mastandrea, Metropolitan United Church Opening Remarks -­‐-­‐ The Hon. Glen Murray, MPP Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Interfaith Climate Adaptation Action -­‐-­‐ Rev. Dr. David Hallman, Former Climate Change Coordinator, World Council of Churches Coffee Break Exploring the Potential of a Multi-­‐faith Response to Extreme Weather in Toronto – Mr. David MacLeod, City of Toronto, Environment and Energy Division and Ms. Donna Lang, Toronto Coordinator, Faith & the Common Good Understanding Extreme Weather Vulnerability -­‐-­‐ Mr. Rich Whate, Toronto Public Health 1
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12:30 1:30 2:30 2:45 Lunch Break (Vegetarian) Building a Resilient City Through Outreach -­‐-­‐ Mr. Boris Rosolak, Toronto Office of Emergency Management Learning and Next Steps: A Wrap Up – Dr. Lucy Cummings, Faith & the Common Good Closing -­‐-­‐ Mr. Azim Shamshiev, Intercultural Dialogue Institute GTA Presenter Bios: (in order of appearance) Zul Kassamali has worked tirelessly to overcome prejudices and to right social injustices, not through angry words or retribution, but through positive action. He has over 40 plus years of solid experience in establishing, managing and working with not-­‐for-­‐ profit, interfaith and other community organizations, sitting on many boards, commissions and councils. He currently serves as president of the Toronto Area Interfaith Council, co-­‐chair of the RCMP Diversity Council, president of the Alliance for the Advancement of Pluralistic Societies (1NAAS), and in many other roles. He is the recipient of many awards including the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal, Premier of Ontario’s Community Service Award, and the Toronto Police Services Excellence Achievement Award. Fredelle Brief is active in the Jewish community and in interfaith work, where her passion for peace building has animated her work. She has worked professionally as a social worker, an environmental planner and a television executive (Director, Multifaith Programming, Vision TV). She has participated in interfaith dialogue and peace building all her adult life in many different positions, including Vice Chair of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Program Chair of the North American Interfaith network, and as President of the Work Conference on Religions and Peace / Canada. In 1998, she received the Canada Peace Medallion from the YMCA for her work in interfaith dialogue and peace building. She is an active member of the Jewish Muslim Dialogue and Center for Israel and Jewish affairs among other volunteer roles. She was also a founding member of the Refuge from the Storm project of the Toronto Area Interfaith Council. Muaz Nasir is the founder of Khaleafa.com, a website devoted to reigniting the discourse surrounding the Islamic approach to environmentalism from a Muslim-­‐Canadian perspective. Khaleafa’s successful ‘Green Khutbah Campaign’ encourages Muslim religious leaders to deliver a sermon to raise awareness on the environmental challenges facing humanity. The Rev. Dr. John Joseph Mastandrea became minister of spiritual growth and pastoral care development at Metropolitan United in 2000. He has Bachelor of Science, Master of Divinity and 2
Master of Religious Education degrees, all from the University of Toronto, and graduated from the Master of Ministry of Arts and Spirituality program at Regis College in 2004. John Joseph completed his Doctorate from Chicago Theological Seminary, May 2010. Ordained in 1989, he is a certified Spiritual Director following in the footsteps of Ignatius Loyola and Teresa of Avila. He has served congregations from the Maritimes, Saskatchewan, northern Ontario and rural Quebec to urban and suburban parts of the Greater Toronto Area. John Joseph's volunteer work for the church and community includes membership in the Toronto Area Interfaith Council, Police Chaplin to 51 Division, Membership in the Toronto Rotary and Chair of the World Aids Concert Committee a benefit for Casey House. Volunteer ministry has included positions as chairperson of the AIDS Committee of York Region since 1998 and member of the Pastoral Care Committee of York Central Hospital in Richmond Hill. He represented Canada as a delegate to the World Council of Churches in Geneva, Switzerland, in February 1990. The Hon. Glen Murray currently serves as Ontario’s Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. He has had a lifetime of activism in urban planning, sustainable development and community health. He served as mayor of Winnipeg from 1998-­‐2004. He is a founding member of the Canadian AIDS Society. At the University of Toronto, Murray was a Senior Resident at Massey College and a Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Design. Murray was also a Managing Partner of AuthentiCITY, a Toronto-­‐based urban sustainability consulting firm and served as president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute. He was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 2010 as the MPP for Toronto Centre. He was re-­‐elected in 2011 and 2014. The Rev. Dr. David G. Hallman grew up in Waterloo, ON, and studied community psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University and arts and culture at L’Université Paris-­‐Sorbonne. He worked for more than thirty years on the national staff of The United Church of Canada carrying a wide range of social justice responsibilities. Environmental ethics was the major component of his portfolio during his career. In addition to his work in Canada, he also served from 1988 to 2006 as the Co-­‐
ordinator of the World Council of Churches Climate Change Programme based in Geneva which involved him in UN global negotiations on climate change. David is the author and editor of many articles and books on ecological themes including A Place in Creation — Ecological Models in Science, Religion and Economics (UCPH 1992), Ecotheology -­‐ Voices from South and North (WCC/Orbis Books 1994 and reissued in 2008), Spiritual Values for Earth Community (WCC Books 2000 and reissued in 2011) and a major study paper on Climate Change and Poverty — Science, Theology, and Ethics (2005) for the National Religious Partnership on the Environment (USA). His most recent writing has been in the form of highly acclaimed novels, including August Farewell and Searching for Gilead. 3
David MacLeod is a Senior Environmental Specialist in the City of Toronto's Environment & Energy Division. That's the group of City staff responsible for: 1) Providing research and policy expertise on energy and environmental issues, including climate change; 2) Establishing partnerships with internal and external stakeholders; 3) Promoting environmental sustainability, energy efficiency and conservation within the City’s operations; and 4) Supporting our community in adopting sustainable lifestyle and business practices. David has been the staff lead on the issue of extreme weather risk management for the last nine years. He has been instrumental engaging infrastructure groups through the formation of the WeatherWise Partnership and its electrical sector adaptation project team. Current projects include climate change risk assessment and working with NGOs to establish community resilience hubs. David is also Toronto's representative on the Engineers Canada "Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee". He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Toronto – last year he taught a Masters level course on Urban Climate Change Adaptation. Prior to joining the City, for 17 years David was an environmental management consultant and Certified Environmental Auditor for over a dozen industry sectors across Canada. Donna Lang is the Toronto Coordinator for Greening Sacred Spaces, where she has helped over 200 faith communities in Toronto go green. She brings an entrepreneurial spirit and business sensibility to her work with Toronto area faith communities, which comes in handy when she is persuading faith based property managers and trustees of the financial and community benefits of energy efficient retrofits. Most recently, she has taken on the project lead role for Faith & the Common Good’s work promoting the role of diverse faith communities in helping their neighborhoods adapt to climate induced extreme weather events. Prior to Greening Sacred Spaces, she was a Senior Vice President at Forum Research Inc. for 10 years, where her area of practice was Customer Relationship Marketing and Measurement. She has been in the environmental not-­‐for-­‐
profit sector for 5 years and has worked with Evergreen and Environmental Defence. She has Bachelor of Arts in French and Journalism from Carleton University. Rich Whate is a Health Policy Specialist with Toronto Public Health (TPH). For over a decade with TPH, he has led and supported public policy development in environmental and health fields, covering issue areas such as pesticides, pollution prevention, climate change and tobacco control. Prior to joining the City of Toronto, Rich led campaigns for several local, regional and international environmental non-­‐governmental organizations. Boris Rosolak is an Emergency Management Coordinator with the City of Toronto for the past 7 years. Prior to that Boris was a Manager in the City's Shelter Support and Housing Administration Division for 20 years the majority of which was at Seaton House Men's Shelter. He graduated from St Michael's College in 1985 and 30 years later earned a Diploma in Public Administration from the University of Western Ontario. 4
Lucy Cummings is the Executive Director of Faith & the Common Good, where she helps Canada’s diverse faith communities contribute to greener, healthier, more resilient neighborhoods. Previously, she taught global sustainability politics at the University of Hong Kong and lead Seacology UK, a UK-­‐based non-­‐profit group devoted to community-­‐based island biodiversity protection. A proud new Canadian, she grew up in the US and spent much of her professional life in greater China. She earned her BA in economics (Univ. of Va), an MA in religious ethics (Yale), and a PhD in global politics (Johns Hopkins U). Azim Shamshiev was born and raised in Uzbekistan, where he earned his undergraduate degree in regional economics from the National University of Uzbekistan. In 2003, he received full scholarship from the Central European University in Hungary to undertake his master’s education in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy. Upon earning his MSc degree, he stayed with the same department for his doctoral studies. His research explores the link between Sufi thought and environmental ethics. In 2008, Azim migrated to Canada where he continued working on his doctoral research. He has also been actively involved as volunteer with the Intercultural Dialogue Institute which is a non-­‐ profit organization promoting intercultural and interfaith dialogue among individuals and communities. In 2012, he was appointed to the staff of the organization as co-­‐director for the Greater Toronto Area. Heartfelt thanks to all of today’s speakers, moderators and volunteers! Organizing Partners: Faith & the Common Good, Intercultural Dialogue Institute GTA, Toronto Area Interfaith Council, Green Awakening Network 5