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Housing: The housing crises is a humanitarian issue, grounded in unsustainable, inequitable and unjust social-economic systems. It reflects the increasing gap between the rich and the poor; it is an example of the consequences of an economic system that prioritizes growth and profit over people and environment. We need to adopt full-cost accounting measures that expand economic considerations to include long-term and so-called externalized costs and benefits. At the same time, we need programs to quickly establish low-cost, energy-efficient, well-sited housing options, in consultation with those most in need.
Transportation: This is the second highest contributor to the climate crisis. We need to reduce dependence on fossil-fuel powered vehicles. Initiatives are urgently needed to increase the extent, efficiency, efficacy, and affordability of public transport systems, such that using public transit is preferable to dealing with traffic, parking, and owning a vehicle. As an example of an initiative to reduce fossil-fuel dependence, the Ecology Action Centre’s call to electrify school buses is very supportable. Reducing emissions also supports better health outcomes, especially for school children.
On-going development issues: Well-planned developments are essential for a livable healthy environment. New developments should retain and restore natural land cover (parks, trails, urban forest); provide equitable access to nature for mental and physical well-being, air purification, and carbon sequestration; and include nature-based solutions to climate and biodiversity crises. Development is important but needs to be well planned to maintain and restore a network of connected green spaces throughout the city, for people and nature.
Healthcare: While attention to emergency and critical care is necessary, a shift is needed to also focus on “wellness” outcomes, to reduce the need for health “care” or “cure.” “Healthy-city-healthy-people” approaches provide ways to improve health outcomes by addressing housing, transportation, built environment, and nature-based solutions in ways that also serve to foster equitable access to nature, enhance life-supporting ecosystem services, and confront underlying causes of illness.
Two types of legislation that I would strive to enact are the Coastal Protection Act and Bill of Environmental Rights and Responsibilities.
The Coastal Protection Act - It is crucial to immediate and long-term protection and management of the coast, both for ecosystems and human communities. Climate and associated changes (e.g., sea-level rise, storm surges, erosion, flooding, increasing storm intensity and frequency) require that we undertake a coordinated province-wide strategy to adapt to and mitigate these changes in ways that are effective and equitable. Roads and other built developments will need to be relocated further inland or otherwise raised up. These relocations and adjustments will need to be made in ways that do not further jeopardize key ecosystems, such as those that support endangered species and habitats, and those that provide key ecosystem services, such as buffering the coast from storm surges and erosion, reducing runoff and flooding, and storing and sequestering carbon. Such coastal protection responses also need to be done in ways that are socially equitable and do not further disadvantage those groups that are often excluded from decision making or bear a disproportionate share of the burden of environmental disasters. The provincial government needs to take a lead role and provide the necessary legal and policy framework to take on this complex task in a highly coordinated manner.
Bill of Environmental Rights and Responsibilities - I am fully supportive of the Bill of Environmental Rights and Responsibilities proposed by East Coast Environmental Law and others. Progressive jurisdictions around the world and in Canada have implemented similar legislation. If enacted, it would enshrine the rights of all people to a healthy environment. It would provide a way for people and communities to hold government to account for things like exposure to levels of pollutants in the air, water, or land that endanger their health. This umbrella legislation would help support other existing and proposed legislation such as the Endangered Species Act Environment Act, and Coastal Protection Act. It would make the provincial government legally responsible for protecting the environment for present and future generations, while respecting and upholding the rights of Indigenous peoples.
Affordability
Public transit
Karen Beazley's promises
Climate Change & the Environment
Carbon price
Karen Beazley's promise
Climate adaptation
Karen Beazley's promises
Natural forests and wetlands are crucial to carbon storage and sequestration. They are needed to offset historical carbon emissions, and to reduce current and future emissions that would occur with their disturbance, conversion, or use as fuel.
Retention and restoration of natural areas are core aspects of enabling wildlife and ecosystems to adapt to climate changes, such as by providing avenues for them to shift to cooler places as the climate warms.
Nature-based solutions are key to addressing both climate and biodiversity emergencies, as well as supporting human well-being, ecosystem services, and our ecological life-supporting system.
Adaptation responses need to be done in ways that are socially equitable and do not further disadvantage those groups that are often excluded from decision making or bear a disproportionate share of the burden of environmental disasters.
The provincial government needs to take a lead role and provide the necessary legal and policy framework to take on this complex task in a highly coordinated manner.
Climate and associated changes (e.g., sea-level rise, storm surges, erosion, flooding, increasing storm intensity and frequency) require that we undertake a coordinated province-wide strategy to adapt to and mitigate these changes in ways that are effective and equitable.
Roads and other built developments will need to be relocated further inland or otherwise raised up. These relocations and adjustments will need to be made in ways that do not further jeopardize key ecosystems, such as those that support endangered species and habitats, and those that provide key ecosystem services.
Key natural areas that buffer the coast from storm surges and erosion, reduce runoff and flooding, and store and sequester carbon need to be protected .
Conservation and environmental protection
Karen Beazley's promises
Electric vehicles
Karen Beazley's promises
Forests and forest conservation
Karen Beazley's promises
- Collaborate with researchers and the forestry industry to develop more sustainable forestry practices.
- Support measures to ensure the legislated elimination of clearcutting forestry practices.
- Support facilitation of best practices silviculture on public and private land forestry and for old-forest restoration.
- Urge legislation preventing toxic agents, such as glyphosate, from being applied to fields and forests.
- Urge legislation preventing the use of forest biomass for the purpose of electricity generation both domestically and abroad.
- Require both survey-based and molecular-based assessments of forest health and monitoring of invasive or destructive species.
Green construction and retrofits
Karen Beazley's promises
Oil and gas development
Karen Beazley's promise
Pollution
Karen Beazley's promises
Public transit
Karen Beazley's promises
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions
Karen Beazley's promises
Walkable, bikable communities
Karen Beazley's promises
Water and watersheds
Karen Beazley's promises
Wildfires
Karen Beazley's promise
Education about human roles and responsibilities surrounding wildfire, its causes, and preventive measures is key. Development, monitoring, and enforcement of policies to address causes and support preventive measures are needed.
Jobs, Businesses, & Labour
Oil and gas development
Karen Beazley's promise
Biography
Throughout my career, I have been engaged in numerous professional, community, and volunteer organizations. For 15 years I chaired Nova Scotia’s Land Legacy Trust, which has provided game-changing matching funding support to land trusts to protect private lands of ecological significance. I have twice served on Recovery Planning Teams for species at risk in Nova Scotia. I have helped organize international conferences, and provided guidance to Parks Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, most recently for Canada’s National Ecological Corridors Program.
My interests have always focused on the inter-relationships between humans and our environment. Primarily I have centered on wildlife and natural ecosystems and our responsibilities as humans to think and act in ways that recognize that we are all related. The biological diversity that makes up ecological systems comprises our life-support system. My work has explored and advocated for ways to live in co-existence, for the benefit of all, both people and nature. I have focused on nature-based approaches to address both the climate and biodiversity crises in socially just ways.
I have always enjoyed outdoor activities, especially backcountry camping, canoeing, hiking, and sea kayaking. I have done a lot of long-distance running, swimming and biking, including the Boston Marathon, and competing for Team Canada in international triathlon and duathlon competitions, earning an award of excellence and a bronze medal for Canada in 2013.
Reason for running
At this point, we are essentially and literally talking about the survival of people and the planet as we know it. We are now near or beyond the tipping point of collapse of major planetary systems (i.e., climate; biodiversity). We need to work together to turn this ship around, for the good of people and the plant.
I have a lifetime of lived experience, skills, and knowledge across these domains. I am now retired, with time to serve in a different way towards creating and supporting these crucial changes towards a more sustainable and equitable future.
Vote for me, vote Green, because we need to transform social, economic and political systems in fundamental ways to address the interrelated climate, biodiversity, and humanitarian emergencies. The necessary transformative shift will only come about by thinking and acting differently than the status quo.
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