Municipalities and Communities Acting on Climate is a multi year SSHRC funded research project co-led by Dr. Sheena Wilson (University of Alberta) and Dr. Janice Makokis (York University).
The research aim of MCAC is to investigate the relationship between climate work and climate emotions. How do those working at the front lines of climate action (at municipal, organizational, and activist levels) feel about their work? Where do they find hope? what impedes them? How do they build resilience? This project is an Alberta based brand of the larger research initiative IMPACT, funded by New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF), which seeks to interrogate the link between the climate crisis and mental health, and has teams internationally with diverse focuses such as Black and 2SLGBTQIA+ farmers in Canada, small island populations in Polynesia, fishing communities in Mexico, and Canadian youth. MCAC will conduct one-on-one research interviews on City of Edmonton employees tasked with climate resiliency and energy transition at the municipal level, and Indigenous organizations and activists working for climate justice. Research in the field of Climate and Health is growing, and emerging field of climate and mental health studies is an important part of that research conversation. MCAC will contribute valuable insight to this research by interviewing those individuals who live and work day in and day out on these important issues. Based in Alberta at the Canadian epicentre of oil production, where climate events like fire, smoke, drought, and flood threaten and displace the traditions and ways of living of indigenous Nations, MCAC will contribute valuable insight to this research by interviewing those individuals who live with, and work on, these realities day in and day out. Through our interview-based research, we hope to spotlight the mental and emotional toll climate action takes on individuals in this field and the tools of resilience that exist now and those that are greatly needed.