Climate Disaster Project

12/07/2024

“There are days when the school closes because the children don’t have water to drink, and when women have to go down to the Itacarambi River to wash clothes and bathe.

We’re living through a drought that has lasted more than 10 years. There is very little rain. It’s not the fault of the Xakriabá. It’s the fault of the big businessmen, whose only thought is to destroy the land. The earth is dying because man himself is killing it.

Our children believe they could die of thirst at any moment. Many young people think about committing su***de. Our dream was to get back at least a little piece of our river, the São Francisco, to try to bring the water from there to at least part of the reserve.

We hope that Tupã has never died and never will. And that he can still make the weather better. But man needs to do his part, to stop so much deforestation, to stop the war, to stop killing the innocent, because in Brazil, it’s the Black and Indigenous people who die most often, because they’re innocent.”

- Xakriabá leader José Fiuza Xakriabá, Xakriabá Indigenous territory drought, as told to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s Alexandre Caetano

Read more about José's climate disaster experience as part of The Guardian’s This is Climate Breakdown series (The Guardian Photo/Chris de Beer-Procter)

11/23/2024

“When we built the house in 1978, we couldn’t see the sea. We never imagined that one day it would reach our house. It was so painful to see my house being destroyed gradually.

We installed fencing, with large metal sheets, to slow it down. My bedroom, which was closest to the sea, had a huge crack in the wall from leaks. When the fencing was touching the house, we had no choice left.

We had a small house in the back, where the housekeeper used to live. I moved in there. Then I had to leave because lots of sand started coming in.

It’s not the material goods I felt I lost, but rather the moments I had in that house. You can’t rebuild that context elsewhere.

We thought that some erosion control could be carried out, like has been done in other states and cities. But, in a way, we know that it’s our fault, as human beings, because we don’t take care of the environment as we should.”

- Retiree Sônia Ferreira, Rio de Janeiro coastal erosion, as told to the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro’s Júlia Mendes

Read more about Sônia's climate disaster experience as part of The Guardian’s This is Climate Breakdown series (CDP Photo/Thiago Freitas)

11/18/2024

“I remember screaming in the middle of my yard the next morning: ‘Would it just stop fu***ng raining!?’ So much happened in the middle. It was like doomsday.

I knew early on something wasn’t right. All day long it had thundered. It started raining so hard. You wouldn’t even have a break between thunder and lightning. You would see lightning and thunder at the exact same moments

I touched base with Chris, Colton’s dad. He had just picked Colton up. I don’t know why but I begged him to spend the night at my house. I was like: ‘Please just turn around. Can you just please spend the night and watch Colton at my house?’

Chris touched base with me and was like: ‘We’re going to go to bed.’ I was in the mind frame of: ‘OK, they’re sleeping, they’re fine.’ I got my one client to sleep by 12.30 a.m. I had been scrolling Facebook and seen they were calling for an emergency alert on the scanner.

I remember hearing: ‘I need that emergency alert! I needed it a half-hour ago!’ My other client got up just as I heard there was massive flooding. I was like: I’ll just take care of her and then I’ll call Chris. It took me 15 minutes, and 15 minutes is what he says he needed.

I called him at 2.28am. He answered the phone. I think he said ‘sh*t.’ He was touching water when he put his feet over the bed and got up. He went to the side door and flicked on the porch light. He watched the shed float by the door as I was on the phone with him.

I told him, ‘Call 911.’ I called my dad, told him Chris was in trouble, that Chris was going to try and get to his mother’s and call me. That was a call I never got.”

- Care worker Tera Sisco, 2023 Nova Scotia floods, as told to the University of Victoria’s Sean Holman

Read more about Tera's climate disaster experience as part of The Guardian’s This is Climate Breakdown series (Guardian Photo/Darren Calabrese)

11/11/2024

Today is the start of the twenty-ninth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. World leaders are gathering in Baku, Azerbaijan to negotiate how to protect lives and livelihoods from the worsening impacts of climate change.

That’s why we’re honoured to have partnered with climate disaster survivors around the world and the to help make sure survivor voices are heard during those negotiations and the global news media’s coverage of them - to help make sure their experience and knowledge matters.

Between now and the conclusion of COP29, The Guardian will be publishing eight testimonies the Climate Disaster Project has co-created with survivors across five continents.

10/01/2024

"The focus of the production is not tragedy, it's humanity. And the ethos of Eyes of the Beast is not shock. It's empathy," writes The Martlet's Brianna Bock about Neworld Theatre's documentary play, based on the award-winning journalism of the Climate Disaster Project. Thanks so much for seeing us Brianna.

09/30/2024

"It’s an innovative format for climate journalism, which is more comfortable in the realm of maps, charts, statistics and traditional narrative storytelling. By artfully recompiling survivors’ testimonies and weaving them together, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts," writes Jimmy Thomson, the managing editor of Canada's National Observer, about Neworld Theatre's Eyes of the Beast which just closed a week long performance at the Victoria's Phoenix Theatre. Follow this page for news about future performances of the play, based on the award-winning journalism of the Climate Disaster Project.

09/20/2024

“A massive and monumentally important undertaking.” That’s how Times Colonist arts and entertainment reporter Mike Devlin describes Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Survivor Stories, making it one of his critic’s picks for this week. There’s still time to see the play, which runs till Saturday at Victoria’s Phoenix Theatre and shares true life stories of loss and hope from British Columbia’s extreme heat, fires, and floods. Ticket are available at the box office or via at phone 250-721-8000.

09/18/2024

09/16/2024

"Play tells stories of those affected by disasters linked to climate change." And we're having the world premiere of that play tonight (!!!), bringing to the stage true life stories of resilience in the face of extreme heat, flooding, and fire. The performance, a Neworld Theatre production sponsored by CBC, runs from September 16-21. Tickets can still be reserved at the University of Victoria's Phoenix Theatre.

https://finearts.uvic.ca/theatre/mainstage/2024-2025-mainstage-season/eyes-of-the-beast/

09/13/2024

“A theatrical production on climate disaster offers healing, hope and a bold vision for the future.” Yup, that’s what we’re doing next week at Victoria’s Phoenix Theatre, from September 16-21!!!

09/12/2024

Some of Vancouver Island’s most prominent politicians will be showing solidarity with disaster survivors and speaking about what can be done to protect their communities at the world premiere of a groundbreaking theatre production about British Columbia’s extreme heat, fires, and floods.

Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Stories, showing from September 16-21 at the Phoenix Theatre in Victoria, brings to the stage true life stories of loss, hope, and resilience from across the province.

At each performance, a voice from local, progressive, or conservative politics has been invited to listen to those stories and the audience’s response to them.

Those political leaders will then share their own thoughts about the impact of climate disasters on the province and how we can survive them together. They include:

* former BC Liberal cabinet minister George Abbott (Sept. 16);
* Minister of Tourism Arts, Culture, and Sport Lana Popham (Sept. 17);
* BC Conservative Nanaimo-Lantzville candidate and former NDP MLA Gwen O'Mahony, MBA, MScIB (Sept. 18);
* BC Green Leader Sonia Furstenau (Sept. 20);
* BC Conservative Oak Bay-Gordon Head candidate and former Victoria city councillor Stephen Andrew (Sept. 21, matinee)
* Mayor Saanich Dean Murdock (Sept. 21).

Eyes of the Beast, produced by the internationally renowned Neworld Theatre, is based upon on-the-ground reporting from the University of Victoria’s award-winning Climate Disaster Project.

The first full-length documentary play of its kind, it paints a portrait of ordinary people living in extraordinary times—and the communities of neighbours, friends, and families who have helped them.

Tickets are going fast so reserve yours by following the link.

https://finearts.uvic.ca/theatre/mainstage/2024-2025-mainstage-season/eyes-of-the-beast/

09/06/2024

The true-life stories of people coming together during British Columbia’s recent climate disasters are being brought to the stage by internationally-renowned Neworld Theatre.

Eyes of the Beast: Climate Disaster Survivor Stories is the first documentary theatre production based on frontline climate disaster reporting, following the lives of ordinary people impacted by the extraordinary heat waves, fires, and floods of 2021.

That award-winning, trauma-informed reporting was conducted by students participating in the Climate Disaster Project, a teaching newsroom works with disaster-impacted people to share their stories.

The show, which paints a portrait of a province under pressure from a warming planet, will have its world premiere at the University of Victoria's Phoenix Theatre from September 16-21.

Tickets are going fast so reserve yours now by following the link.

https://finearts.uvic.ca/theatre/mainstage/2024-2025-mainstage-season/eyes-of-the-beast/

08/30/2024

“My co-workers and I would text each other in the mornings like, 'Are we even allowed to be working? Should we even open? Because this isn’t safe for any of us. It’s not safe for the customers.'

In the more severe times, we would take cloths to our arms and legs, and just see the ashes come off, even if we had been outside for an hour. The ashes feel weird and gritty. You just feel so dirty, and want to wipe it all off as fast as you can.

In 2017, I had bilateral pneumonia, which may have been caused by the B.C. wildfires. With that, the fires this summer affected my lungs. They were just very sore and I was coughing a lot. But aside from my health, it’s very overall anxiety inducing.

When we were kids, “If you had to pack up and you could save three items, what would they be?” used to be an icebreaker question, but now it’s a genuine possibility.

It’s just coming to terms with the fact that the world is not the same when we were young. Temperatures are rising, trees are burning, people gotta leave, and it could be us next.”

-student Kennedy Halwa, as told to the University of Victoria's Melody Powers

Read more about Kennedy Halwa’s climate disaster experience at the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

08/26/2024

“Screaming red skies. The orange sky was the worst one because your phone filters it out when you try to take a photo of it. You're sitting there, and you're trying to take a photo of it, and your phone's telling you it's not there.

The sky is red, angry, and apocalyptic, and your phone doesn't want to take a photo of it. That was so surreal because I can't even share what I'm in.

I think that I'm going to have a different attitude to forest fires now. I've always been very blasé about them because I'm from the north. We can handle them. Now after having been through that experience, I think I'm going to be more wary, especially about how fast they can get out of control.

I think what brings me hope for the future is I know so many people who are part of that evacuation who have that righteous anger: the anger to change, the anger to make things better.”

-Luke James, park interpreter, Wood Buffalo Complex fire, 2023, as told to the University of Victoria’s Haida Davies-McDermott

Read more about Luke James’s climate disaster experience in Cabin Radio NWT.

08/18/2024

“I was just sitting at home with my dog, enjoying my time. It was a Sunday, so us as a business were closed. Word was getting around that something was going on, without anything being publicly announced yet.

It's starting to get pretty smoky and dark. The sun should be out, it should be clear blue skies. It was starting to look like nighttime in the middle of the day. About 2:30 p.m., 3:00 p.m. is when the actual evacuation went out on the phones.

You don't know what to pack, how long are you going to be gone for. I was able to finally start leaving here a couple of hours after the initial public evacuation.

By that time, the sky's red, dark, smoky, almost like a big glow. There's ashes, stuff falling around your vehicle, on your vehicle. You smell nothing but smoke: like when you're standing by a fire and the smoke's getting in your face and you say white rabbit. It was just ash and fire.

I don't know how many more disasters our little town can go through up here.”

-store manager Cody Townend, Hay River/K’átł’odeeche/Kakisa fire, 2023, as told to the University of Victoria's Linnea Burke

Read more about store manager Cody Townend’s climate disaster experience in Cabin Radio NWT.

08/16/2024

“Our roommate’s family invited us to evacuate to their cottage on an island in Great Slave Lake. I heard your animals have to be in a crate to fly out. I heard your animals have to be in a crate to fly out. I have six dogs and I do not have six crates. I am not leaving my dogs. We had to change our plan to driving south.

On the drive down, we went through Enterprise. Something like 85 percent of the town was destroyed. I remember feeling sick to my stomach: seeing power lines on the ground, smoke still coming up from the ground. That's seared into my mind.

I posted on social media asking if someone was interested in sharing a four-bedroom cabin. A friend of mine had seen that. She had a friend of a friend who had an RV in Beaumont, Alberta that they were willing to have us stay in for the duration of the evacuation.

What a lifesaver. Their property had a big yard, fenced-in because they had dogs. It was perfect. The family who welcomed us into their RV, their property, they're pretty special people. I'm surprised how emotional I'm getting, talking about those little kindnesses.

You think, ‘Oh yes, it's done and over,’ but no. You put it into a little compartment, open it up again, and the memories come back.”

-librarian Aingeal Stone, Behchoko/Yellowknife fire, 2023, as told to the University of Victoria L.J. Weisberg

Read more about librarian Aingeal Stone’s climate disaster experience in Cabin Radio NWT.

08/15/2024

"It was definitely my brother who pushed for us to start heading out. We left the next day. I remember putting the sign up that the restaurant would be closed until further notice and my family and I packing up the car.

There wasn't a whole lot of instruction. At the time, the evacuation hadn't been called yet. I think it was called later that evening, but already, so many people were leaving. It felt informal.

People were seeing the fire moving quickly relatively close to the city and taking it upon themselves to organize. Others were still questioning if they had to leave or not. The highway was full and there were long waiting periods.

Yellowknife felt like a safe place and people never imagined a climate disaster happening there because there's no threat of flooding or earthquakes or other major disasters. After this year, it's become a reality that, at any point, people aren't safe from the wildfires and it's going to happen again.

Yellowknife is home, it's the people who make it home, so just being able to lean into others during that period really helped it feel tolerable."

-student Branda Le, Behchoko/Yellowknife fire, 2023, as told to the University of Victoria's Sophie Peters

Read more about student Branda Le’s climate disaster experience in Cabin Radio NWT.