SEA LEVEL RISE INFORMATION SESSION Workshop Summary

ecologyaction.ca

March 4th 1:00 – 4:00 PM Lunenburg School of the Arts 6 Prince St, Lunenburg, NS B0J 2C0

The goal of this workshop series is to get everyone on the same page about sea-level rise and get people with no prior knowledge of sea-level rise comfortable enough with the topic to start the conversation! We see value in bringing people of different sea-level rise backgrounds together to build each other up and establish local connections to work together as a more unified group to help tackle current and further threats around sea-level rise.

Over fifty-five people showed up from these various backgrounds. The majority who attended were concerned local residents from Lunenburg and neighboring communities. There were people who live along the coast, have family or friends who do, or commute on vulnerable coastal roads. There were a number of active citizens and local organizations and environmental groups, municipal council member from neighboring community, researchers, consultants, realtors and planning advisory committee members. Check in Question: What brought you here

• Information about what sea-level rise is and what we have to do to prepare? • Wants to learn about what needs to be done to catalyze action

o The province knows about the dangers of giving development permits along the coast, but it is still happening

• To learn about the dangers of investing on coastal properties

• Family involved in the fishing industry

• Coastal property owners and/or have family who own property along the coast.

• Involved in local research, organizations and consulting.

Mapping Activity: Identified sea-level impacts and vulnerable areas were added to our interactive map on the website (http://sealevelrise.ca/map.html).

SEA LEVEL RISE INFORMATION SESSION Workshop Summary

ecologyaction.ca

Discussion: • Confusion about RCP’s RCPS: Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are the temperature projections from low emission scenarios to high emission scenarios. The uncertainty and why we have the range of different scenarios is because we are trying to account for how we will behave. How we will deal with our GHG emissions is the reason there are so many different projections or scenarios. If we do not decrease our emissions, we are looking at the higher projections (the RCP 8.5 model or higher).

• The larger the amount of emissions we emit, the more likely we are to be on the high emission pathway.

• How we behave with GHG emissions will determine which path of sea-level rise we will follow - RCP 2.6, 4.5, 6, 8.5 or something more extreme!

4 main pathways: o RCP 2.6 (low) o RCP 4.5 o RCP 6 o RCP 8.5 (high) o + more extreme

SEA LEVEL RISE INFORMATION SESSION Workshop Summary

ecologyaction.ca

Discussion continued... • Action needs to be taken now – the municipalities either aren’t aware of the danger or

do not care. People are still receiving development permits to build on the coast o Engage the government directly – action needs to happen now

• Municipality of Chester has an interactive LiDAR map that has information available for our interactive map

• “Helping Nature Heal” Initiative Exercise #2: Areas of Interest Area of Interest #1: Tannery Road Could any of the handout tools apply to this situation

o Living shorelines o Coastal buffers o Coastal policy o Horizontal/Vertical setbacks o Relocate main road – behind the properties?

Barriers: What is standing the way of making change? o Tourism spot is valuable to the town (best photos of the waterfront!) o Town land – Town is talking about putting in a sidewalk there along the coast and

build a higher sea wall o Big planning challenge – no “small think” will work, the whole area is at risk

§ New Bluenose School, Abco Industries, Falkland and Broad Street Involvement:

o All levels of government (Town, Province of NS and Federal government) Area of Interest #2: Blue Rocks Could any of the handout tools apply to this situation

o Horizontal setback o Road should be relocated o Build a bridge over troublesome areas o Accommodate – allow blue rock to get cut off a bit like it used to be

Barriers: What is standing the way of making change? o Not much land to work with!

Involvement: o Experts – we need to know the costs and if there are long term solutions or we

should abandon o Blue Rocks community

Opportunity: o We have public land on which to move the road

Area of Interest #3: The Causeway & the island Could any of the handout tools apply to this situation

o RTT 332 – hardscaping or shoreline naturalization o Relocation o Secure portions of Corkums Island to Masons Beach Road

Barriers: What is standing the way of making change?

SEA LEVEL RISE INFORMATION SESSION Workshop Summary

ecologyaction.ca

o It is a big undertaking lots to consider Involvement:

o Experts – what is the cost and how feasible is it o Local residents and who will be impacted o The Town

Closing remarks from participants: • A lot of discussion needs to happen around mitigation instead of just adaptation

o We can’t just accept the worst case scenario • People don’t like to talk about SLR because it weakens property values

o We need to get the government on board and educate people that have this mentality

o Why are we still allowing people to build in vulnerable areas? Example: Rose Bay a house was built 5 years ago in a flood zone with approval?

• Consultations and conversations around SLR have already been happening, it would have been useful to have a summary about what is actually being done here in Nova Scotia

o Follow www.sealevelrise.ca as we continue to add local resources and tools from across Atlantic Canada and BC.

• Our council is not taking ownership for Climate Change Mitigation, these kinds of workshops could offer great opportunities to talk about things that each of us can do to not just adapt to climate change, but mitigate it

• We need to be more assertive on the behaviour changes o “Why aren’t our elected officials here?” o Lunenburg already knows most of what was talked about, they were ready to

talk about concrete next steps to take as a community. • Bluenose Coastal Action Foundation:

o Spoke about some local efforts o People are operating in their own little bubbles, duplicating efforts

• Frustration towards there not being any elected officials present o Officials should be using our money sparingly – investing in these non-

sustainable infrastructures shouldn’t happen o “Municipalities need to look at the larger picture”

§ Work has been done to inform officials, but nothing has followed § “The squeakiest wheel gets the grease”

• People need to continue contacting their local representatives – lobbying so they know that people care about this cause