Hank's Story of Change

Regular people — people like you and me — are taking daily actions that help reduce our impact on climate change. These are the things that are being done right now. These are the things we want to highlight. This is Hank’s story.

We bought a hybrid car in 2005 and we're still driving the same car, reducing the emissions used to manufacture a new car. My wife and I share one car, and I commute to work by bicycle year-round, only taking the bus the rare times the weather doesn't allow me to take the bicycle. I've been doing this for twenty years or so.

Photo: studded tires on Hank’s bike

We recently bought solar modules with a little help from the Government of Alberta and City of Edmonton rebates. We actually use very little electricity anyway.

We hang our clothes outside to dry and have a rack in our basement for winter-time. I believe the clothes dryer is one of the biggest consumers of electricity in a typical household, next to the fridge and freezer, so we save a lot of electricity that way.

We have installed LED lights, a high efficiency furnace, and rain barrels to help us water the garden. In saying this, promoting stories is great but we need to emphasize that governments need to do more.

We have very little lawn. Most of our yard is fruit trees and bushes, herbs and garden. We grow a lot of our own food. Regarding garden space, the city needs to do much more to make public garden spaces available and we need to see much more renewable energy being used by all levels of government.

Not everyone has the physical ability to cycle as I do, so public transportation in the city needs to be affordable. Let's hear some concrete steps governments are willing to do, and let's spend public money to get us all involved.

This post was submitted by Hank Binnema, an Edmonton community member. If you live in Edmonton and have a climate change story to tell, let us know! Your story could be shared here too.