Do you remember when you were a kid not having a care in the world... or about the planet? It probably never even crossed your mind. Has that now shifted for you because of climate change?

Forest fires, droughts, floods, extreme weather events... everywhere you look there are stories about how climate change is wreaking havoc on our planet and the urgency for us to collectively do something to intervene. But is that even possible?

When all this negative messaging bombards us on a daily basis, it just makes us want to climb under the covers and try to ignore the outside world. While this may be our first reaction to the seemingly overwhelming seriousness of the situation, we at Ecologos want to help you move beyond your natural, instinctive reaction and toward a more positive mindset in practical ways. Our programs will uplift and inspire you to be part of the solution and demonstrate that there are many positive solutions happening all around us right now and so many more opportunities and ways for you to be part of the solutions by taking action too. 

in collaboration

Multiple Audiences
Multiple Delivery Platforms

A unique multi-year project to promote climate solutions, shape public opinion, and accelerate positive actions that support the climate protection movement.

Research shows that two-thirds of society who believe global warming is real and dangerous are doing very little about it in their daily lives. Why is that? We don’t feel empowered to act.

Be inspired by viable solutions presented through the Water Docs Film Festival, Community Town Hall Meetings, Lesson Plans for Students, an interactive website, and an engaging social media campaign. Be intrigued by promising technical innovations designed to dramatically reduce emissions. And take part in the many ways we as individuals can have an impact in the creation of a sustainable future - in our lifetimes and for future generations.

Goal

Our goal is to educate, enlighten, and engage communities to support positive change in government and industry and everyday life, resulting in a significant emissions reduction, through each of our audiences.

Audiences

Designed to enhance any communications environment that it is part of, our campaign video will be an effective tool to engage our audiences and move them toward action.

:: Film Festival and Film Screening Events
Film Festivals represent a huge market worldwide and Ecologos/Water Docs knows firsthand from 10 years of producing the Water Docs Film Festival in Toronto that through film and the arts, we can have a profound effect on viewers… and affect change. The Water Docs Film Festival’s theme this year is #LaterNoMore: Activating Climate Solutions Now! and film festivals across Canada will be invited to support the event.

Individual film screening opportunities will be available to community groups and organizations after the launch of the 2023 Water Docs Film
Festival later this year.

:: Community Town Hall Meetings
Another strategic vehicle for reaching large numbers is to inspire several volunteer groups and organizations across Ontario to produce #LaterNoMore Town Hall Meetings in their own communities. A typical Community Town Hall Meeting is a social occasion that takes place in a local venue and/or online, works its way through a themed documentary film, the #LaterNoMore campaign video, a facilitated discussion, and connections to real local action.

Town Hall Meetings will be marketed through national networks that reach into the community level – such as the Canadian Library Association, the Canadian Association of Community Foundations, and the CAN-Rac network of 160 environmental NGOs.

:: Lesson Plans for Students will be created for students aged 12 to 18. These will build on the amazing 9-year collaboration with Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) which has already engaged 7,000+ students in a dynamic annual 8-month program called Water Docs at School Action Projects. Our #LaterNoMore campaign video will form the backbone of Lesson Plans to foster hands-on action and filmmaking projects by students at the secondary level and will be marketed online to LSF’s 5000-teacher database across Canada.

:: #LaterNoMore Online Campaign
Online networks will be courted through an interactive website and an aggressively marketed social media campaign. Creativity in programming and design will serve the essential purposes of the whole project. An online archive of supporting information will evolve through ongoing participation by users, similar to Wikipedia, and in collaboration with our partners, DRAWDOWN Toronto.

Let's work through this together

We are in the most critical race humanity has ever faced – to protect and restore the earth’s atmosphere sufficiently to maintain and support a reasonable future for all living beings.

We know there are ways to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. Today we already have solutions to reduce the emissions of carbon, methane, and refrigerants, but we are not employing these conditions at scale. Some of the best ways are nature’s carbon sinks, like bodies of water, forests, living soil, and wetlands. Unfortunately, these are all severely under attack by the three Ps – pollution, poisoning, and pavement.

In order to stop, and indeed reverse global warming, we must work in three connected areas: supporting nature’s carbon sinks, reducing sources of emissions, and building a just and inclusive society for all.

We are in the make-or-break decade where we can scale up actions to make a significant difference. As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put in their Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C: Every bit of warming matters. Every year matters. Every choice matters.

A Strategy That Makes Sense

Research says that the six top emission sources are energy production, food and agriculture, the destruction of natural carbon sinks, carbon-driven transportation, the heating and cooling of buildings, and our manufacturing techniques. These areas are all locked in dangerous practices that were designed in a previous era.

Many promising developments are emerging in all six problem areas to stabilize and then begin to lower emissions. Ultimately, these need broad-based public buy-in as well as policy support if we are to realize their critically important potential. The #LaterNoMore campaign therefore, aims to win over large numbers of people – especially from the two-thirds who know climate change is real but do little about it. The #LaterNoMore strategy is to convert as many as possible from that group of concerned onlookers into active reformers.

This #LaterNoMore strategy is fresh and promising. It is an innovative and powerful form of communication to contribute to and grow the climate protection movement.

COORDINATING PARTNERS: