Lisa Brideau
On May 22, 2025, as part of Biodiversity Days, UBC Botanical Garden will host a unique, community-facing research forum. This forum will provide an opportunity for a diversity of concerned citizens and community leaders to come together with local researchers to discuss and constructively imagine what a climate-changed future might look and feel like, and how we might best prepare for it.
You might expect that the most disturbing aspect of Lisa Brideau’s novel Adrift—a thriller which takes place on the west coast of a climate-changed BC, in 2035—would be the catastrophic storm which hits Vancouver Island during the book’s penultimate scenes. Battering Nanaimo with gale-force winds and a deluge of rain that quickly floods the streets, it uproots trees, shatters windows and destroys nearly every boat in the harbour. But for me, it was the smaller details in the novel that affected me most deeply. Consider, for example, this excerpt, in which two of the main characters walk through the streets of Nanaimo (before the storm):
Hito steered them onto a tidy street lined with shops, with wide sidewalks and the occasional mature tree. He noticed Ess looking at the stumps of the many missing trees.
“Our downtown street trees took a hit during the Japanese beetle infestation when it came up from Oregon years ago. Entire blocks of trees were wiped out downtown… The dead trees here were a hazard, so the city cut them down. Only recently started planting replacements.”
“It must have been so lovely before,” Ess said, stopping under a survivor, the cool shade of its canopy a welcome gift. Hito glanced up, like he hadn’t properly appreciated it in a long time…
“You know what I miss?” Hito asked. “Birds. I remember birds chirping on this street when I was a kid. I mean, they were loud enough to hear over the gas cars spewing fumes. Now”—he paused to listen—“nothing. You have to go to the woods to hear birds, can’t just stand in a street and enjoy birdsong anymore.”
Alongside references to shrinking coastlines, the swelling of migrant populations and tightening of border control, details such as these help the reader to imagine what a climate-changed future might look and feel like here in BC.
This is helpful because, as concerned as I am about the impacts of climate change, I don’t often see that concern reflected in the actions of political leaders, or in the themes and preoccupations of popular culture. We live in a time of frequent and often profound disconnection between public discourse and environmental realities. In this context, it can be hard think clearly or know what to do about climate change.
This is why we invited Lisa to give a keynote presentation at our upcoming research forum, Climate Conversations: Local Experts Imagine a Climate-Changed Future. As well as being a novelist, Brideau is a planner and senior sustainability specialist with the City of Vancouver. She drew on her knowledge of climate justice issues and sea level rise when she created the fictional world of her novel. In her presentation, she will reflect on the role of the imagination in planning for a climate-changed future.
While most people don’t associate scientific research with the imagination, the concrete details which research investigates can provide us with a much more grounded and specific idea of what may be coming. For example, what will our local forests look like—will key plant and animal species be able to adapt to warming temperatures? Should we be planting different species of trees in our cities? Socially and economically speaking, how will the composition and reliability our food systems be impacted? How can we address both affordability and climate change? Discussing concrete questions such as these helps to bring home a much more grounded sense of what life in a climate-changed future might look and feel like. And while increasing our understanding in these ways can be uncomfortable—potentially increasing feelings of anxiety and frustration, in the short term—it is part of a necessary shift towards action, and a sense of hopefulness about what can still be done. In my opinion, undertaking this learning with others is the best way to ensure that it leads to positive feelings and commitments to action.
A series of expert panels, composed of researchers from the natural and social sciences, environmental humanities and public policy, will provide the backbone of Climate Conversations. Panelists will draw on their personal perspectives as well as professional expertise to bring topics in biodiversity and climate research to life. In addition to these panels and Lisa Brideau’s keynote presentation, audience members will be treated to a climate-themed tour of UBC Botanical Garden, catered lunch and group visioning activity designed to close the day on a positive and inspiring note. Finally, to help draw out the imaginative potential of the day’s discussions, an artist will take visual notes throughout the day, and prepare an illustrated zine to be shared with all participants after the fact.
All in all, it is going to be a full day. I hope that audience members and panelists alike will leave feeling more informed, engaged and inspired about the possibilities for supporting biodiversity in a climate-changed future. Please take advantage of the early bird pricing and get your tickets soon! We look forward to sharing a very special day of learning and conversations with you.