Climate Disaster Project, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC (2025)

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.

Address

3800 Finnerty Road
Victoria, BC
V8P5C2

Telephone

+14033974751

Website

http://climatedisasterproject.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Climate Disaster Project posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Climate Disaster Project:

Climate Disaster Project