New tools and processes for aging visionaries: Elders as agents of change in the community - 20th Annual John K. Friesen Conference - Growing Old in a Changing Climate: Exploring the Interface Between Population Aging and Global Warming (2011)

This video clip comprises the three presentations of Panel Session 3, “Climate Change Adaptation Strategies for Aging Populations” held at the 20th Annual John K. Friesen Conference, "Growing Old in a Changing Climate: Exploring the Interface Between Population Aging and Global Warming," MAY 25-26, 2011, Vancouver, BC. Dr. Stephen Sheppard "New tools and processes for aging visionaries: Elders as agents of change in the community" - Elderly people occupy a unique position in history, as the only generation that has seen both ‘baseline’ conditions before climate change, and its emerging impacts. They thus carry a responsibility to tell their stories and reframe community perspectives on resiliency. Many communities are not “age-friendly”: people cannot walk to buy a newspaper, drop into a clinic, or age in place in smaller homes. Often seen as resistant to change, older residents of such neighbourhoods have actually become the catalyst to radical changes needed to make communities more complete, compact, healthy, resilient and low-carbon. Baby-boomers are also concerned with their future legacy, and can help communities take a long-term view. Using stories from action research in BC communities, we illustrate how aging populations can enhance their role in re-envisioning and retrofitting communities, by engaging with new visual media and visioning processes to influence community design, local policy, and social norms, and by collaborating with youth in shared community visions. We also gratefully acknowledge a grant from the SFU Library's Scholarly Digitization Fund for videography and post-production editing. See webpage for more information on the 20th Annual John K. Friesen Conference: http://www.sfu.ca/grc/friesen/friesen2011/