We are pleased to welcome Sadie Brule to our administrative team.  You may find her at the end of an email, or roaming through her hometown of Perth, but until you meet, here is a little bit about what moves her to act on Climate.

Sadie’s childhood left her no stranger to the environmental movement – with a mother who spent part of her life on a commune and an activist aunt who happily tied herself to the trees she wanted to protect.  But growing up in a bustling city, those core values left her feeling on the outside – even when she turned vegetarian at fifteen her friends raised an eyebrow and she was left to ponder how to talk about our environmental impact without sounding like an extremist.

As a new parent, the image of a garbage heap of disposable diapers made the impact of her own choices become starkly apparent. She stopped worrying about being an extremist because suddenly it all felt incredibly urgent  

“The amount of diapers you produce as a parent, are going to be here longer than you are. I wanted a family but when I thought about what it was costing the planet and everyone in the future, I wanted to do it with an awareness that our resources are not infinite.”

The images of environmental devastation on social media can be motivating, but she also acknowledges they can carry a demotivating weight; so instead she focuses on the communities of people who are brought together because of a shared concern. She sees part of her job as translating that concern into positive actions. Rather than impart the doom of the trash heap to her own kids, she is instead imparting the joy of using less, while normalizing it – her once cloth-diapered 4 year old happily plays with their vermiculture setup, and it is not uncommon for her to be the one correcting –  “Mom, that is not garbage!”

Sadie’s journey to Perth was a long one, with stops in Virginia, high school in Victoria, University for English Lit in Mexico, and College for Hospitality in Ottawa. She and her partner were driving through Perth one day and, struck by the wholesomeness and general ambience of the town, decided this was the place to settle down. 

By volunteering at The Table and sitting on the Perth Climate Change Advisory Panel, she has been happy to find so many like-minded people and is looking forward to working with Climate Network Lanark to build that community in her own backyard.

Sadie is spearheading a “Trash-ure Hunt” community clean-up in April in Perth. Register Here and come by and say hello…perhaps as enthusiastically as her daughter is greeting those worms below!