6/7/05
This morning I represented the project at a meeting with the CRE (Conseil
regional de l'environnement de Montreal) about the urban heat island effect.
Here are my notes and what I took away from it:

Basically, the CRE has received funding for a two-year project dealing with
making the Montreal community (mostly the Plateau area) aware of the urban heat
island effect (les ilots de chaleur).

They will be doing this in several ways:
1) Technical side: Planting hundreds of trees in school yards, in alleyways, and
in public/private areas. They are cooperating with local eco-quartiers for this
and empowering respective schools and neighborhoods to take care of the trees
after they are planted.

2) Education/Community outreach: The goal is to empower the community to green
their homes and to understand why they should and what the heat island effect
is. They have created a brochure which is accessible by everyone which
explains everything and gives people options on how to green their local
environment and why they should do this. The city will help them to deliver
these brochures to all residents of the borough. The CRE wants these brochures
not just to be passed out but also to make an impact.

How can we fit into this project?
What I took away from this meeting was that the CRE would like help spreading
these brochures outside of the borough Plateau-Mont-Royal and to other people
who will truly be impacted by them. Also, they want to connect all
organizations doing work on reducing the urban heat island effect and to
cooperate and share information.
-The CMM (Communaute Metropolitaine de Montreal) is doing a study on trees and
how much water they take up and retain, thus reducing the amount of stormwater
runoff.
-Hopefully my research and report by the end of the summer will help to quantify
the impact of rooftop gardens on the heat island effect?
-Maybe we could offer to pass out the brochures at our workshops, maybe at the
university of the streets cafe? (Should we invite Anne-Marie Comparo from the
CRE to this event?)

Other people who attended the meeting:
The CRE's funders like Sante Canada, Urban Ecology Center, people from some
Eco-Quartiers, etc.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I will bring the brochures to our
next meeting.
Rotem