Stephen Leahy Award Winning International Environmental Journalist: Good News in Climate Change

Stephen Leahy is an award-winning international environmental journalist with over 25 years of experience in the field. His work has been published in a wide range of prestigious publications around the world, including National Geographic, The Guardian, Vice, New Scientist, Maclean’s, Al Jazeera, and many others. Leahy's journalism focuses on critical environmental issues such as climate change, water scarcity, and biodiversity loss, aiming to bring global attention to these urgent matters.

1.    Would you please start by telling us why you became an environmental journalist and maybe a bit about that mid life crisis? 

5:07 For about 10 years I had a career in marketing. At one time I was the kind of the junk mail king of Canada sending out paper flyers  by mail.  I was at a direct mail conference and David Suzki was the guest speaker. It was kind of a downer because he was talking about climate change and environmental impact . And when he was asked "what can we  do as an industry?" he replied "stop what you are doing and do something useful."

6:01 I took that to heart because I was feeling tired of the long commute to work, the direct mail industry, wanted to do something more meaningful, spend more time with my family and more time outside of highly air conditioned offices. I wanted to integrate my work with my family life. 

Were you able to achieve what you set out to do?

7:14 Absolutely. I was there for my kids before and after school. Could go for walks and schedule my won time . It took a few years because I had a family, a mortgage, and there were financial pressures.  

2.    You wrote a book Your Water Footprint – please tell us a little about that and is there any good news here? What are the 3 things people can do day to day that will make a difference.  person can do on a very small scale to help protect water.

8:11 The book came about when someone in Uxbridge where I lived at the time  asked me to do a info graphic approach  to show in a visual the impact of our use of water.   An Ottawa school is using the book for a project called Blue Schools.  I ask the school kids if there is anything that we can make that does not require water. There really isn't anything.

Is there anything we can do to protect water?

10:18  Any time you consume anything be aware of the water consumption. The idea is to respect water. For thousands of years  water has been considered sacred because we cannot survive without it or do anything without it. I think having that mindset of awareness helps us and water.

The water we have on the planet is all the water that we are ever going to have - so if we are dumping something down the drain that is harmful it is going to affect the water quality and it is not going to go away. It is going to be there, it is going to effect something - so to be conscious of that fact.

Water conservation is really important because we are in climate era of droughts. This is happening in Canada which is considered one of the most water rich countries of the world. Out west there is an ongoing drought right now.

Host: I am thinking about the fact that I just flushed my sour dough mixture down the toilet this morning....

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