We can’t recycle our way out of this crisis, but we can re-enchant ourselves with the everyday miracles of soil, water, and sunlight.
– Mary Trudeau
From city storm drains to children’s storybooks, Mary Trudeau has spent her career translating complex environmental systems into everyday action. A professional engineer specializing in climate-resilient water infrastructure, Mary has advised municipalities across Canada on how to outsmart rising seas and “hundred-year” floods that now arrive every decade. Yet it’s her gift for storytelling—most recently in the whimsical children’s book A Tale of Two Planets—that turns carbon math into magic, inspiring families to plant balcony tomatoes, protect old-growth forests, and celebrate local strawberry season as a climate victory.
In this thought-provoking conversation, wellness strategist and host Stacey Chillemi sits down with Mary to demystify the carbon cycle, debunk the “throw-away” myth, and share five delightfully simple habits that anyone can adopt to cool the planet—no PhD required. Whether you’re a city dweller with a single windowsill or a homeowner eyeing that patch of lawn for pollinator plants, Mary’s blend of engineering insight and child-like wonder will leave you empowered, not overwhelmed.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?
I grew up in a small Ontario town hemmed in by two rivers that routinely spilled their banks. During spring thaw, my friends and I would wade through ankle-deep street water to get to school, and I was the kid asking, “Why does this keep happening?” That curiosity nudged me toward civil engineering, where I learned how a pipe’s slope, a culvert’s diameter, or a wetland buffer could make or break a neighborhood’s safety. After university I spent nearly twenty years modernizing storm-water systems for Canadian municipalities—everything from lining century-old sewers to designing new retention ponds. But the deeper I went, the more I saw climate change rewriting every hydraulic rule. Rainfall “design storms” that were once-in-a-century events began arriving every decade. Basements I’d protected on paper were still flooding in real life. I left my public-sector post and launched Envirings so I could merge engineering with climate storytelling, helping cities and citizens visualize the systems we live inside. Writing A Tale of Two Planets felt like planting a seed for the next generation—because if an eight-year-old grasps ecosystems, they’ll grow up questioning business-as-usual long before it’s too late.
What first sparked your interest in environmental engineering and urban water infrastructure?
One afternoon in grade eight our science teacher took us outside during a downpour and pointed to a storm drain. “Follow the water,” she said. The grate led to a culvert that emptied into a marsh, which fed a tributary, which eventually joined the Great Lakes. That single sentence—follow the water—became a lifelong compass. I’m still captivated by the idea that a half-inch tweak in pipe elevation can spare an entire block from flooding, or that restoring a wetland upstream can save a city millions in downstream concrete. Water is simultaneously patient and unruly; it obeys gravity yet finds loopholes in every small crack. Designing with that duality feels like solving a living puzzle that has real stakes for real families.
For readers who may be new to the topic, could you explain in simple terms what the carbon cycle is and why it matters?
Imagine carbon as the ultimate Lego brick—you never throw it out, you simply rebuild it. Those bricks float in the air as CO₂, lock into tree trunks as cellulose, seep into oceans as carbonate shells, and cycle through our own bodies every breath we take. In a balanced system, the same number of bricks that rise into the sky each year are reassembled into forests, soils, and seashells. But industrial society mined a second stash of bricks—fossil fuels—shipped them to the surface, and burned them at warp speed. The planet is now drowning in surplus Legos—roughly a trillion extra bricks since the Industrial Revolution—so Earth runs a persistent fever. The carbon cycle isn’t just textbook chemistry; it’s the thermostat for every harvest, coral reef, and glacier on the planet.
There’s really no such place as “away” when we throw things out. What do you mean by that?
Picture Earth as a life-support capsule hurtling through space. Every kilogram of plastic, every molecule of CO₂, every crumb of food waste remains in that capsule somewhere. Toss a coffee pod “away” and it ends up landfilled, incinerated, or—if you’re unlucky—in the Pacific garbage patch. Burn gasoline and the exhaust encircles the globe on jet streams, warming Arctic ice that you will never personally see yet are personally influencing. Realizing the capsule is closed can feel claustrophobic, but it’s also empowering: every act of reduction or reuse yields a direct, measurable benefit for the only home we have.
How does the gas in our cars end up warming the planet?
Gasoline is ancient sunlight—the photosynthetic leftovers of 300-million-year-old plants and plankton. A single liter contains about 2.3 kg of carbon. When you combust that liter on your morning commute, carbon atoms grab oxygen atoms at high temperature, forming roughly 3.7 kg of CO₂ that sails invisibly out your tailpipe. Multiply that by a billion cars and you have a continual conveyor belt moving carbon from geologic vaults to atmospheric blanket. The chemistry unfolds in milliseconds, yet its impact—ice-sheet melt, heatwaves, coral bleaching—unfolds over centuries.
Why do mature forests and old-growth trees play such a critical role as “carbon sinks”?
A 300-year-old cedar is a skyscraper of carbon. Its trunk, branches, and root network may hold 10–20 tons of CO₂, and its partnership with fungal mycelia extends that storage underground. Each season the tree adds a thin radial ring—an annual deposit in the carbon bank. When we log or burn old-growth, we aren’t just losing future storage; we’re withdrawing centuries of savings and spending it in a puff of smoke. Protecting intact forests is like keeping principal in a high-yield account while letting the compound interest keep working for the climate.
Some skeptics note that CO₂ is only a tiny fraction of the atmosphere. Why does that small amount make such a big difference?
Yes, CO₂ makes up roughly 0.04 percent of air—about 420 parts per million—but it’s exquisitely good at absorbing long-wave infrared radiation. Think of it like dye in water: a single drop tints the entire glass. Add another drop, and the color deepens. A 50 percent increase in CO₂ since pre-industrial times is that extra dye; it thickens the thermal blanket, raising global average temperature by 1.2 °C so far. For context, 1 °C sounds trivial until you realize the difference between today and the last ice age was only about 5 °C.
Food often flies under the radar in climate talks. How does eating locally and seasonally help the planet?
Food is climate in edible form. A mid-winter strawberry trucked from California to Toronto carries a carbon price tag that rivals its supermarket sticker. Seasonal eating collapses that journey to mere tractor miles, slashing emissions and reviving community traditions. Historically, Ontario towns threw “strawberry socials” in June—neighbors gathered, shared recipes, and marked the seasons together. Reviving that mindset turns climate action into a feast rather than a finger-wag. Local food also supports diversified farms that act as biodiversity refuges, sequester soil carbon, and strengthen regional food security.
What are some of your personal seasonal favorites?
August peaches are my personal solar eclipse: rare, dazzling, and worth scheduling life around. I buy them by the bushel, slice half for freezing, and eat the rest sun-warm over the sink—juice dripping to my elbows. Early spring asparagus is another joy. Its upward thrust through cold soil feels like nature’s exclamation mark, and its carbon footprint is microscopic compared to imported spears. Then autumn rolls in with Macintosh apples that crack like porcelain and taste of crisp leaves and woodsmoke. Each harvest is a sensory memo that this planet still works—if we let it.
Even city dwellers with only a balcony can pitch in. How do container gardens make an impact?
A balcony garden is a triple win: carbon capture, pollinator habitat, and personal therapy. Ten pots of cherry tomatoes, herbs, and dwarf beans can pull several kilograms of CO₂ in one season—tiny, yes, but multiplied across thousands of balconies it becomes measurable. Those miniature ecosystems also feed native bees and hoverflies starving for nectar amid concrete. And let’s be honest: tending green life is a proven mood-booster; what’s good for mental health is often good for planetary health.
Monarch butterflies depend on milkweed, yet the plant was once banned. How can homeowners support pollinators without ruffling feathers?
Milkweed earned its “weed” reputation by sneaking into cornfields, but gardeners can choose non-spreading cultivars like Asclepias tuberosa. Plant a tidy clump, ring it with nectar plants like coneflower, and add a tasteful sign—“Monarch Bistro: Please Do Not Disturb.” Suddenly your yard becomes a pit-stop on a 3,000-mile migration highway. When neighbors glimpse orange wings fluttering around, curiosity replaces complaint, and you’ve quietly recruited new conservationists.
You specialize in water as well as carbon. How is climate change reshaping the water cycle and our experience of storms?
Warmer air is a bigger sponge—it holds about 7 percent more water vapor for every 1 °C rise. That extra vapor supercharges storms: what was once a “hundred-year” deluge now arrives every five or ten. Heat also accelerates evaporation, wringing landscapes dry between those violent bursts, so we swing from drought to flash flood. Traditional gray infrastructure—massive concrete pipes—can’t flex with these extremes. Cities are experimenting with “blue-green” solutions: bioswales that soak rain where it falls, permeable pavements that drink storm-water, and urban wetlands that double as wildlife sanctuaries. It’s engineering that mimics ecology, and it works.
We sometimes hear that warming and cooling are ‘natural.’ How do long-term orbital cycles compare with today’s rapid warming?
Earth’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle; it stretches and tilts on cycles of 20, 40, and 100-thousand years, nudging the planet in and out of ice ages. Based on those cycles we should currently be edging into a cool phase, yet glaciers are retreating at record speed. That discrepancy is the smoking gun of anthropogenic warming. Orbital cycles operate like hour hands; human emissions are the second hand whipping around the clock face, overwhelming slower natural rhythms.
Climate action can feel heavy. How can noticing everyday beauty ignite change?
Wonder fuels willpower better than guilt ever will. Pause on your commute to admire the fractal veins of a maple leaf or the physics-defying hover of a dragonfly. Your nervous system registers that micro-dose of awe, and suddenly recycling a bottle or biking to work feels less like a chore and more like an act of devotion. Beauty widens the lens, reminding us why the struggle is worthy.
Your children’s book, A Tale of Two Planets, makes complex ideas playful. What inspired you to write for kids?
Kids haven’t built cognitive silos yet; chemistry, poetry, and pretend play coexist effortlessly. I wrote the book as a bedtime adventure where atoms throw dance parties and trees double as superheroes. When a child realizes they’re inhaling the same carbon atoms that once powered a dinosaur’s roar, their eyes light up—science becomes enchantment. That spark can steer life choices: what they study, how they vote, even which companies they build.
Beyond individual actions, what kinds of civic engagement do you encourage?
Show up, speak up, follow up. Email your councilor asking for electric-bus funding, then attend the budget meeting with two neighbors in tow. Public officials track issue volume; a dozen polite messages on tree-canopy bylaws can tip a vote. Join a climate-focused nonprofit—strength in numbers magnifies your voice and protects you from burnout.
What services do you offer through Envirings, and who typically seeks your expertise?
Envirings is a bridge between spreadsheets and storytelling. On one end I run hydraulic models, size culverts, and calculate carbon budgets; on the other, I facilitate town-hall workshops, translate jargon into plain English, and create visuals that help residents see drainage patterns or greenhouse-gas flows. Clients include small cities facing flood insurance crises, school boards turning asphalt yards into rain gardens, and NGOs seeking scientifically credible yet kid-friendly curriculum.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Head to Instagram @marytrudeaubooks for daily snapshots, urban wetlands, and the occasional monarch chrysalis. Explore A Tale of Two Planets (lesson plans included) at ataleoftwoplanets.com, and learn how Envirings can future-proof your community at envirings.ca.
Mary, chatting with you feels like standing under a waterfall of clarity and inspiration. Thank you for turning science into stories we can act on today.
Thank you, Stacey. May your next peach be impossibly juicy, and may everyone listening find their own delicious way to care for this magical planet.
