In November 2011 the Canada West Foundation in partnership with the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRT) conducted a series of roundtables about developing a low-carbon growth strategy for Canada with particular emphasis on the opportunities and risks facing the West.

You can read all about the main themes, policy recommendations, and overview issues in the report but, just for fun, here is a visual overview of the roundtables:

These word clouds were created from my notes, which were typed up during each of the sessions. Words that appeared more often in the conversation appear larger in the clouds and words that were less common are smaller. In a sense, these clouds give a visual overview of what ideas were most prevalent during the roundtables and which topic generated the most interest.

What is really fun is to see how the conversations—which were all structured around the same questions—varied from province to province.

For example, in Saskatoon, one of the main themes was on how to deal with carbon constraints in an environment of economic growth.

Those in Vancouver were most concerned about how carbon should be constrained, should it be a tax or cap and trade?

Calgary roundtable participants were pretty set on the need for a national framework around energy and emissions.

While in Winnipeg the discussion centered on how challenging it can be to put in place carbon policies when power is so cheap and emissions rates are so low in the province.

Of course these word clouds do not tell the whole story, but they do provide an interesting visual overview of what issues were important to roundtable participants and how the conversation varied across the region.

– By Shawna Stirrett