Michelle Stirling is a writer/researcher, columnist, and blogger. She has worked in marketing communications, advertising, and film/video production most of her career. She worked as a career development officer for five years and paired that with economic development at a community level. Michelle also did a ten-year stint in Israel during the hi-tech and science tech boom of that “Start-up Nation” – working with many advanced industries in aerospace, defense, software, telecom, desalination engineering, agriculture, and biopharm. Upon her return to Canada, she worked for a time at Alberta Environment as an Information Coordinator, the year that the Sierra Club gave Alberta an “F”…and Ontario a “B+”.  That jump-started her interest in climate change policies.