Stephen Rees’s blog

Guardian

I had thought that this was the sort of news that would, by now, be greeted with a bit of a yawn. But then I have been following the story about the recent US declaration that polar bears are threatened by the shrinking of the Arctic Ice. Which means even the Bush administration now acknowledges what everyone else has been seeing for a while. Yet in the comments section there are the deniers - and the special interest groups - pretending that somehow none of this is happening.

Nature - the journal - is not a tabloid given to exaggeration for effect. And while the IPCC has never been popular with the oil and coal industries, no-one else thinks they are given to flights of fancy. And this is a very thorough study that looks at effects documented since 1970.

In 90% of cases the shifts in wildlife behaviour and populations could only be explained by global warming, while 95% of environmental changes, such as melting permafrost, retreating glaciers and changes in river flows were consistent with rising temperatures.

But do not expect the people who have a string financial interest to give up their misinformation campaign - any more than the tobacco industry did. Just ignore them. And let’s hope the government of Canada follows the lead shown by the US.

Vancouver Sun

New advertising not intended to draw more customers to transit

Because there is no room on transit. Oh, and to add to the irony, these ads will appear in transit vehicles.

What this demonstrates is the abject failure of the regional transportation authority - whatever it is called and who ever happens to sit on its board. Because since it was split off from BC Transit it has mainly been in reactive not proactive mode. And it has had a lot to react to.

I am not going to rehearse the discussion about choice of rapid transit mode - that has been done to death. So please, Malcolm, let’s take that as read for once.

The authority was beguiled by the responsibility for major roads, and initially it was argued that this would enable more transit priority on street as a quid pro quo for regional funds from the gas tax. But what MRTTAC (Major Roads and Transportation Technical Advisory Committee) ensured was that each municipal engineering department would at last get some money to build projects they had wanted to do for years but were not allowed to spend property tax revenues on by  (righlty) nervous politicians. The use of the gas tax for roads instead of transit was simple device to get the municipal governments to sign on to Translink. Interestingly the City of Vancouver, which was not going to get any downloaded roads from the province was persuaded to join by George Puill - even though it was clear that Vancouver’s road network was generally complete, and subesquently there were arguments about how Vancouver could spend MRN money on things like cycle and pedestrian facilities which were much more important, but unlike anything that the other 20 members of the committee intended to do.

Once the vehicle levy was lost, any pretence at regional strategy was dropped. The new method of allocating funds was “whatever someone else will pay for”. So since the Golden Ears Bridge could be tolled, that jumped to the head of the line. Of course, a great deal had to be spent to get the project underway - and while that may get repaid eventually from the toll revenue stream, it was a heavy burden initially. It also diverted staff away from other tasks.

The great need was always the very mundane, unexciting task of expanding the bus system. And in times of revenue shortage, the transit planners abandoned the old policy of adding red lines to the map, and tried to get as much as possible in terms of service improvements to routes already in high demand. And after UPass was approved for SFU and UBC they really had little choice. So them’s that got, got more. Them’s that not, lost. And community shuttles, instead of being a new way of penetrating low density suburban areas became substitutes for full sized buses on lightly loading routes.

So the fact that the Vancouver region as a whole has a transit mode share of little more than Canada as a whole should come as no surprise. But it means that in a time when every other transit system is scooping up new riders fed up with high gas prices, the transit system here cannot. And we should be angry about this, because we are paying a lot for a system which does not meet the needs of most of the region, which is inequitable but also highly inefficient. Since a system needs both trunk routes and feeders carefully co-ordinated.

There is not enough money - we will always have that issue - so it means you have to get very clever about how you spend what you do get. And that starts with a clear sense of purpose. Yes, car pools and cycles are going to help, but the really big issue should have been, how do we get more market share for transit? Not how do we get more ridership - that’s different. We have more people on the system but that is because there are more people and more trip making. The share has been static. Experiments with alternative fuel vehicles may be worthwhile R&D for vehicle builders, but should not have been at the expense of transit expansion. The Albion Ferries needed replacement - but not in terms of a resource greedy mega-project. And there has also been much too much influence on Translink from the Gateway Council, who can hardly be said to have the best of intentions in terms of regional strategy. Running a study on freight might have  been funded by the freight companies themselves (it wasn’t) but was very much less important in my view than finding out in much greater detail how people move around the system.

Now all of this might be explained away by the politics of the GVTA and its successor. But none of these problems were new. When I first got here in 1999, there was a desperate shortage of buses, and as a temporary measure, some old clunkers were brought in from the Seattle scrap line - and also a few really well maintained buses from Everett which lasted a lot longer. Overcrowding and unreliable services were a big issue back then. So was the almost complete absence of any bus priority on streets - which is cheap to do but faces furious opposition. Not least from the city engineers.

It is a commonplace expression here that “transit sucks”. And you hear that from transit users, especially those who do not live in Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster. And most municipal politicians have been banging away at that for years and have largely been ignored. Except in cities that have become resigned to being car oriented and are trying to make that work - which of course with oil at more than $120 a barrel is no longer a workable strategy.

The province is not without blame - but that is mostly because it is obsessed with trivia like the Olympics, and the Hydrogen Highway. It was also promoting stealth highway widenings for some years by adding HOV lanes. The only conversion of GP to HOV that i know of here was Barnet/Hastings. And mega projects (for the ribbon cutting photo ops) and P3s. The federal government has been even worse, and really doesn’t know what it is supposed to be doing - partly because it divested itself of its operational arms (ports and airports) but also because it tried to meet the agenda of its sponsors (business) and not national - and international priorities, like treaty obligations. We spend a lot of time here mocking the Americans for their low transit use, but at least they have - or had - a strategy of investment of federal gas taxes in projects which had to stand up to some pretty tough scrutiny and also be consistent with regional panning goals.

If we turn our eyes to the rest of world, we see that most western countries have been trying - and some actually succeeding - to cut car dependency, and increase transit use. Most have invested continuously and carefully in transit systems appropriate to local needs. And at the same time pursued traffic calming and other strategies to discourage through traffic in urban centres. And in some countries, even interfering in the private sector’s freight mode choice and forcing the trucks to be put on trains to reduce their environmental and road safety impacts!

Canada has not performed well in urban transportation, and being “not as bad as the US” is a pretty poor consolation. We are - despite our preferred perception of ourselves - mainly an urban society. And we have not been keeping up with the very obvious and very rapid change. We have wanted to pretend that we could live in the fifties forever. (If I hear another song to Diefenbaker again  I shall shut off the radio and hurl it  away). The days of car hops and drive ins are over - and have been for some time and are not coming back.

We also find ourselves with a slate of tings to finish that will cost a bomb and not make much difference (like the Canada Line). So it becomes even more important that we kill now the really stupid things that we should not - must not - do. And that starts with the big highway expansions. Then we need to revisit the transit projects and get rid of the province’s “transit plan”. A subway under Broadway to UBC is not on. Exclusive bus lanes would be cheap and effective. And the loss of parking is less important if people are driving less because of high gas prices. We need to expand the bus system quickly - and that means calling on available resources. We cannot recruit enough bus operators now, we have had to hang on to Oakridge because of shortage of bus storage space. That seems to me to point to existing bus operators who have a lot of capacity for summer visitors, much of which is little used off season, and could be put into use as a highway based express bus system. Sorry, it won’t be accessible. There will have to be other provisions for that. Bus lanes need to appear overnight on heavily used routes - not HOV or hyvrid car lanes either. Because a bus lane is easily enforced - there is no argument about what a bus is. And every bus in the lane can have a camera mounted in the front to ensure that cars, parkers and unloaders get photographed and heavily fined. With the revenue going directly to the transit agency.

Velolib quickly for the town centres. Car co-ops and car sharing for the suburbs. Minibuses - again the private sector can be recruited to provide shared ride “better than a bus, cheaper than a taxi” service. And a rolling program of street and parking reduction, just like Copenhagen has been doing for 40 years. Bike lanes on the Burrard Bridge - of course - and lots of streetcars and dmus on existing tracks. WCE both ways all day and weekends. Something similar on CN, CP and former BCR  tracks. No park and ride lots but TOD at every station producing real places and a revenue stream at the same time. Electric low speed cars, rickshaws, jitneys, horse drawn carriages - whatever. Just not single occupant fossil fuelled vehicles. Insurance by distance, tax rebates for transit users, no tax on transit fuel.

Above all no Gateway - and banish Falcon to the outer darkness.

Climate Cafes, a community environmental initiative modelled on the popular philosopher’s café format, is hosting its monthly meeting next Tuesday (May 20th). This month we’ll be exploring ways to avoid or free oneself of car ownership, specifically through car sharing. Here’s some info on the upcoming event:

May - Living Car Free Cafe

Owning a car is not only bad for the environment, it’s bad for your pocket book, but living without one is not always easy. For those who need more convenience and flexibility than walking, biking or public transit can provide, car sharing is a practical alternative.

Join Climate Cafes for a discussion of the various challenges and opportunities in leading a car free lifestyle and find out if car sharing is right for you. Tracey Axelsson, founder and director of the first English speaking car co-op in the world, The Co-operative Auto Network, will be present to explain the mechanics and history of car sharing and co-ops.

Living Car Free Cafe
Date: May 20, 7pm-8pm
Location: Bean Around the World (2528 Main Street at Broadway)

If you want to find out more,  visit  http:///www.climatecafes.ca or email  info(at)climatecafes(dot)ca.

The following letter has been sent to the Provincial Ombudsman and is being circulated by Donna Passmore. Her comments are attached at the end.

British Columbia Ombudsman

Kim Carter

Dear Kim,

I would like to bring to your attention what we believe is a fundamental unfairness in the Environmental Application process for the South Fraser Perimeter Road.

The E.A. for the S.F.P.R has been conducted with misleading and erroneous information thereby preventing the public and working groups from identifying and commenting on the actual environmental impacts.

The public was given 60 days to read, review, and respond to 3,500 pages of documentation, much of which was false or misleading and the open houses were held in the first two weeks.

People didn’t get much of a chance to review the application documents before bringing their questions to the “experts’ that, for the most part, only directed people back to review the application documents on the website for answers.

The information on the e-PIC webpage is not only difficult to find and navigate, but is incorrect, contradictory, confusing and misleading. In fact several documents that the public were referred to were never posted. Despite many of these discrepancies being pointed out, much of the errata did not get posted on the website as we were told.

We have brought this matter up with the E.A.O. and Environment Minister Penner and have not received a response from either of them. Minister Falcon responded that this is a matter for the Environmental Assessment Office to deal with, but did not comment on the false and misleading statements that have come from his ministry and reports.

The Environmental Assessment Process listed on the E.A.O. webpage states that…

“The assessment process is also needed to ensure that the issues and concerns of the public, First Nations, interested stakeholders and government agencies are considered.

“In general, the environmental assessment includes four main elements:

1. opportunities for all interested parties, including First Nations and neighbouring jurisdictions, to identify issues and provide input;
2. technical studies of the relevant environmental, social, economic, heritage and health effects of the proposed project;
3. identification of ways to prevent or minimize undesirable effects and enhance desirable effects; and
4. consideration of the input of all interested parties in compiling the assessment findings and making recommendations about project acceptability.”

As a fundamental part of that process is the need for the public, First Nations, interested stakeholders, neighbouring jurisdictions and Government Agencies to be commenting on accurate information in the Certificates text and maps or the whole process is in question.

As B.C.s ‘Independent voice for fairness’, we are asking that you investigate this issue for the citizens of British Columbia.

Please review the attached document and represent the citizens of British Columbia by ensuring that a fair environmental process is followed for the SFPR.

Sincerely,

Don Hunt
Sunbury Neighbourhood Association

And Donna added

Good for you for trying but asking the ombudsman’s office to exercise any control over the unethical actions of the Campbell government is akin to asking the Environmental Assessment Office to minimize damage to the environment.

But I suspect you know that and go through the motions anyway on the remote chance that somebody will finally stand up to Campbell while there is any nature, community, fish habitat, air quality, etc. left to protect in the south Fraser.

In that same spirit of persistence, I add the support of the entire Gateway 40 Citizens Network and add to your assertions the absurdity of having an environmental assessment process finalized when the public has not even been given the final route of this proposed road, when we have still not been told how sacred first nations sites will be affected.

And through this “harmonized” environmental assessment process, Gordon Campbell is making the federal government complicit in robbing the public of any expectation of an environmental assessment process with integrity. Shame on Stephen Harper for allowing that to happen, when it has been federal scientists that have blown the whistle on the impending devastation that the South Fraser Perimeter Road will have on the sensitive ecosystems of Boundary Bay.

Donna Passmore

Coordinator

Gateway 40 Citizens Network

I am repeating myself, but I feel it is necessary to point out that the BC EA process was gutted early on in the BC Liberal administration by the then Minister of Deregulation - Kevin Falcon. He clearly has carefully planned  how to get his pet projects built without having to bother about petty details such a public consultation or environmental impact. As was pointed out last night at Delta Council the entire process has been a sham.

Hat tip to Dave Thomson on the trans-action list
Paul Krugman at the New York Times blog has a neat little table that compares a selection of countries.

Unfortunately he does not give the original source for the data or a year. But he does have this observation.

Canada has lots of open space, too — and it doesn’t even have $8 a gallon gas. Yet it still has usable public transit in a lot more cities than we do.

Our gas is currently around $5 a gallon. And while Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster have usable public transit most of the rest of this region doesn’t. Which is why we are not much better than the average for the whole of the country. Given that we are the third largest urban conurbation, nearly everywhere except Toronto and Montreal is in a worse position than we are in terms of size. Bigger places tend to have better transit systems. And while people like to say we are less dense than most cities that neatly avoids the sort of comparisons that show that the developed bits of Surrey are denser than the developed bits of Burnaby. Indeed much of Lulu Island is cranberry bog and blueberry patch. So the developed bits of Richmond - especially the large central area - are actually quite dense too, and getting denser. Not that the Canada Line will actually serve the whole of the city centre, let alone the rest of the city. And it will be next to impossible to extend too.

Who would you most like to emulate on this list?

Vancouver - as an urban region - really needs to catch up to the targets is set for itself back in the early ’90s. By now we should be at 17% transit mode share. And, of course, back then no one expected that the main east west freeway from the eastern edge of the City of Vancouver out to Langley would be doubled - or the Port Mann twinned. Nor that the Golden Ears Bridge to replace the Albion Ferry was the highest possible priority for the agency tasked with care of the transit system.

BBC on Harvard School of Public Health Report

Breathing in air pollution from traffic fumes can raise the risk of potentially deadly blood clots, a US study says.

Exposure to small particulates - tiny chemicals caused by burning fossil fuels - is known to increase the chances of heart disease and stroke.

But the Harvard School of Public Health found it also affected development of deep vein thrombosis - blood clots in the legs - in a study of 2,000 people.

Particulates are nasty little things, but their chemistry is horribly complicated and they are difficult to measure and quantify because they are so small. A lot of attention is paid to diesel emissions because they contain small particulates: in fact the number of very small particles has been increasing as the technology to reduce the total weight of emitted particles has been improving. And the smaller the particle the further it can penetrate into the lung. So the links to asthma, lung and heart disease are fairly clear.

What this research does is provide an understanding of how particulates have even wider impacts than we used to think. And these particles may not be directly emitted, but form in the chemical soup that the air we breathe in our car oriented urban areas has become. There are chemical reactions that lead to the creation of more particles as the various pollutants interact with the nitrogen, oxygen and hydrocarbons that are in the air naturally. I have long suspected that more attention was being paid to trucks and buses, because that way car drivers can point the finger elesewhere. In this region, where cars have to pass regular emissions testing (but not, of course basic roadworthiness or safety checks) people believe their cars are clean becuase they have a certificate that tells them so. And every time a heavily loaded bus accelerates away from a stop there is the tell tale plume of smoke. So obviously that convinces the car drivers that air pollution is not their fault.

In truth, of course, the huge volume of vehicles means that the impact of cars as a whole is much greater than the relatively small number of buses and trucks. And while those cars  generally have passed Air Care, they are far from zero emission, and the total volume of emissions is very significant.

What is also not said in the BBC piece, but I think may also be worth looking at is the fact that air quality inside vehicles is usually much worse than the air in general. And many people are inactive, since they are sitting in their vehicles for long periods. Taxi drivers should be concerned. But I would also like to see studies done in North America since the use of diesel cars is much greater in Italy (where this study was done) than it is here.

Delta Council decided this evening to refer back to staff recommendations to extend the environmental review process and delay the port expansion by five years. There was some discussion at the beginning of the meeting which I missed. According to Ben West, a lot of people left at that point, but more trickled in later. But even so I find it hard to accept that the hall would have been filled.

The mood was depressing. The process of the SFPR was left on the agenda and when they got to that I sat down in the public section. About thirty people were distributed about these seats.

Mayor Jackson said that several years ago Delta made its preference for an upgrade of Highway #17 rather than the SFPR. That was ignored. Since that time the Council has done its best to work within the process since the province has been determined to build what it wants, and there is no discussion of other ways to achieve the project’s objectives. Delta has therefore tried its best to ensure that local concerns are addressed. While some progress has been achieved, much remains to be done yet the draft EA report is now presented in near final form with only two weeks to provide final comments. A final report will then be submitted to the Minister who has 45 days for a review. An environmental certificate is expected to be issued in June.

The comments and requests made by Delta are summarised in the report. All the information is also on the municipal web page. It is expected that the EA working group will continue to meet after the certificate has been issued. There are at least 17 different plans in various stages of development to mitigate some of the impacts of the project.

Councillor Robert Campbell described the alignemnt near Burns Bog as a tug of war between environment and agriculture - and either way it was a major loss. It could have been avoided if the recommendations of the McAlhenny Report on an upgraded HIghway #17 had been accepted. It was achievable and with minimal impact.

Mayor Jackson responded that the Province chose to ignore that report. The GVRD and the BC Truckers Association both supported the Highway #17 proposal. The staff also produced a compelling report. She felt that both documents should be “brought forward” - which presumably means included in the Delta comments on the EA .

The staff pointed out that they only had two weeks to respond. Moreover they have not “been privy to discussions between the Gateway and Environment Canada”.

Councillor Krista Engelland asked what was the role of the EAO after the certificate is issued.

The staff response was that the EAO has an obligation to see that the conditions imposed on the project are upheld, but the regulatory agencies have the lead.

Councillor George Hawksworth spoke at length about the process pointing out that it was designed to make the project work, “not to kill the project”. He emphasized: “At no time were we in a position to kill the project. For a lot of people it is not satisfactory.” Staff responded that Council took every step possible, and was supported by the GVRD in its attempt to ensure that the OCP would be respected. The province ignored it.

Mayor Jackson shared the frustration: “We have no leverage.”

Councillor Vicki Huntington said that the EA had been a frustrating porcess. “It is unprecented and unconscionable to have to chose between the bog or the farmers. For five years we have been tearing our hair out. The process has nothing to do with the legislation.” The EAO cannot look at alternatives, only the project as proposed. “The whole process is designed to mitigate, not say yea or nay. We know this is wrong.” The province’s commitment to the ALR is worthless. Both the Council and the public worked hard to develop viable alternatives that would have worked but they were never considered. Alternatives did not matter. “We did not say ‘you can’t build this project’ but we did say there was a way to do it properly that would not destroy the community. And what value is this ‘monitoring’? Does that mean that something will stop? The ‘responsible authorities’ turn out to be bureaucrats in the DFO and Transport Canada. It is unbelievable that it is not the Minister.”

Councillor Huntington is also Chair of the Heritage Advisory Commission. “95% of the built heritage is impacted by the Gateway. It will irreparably change North Delta. “

She went on that there is public dissappointment. The public is not yet ready to give up. “We needed leadership. Sadly that has not happened. We did the best we could. I am heartbroken.”

Mayor Jackson pointed out that many times Delta had tried to speak to the ministers, “but we could not get Victoria to listen”. She also pointed out that the Holger Naas route would not have worked “the trucks don’t go there.” And the impact on farms along Ladner trunk Road would have been signifivant.

It occurred to me afterwards that Holger and Naas had taken the proponents at their word, that the trucks were headed for the border or the TransCanada. In fact, as we now know, that movement is insignificant. The trucks are simply moving containers around within the region. The long haul is on rail. In other words, the entire justification of the roads component of the Gateway is based on a lie. The Holger Naas alternative makes sense only if the Gateway was really going to increase truck travel to the the rest of North America. And with the rising price of fuel, and rail’s significant advantage in fuel economy, that is simply not going to happen.

Councillor Jeanie Kanakos said that they should request a meeting with Falcon and Emerson and make a presentation on all the outstanding issues which the EA has not resolved. While this was generally accepted as a useful idea it seemed unlikely to happen. As the Mayor said: “They don’t want to meet with us.”

Councillor Scott Hamilton said they had played into the government’s hands. They had had to fight many battles at once, but they could not turn their backs on the need to mitigate a project that was going to proceed anyway. “We can’t just fight the project. And we can’t stop them”. He also pointed out that no-one is conducting an assessment of the cumulative impact of all the Gateway projects taken together.

It seemed clear to me that the high turn out on Saturday in Tsawwassen had impressed Council. It was clearly not just about power lines (and by the way the CBC is reporting that Campbell has announced they will proceed). Building a large port on the Pacific Flyway is grossly irresponsible. Building a large port that is not likely to be needed, given the way that trans-pacific trade is going to change is short sighted. Deciding to add new port facilities in Vancouver, when there are under utilised facilities in Prince Rupert which desperately needs more work, while Vancouver continues to be over-heated, just seems like willful stupidity. This is a provincial government that seems to have abandoned any pretence of caring about what it used to like to call “the heartland”. Come to think of it, I don’t think they have used that word lately. It is also very blinkered when it comes to the environment. Climate change is very au courant, so they go for that, but salmon, sandpipers and bogs do not rate at all. The ALR is for building things on and trading to get treaties. As are regional parks. This is a government entirely devoid of principle. And since it is a one man show, just one man should get the blame.

The following came to my inbox today from Mark Latham

I’m a semi-retired economist working on democratic media reform. Based on similar contests I’ve sponsored for UBC student elections, I’m now launching a “Vancouver Voters’ Guide Blogging Contest”. The idea is that voter-directed funding will encourage bloggers to create helpful guides to Vancouver municipal issues and electoral candidates.

Vancouverites are invited to vote on a real-time on-line ranking of blogs. To start it off, I browsed the web and found ten blogs (including yours) that cover Vancouver issues. The initial ranking at this point is mostly random; it will change soon based on votes coming in. Please let me know if you’d prefer not to have your blog included.

The ballot: www.votermedia.org/vancouver/vote

Contest info: www.votermedia.org/vancouver

UBC contest: www.votermedia.org/ubc

My blog on this project: http://votermedia.blogspot.com/

I had not thought that I would comment very much on City of Vancouver polling issues - but I do hope that Vancouver issues I have touched on will be significant in the election. I have posted quite a bit about the Burrard Bridge - an issue which I would have regarded as being sufficient of itself to get Sam Sullivan and Peter Ladner tossed on the grounds that they are apparently incapable of simple arithmetic. I have also castigated David Cadman at a COPE meeting on transportation for not saying anything about the Gateway - which given the dumping of lots more traffic into East Vancouver and the City’s supine acceptance of it, is another reason to vote for anyone but NPA. Not that I am am partisan of course. Then there is the housing issue and the Province’s current shameful treatment of tenants of Little Mountain. Of course the City takes no responsibility for housing. The there is the awful mess of the downtown eastside - which has been steadily getting worse and everyone must take the blame for. Cambie Street is not the City’s fault either - but they have not exactly covered themselves with glory there. And as far as I know no politician is claiming credit for the Carrall Street bike lane which is a small but significant step in the right direction. Does this qualify me for for a cash prize? Naaaaah

Photo by Beedle Um Bum on flickr

By Robert Bryce, Public Affairs Books. Posted May 10, 2008.

While energy efficiency is laudable, history shows that it leads to people consuming more energy.

This is a longish piece but worth sticking with. It is more on the arguments that were advanced by Mark Jaccard when he advocated carbon taxes. We have seen advances in energy efficiency in a range of applications, but the energy savings do not tend to go to fatten our bank accounts. In fact we tend to consume more energy than before.

And of course this is not new. I heard about the Jeavons Paradox as a spotty six former.

In 1865, a noted British economist, William Stanley Jevons, published a book that would become his most famous work, The Coal Question. Jevons’ book was the beginning of what is now known as the field of energy economics. After studying coal consumption patterns in Britain and assuming (wrongly) that his country’s coal deposits would soon be exhausted, Jevons concluded that “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuels is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” This observation has since come to be known as the Jevons Paradox.

In fact it often strikes me that the people who prescribe economic nostrums based on the illustrations used in Econ 101 “Perfect Competition” seem not to notice that the real world is nothing like as simple as that abstraction. Though they behave as though it ought to be, which is even sillier.

I have often quoted the remark (though I cannot recall its source) “It they were all Zero Emission Vehicles tomorrow, we would still have the problems”. Yes, hybrids are better cars, just as there may well be better fuels, but it is the car itself that is the real problem. Cities were around for five millennia before the car and though everyone complained about the crowds, and the smell, they still lived in them and benefitted economically, socially and culturally from their existence. At the end of the nineteenth century, as public transport was introduced and later electrified, city life got better and cities expanded. Death rates from communicable diseases plumetted thanks to better science and better drains. People no longer had to live next to the job, which was a big improvement if it was in a rendering plant.

The Garden City movement thought that better urban environments would produce better people - an idea Frank Capra repeated in “Its A Wonderful Life” (a paean of praise for the Savings and Loan business). But neither had imagined what would happen if nearly everyone owned at least one car, and tried to drive it everywhere. Which is where we are stuck now - and where our current leadership seems content that we stay.

In fact it also occurs to me now that the argument about energy efficiency also applies to road building as way to manage traffic congestion. Because roads are not priced, buidling more of them induces more demand . For a brief moment there is some space. But just as when you leave a comfortable safety cushion between you and the car in front, someone pops in to the gap and fills it up. And we end up with more congestion than when we started. They could all be Smart cars or hybrid SUVs - but the results in terms of travel time and sprawl would be exactly the same.

Better cars and better fuels will be made, but we will not produce better places if that is what we rely on. In fact they will get much worse.

hat tip to Bonnie Fenton

WHAT: Free Climate Change Film Festival and Panel Discussions

WHEN: Friday, May 23^rd (6-10pm) and Saturday, May 24^th (noon-10pm)

WHERE: Vancouver Public Library (Alice MacKay Room), Central Branch, 350 W. Georgia Street

ADMISSION: FREE – OPEN TO ALL

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Jon Steinman – Deconstructing Dinner (http://www.kootenaycoopradio.com/deconstructingdinner/)

FEATURED FILMS: “Who Killed the Electric Car?” “Kilowatt Ours” and “Garbage” – See attachment for complete list

PANEL DISCUSSIONS: May 24^th from 2-3pm and from 6-7pm.  Featuring (2-3pm): Jon Steinman (Deconstructing Dinner), Tom Rankin (Save Our Rivers), Hannah Askew (Healthy Planet Kitchens) – (6-7pm): Dr. Erica Frank (Food, Health and the Climate), Rob Baxter (Sierra Club – Vancouver Renewable Energy Coop), John Stonier (Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association), Tom Rankin (Save Our Rivers).

MORE DETAILS: Please visit www.sierraclub.bc.ca and follow the links.

CLIMATE CHANGE SOLUTIONS

environmental films with a positive spin

Friday May 23, 2008:

Film #1: Too Hot Not to Handle

Topic: Leading scientists provide a solid explanation of global warming and its effects.

Length: 60 minutes

For more info: http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/toohot/

Film #2: Garbage

Topic: The Story of a Canadian family that agrees to keep their garbage for 3 months.

Length: 75 minutes

For more info: http://www.garbagerevolution.com/

Film # 3: The Nature of Things with David Suzuki: The Weather Report

Topic: The film travels to the Canadian Arctic, Montana, Northern Kenya, China and India, visiting communities and ordinary people whose lives and livelihoods are being impacted by global warming.

Length: 45 minutes

For more info: http://www.cbc.ca/natureofthings/weatherreport.html

Saturday May 24, 2008

Film #1: The Story of Stuff

Topic: An animated explanation of the inherent problems in our production and consumption patterns.

Length: 20 minutes

For more info: http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Film #2: Power Play: the Theft of BC’s Rivers

Topic: The leasing of BC’s rivers to corporations for private hydro-power projects.

Length: 20 minutes

For more info: http://saveourrivers.ca/content/view/98/

Film #3: Wind Over Water

Topic: The debate over an offshore wind farm proposed off the southern coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Length: 30 minutes

For more info: http://www.windoverwater.org/

Film #4: The Climate of Change

Topic: Demonstrates the environmental impact that a local municipal government can make in the absence of federal leadership

Length: 15 minutes

For more info: http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=800

Film #5: Vineyard Energy Project

Topic: The story of Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the US east coast, and their journey to becoming energy independent through the use of solar and wind energy.

Length: 12 minutes

For more info: http://www.vineyardenergyproject.org/

Film #6: Who Killed the Electric Car

Topic: This film investigates possible suspects in the vanishing of the electric car that was on the road in the early 1990’s.

Length: 120 minutes

For more info: http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/

Film #7: Being Caribou

Topic: For 5 months, a Canadian couple migrates on foot with the 123,000-member porcupine caribou herd from wintering to calving grounds in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. After completing their journey, they head to Washington, DC to tell politicians and activists what they found.

Length: 54 minutes

For more info: http://www.beingcaribou.com/beingcaribou/index.html

Film #8: Kilowatt Ours

Topic: The film moves from the coal mines of West Virginia to the solar panel fields of Florida as the film-maker discovers solutions to America’s energy related problems.

Length: 56 minutes

For more info: http://www.kilowattours.org/

Film #9: Crude Impact

Topic: explores the interconnection between human domination of the planet, and the discovery and use of oil.

Length: 20 minutes

For more info: http://www.crudeimpact.com/show.asp?content_id=9665

Hat tip to Celia Brauer

And don’t forget the Green Film Fest on now.

http://www.projectingchange.ca/schedule.html