The Building Sustainable Communities Conference

[CRCP]

Member's posts follow:

[John Zeger]

The three day Building Sustainable Commuties conference organized by Joanne de Vries of Alliance Communications was outstanding. The selection of speakers and topics was excellent and the organization of the conference was first rate. About 200 people from all over BC attended including politicians, planners, developers, academics, and community groups. Regrettably only two members of Kelowna city council, Mayor Sharon Shepherd and Councillor Michele Rule were present. Councillor Brian Given is recovering from surgery but where were the other six? Were they not there because they have no interest in sustainability? There was no representative from the MoveKelownaForward group present, but then that group is not concerned with sustainability but rather only with increasing developer profits.

[John Zeger]

Towards the beginning of the Wednesday morning session Mayor Sharon Shepherd spoke. Shepherd said that Kelowna is the fastest growing city in Canada and that she has heard many people from the public say that Kelowna is growing too rapidly. Shepherd said the same thing during the 2005 election campaign but so far all we are witnessing is talk. What are you planning to do about this, Sharon?

[John Zeger]

William Rees, environmental planner and human ecologist at UBC, said in regards to some proposed models that define sustainability as a balance between ecological, social and environmental interests that the environment should be the basis for sustainability and that "without the ecosphere there can be no economy." Regarding man's attitude and committment to addressing the sustainability problem he said the following. "We are aware that we are destroying the environment, but in terms of policy it hasn't made any difference. We are schizoid. We have the intellectual capacity [to solve the problem] but are driven by the [profit] motive.... Humans are inherently biased against sustainability because of our growth-oriented techno-industrial society... Our success is killing us.... We are in deep trouble indeed.... We are entrenched in a perpetual growth myth."

[John Zeger]

Dr. Rees went on to say that "we are dedicated to the proposition that infinite growth is possible within a finite space" and asked "is this the mark of a sustainable species?... Our values and assumptions are completely contrary to what we know to be the case." He offered that mankind needs a "paradigm shift" in thinking and values.

Rees said that "efficiency gains such as 'smart growth', 'green' buildings, and hybrid vehicles ... are not enough." Regarding the alternatives that are presently being offered as a means towards sustainability, he said that "the politically possible is ecologically meaningless" and "if sustainability is not politically survivable, then we cannot survive as a planet." "Is societal collapse a possibilty?" Rees inquired. "It wouldn't be the first time."

[John Zeger]

Dr. Mark Roseland of Simon Fraser University said that "growth is not inevitable" as many would have us believe. He defined "growth" as getting bigger and "development" as getter better and said that we can have development without growth. For example, this can be done locally by supporting local businesses and keeping money in the community.

[John Zeger]

Ken Melamed, mayor of Whistler, BC, spoke on the population cap that was implemented there in 1989 following a growth moratorium. When he was asked "Wouldn't a population cap make housing in Whistler less affordable?" Melamed responded by saying that with or without a population cap housing in Whistler would be expensive and in order to meaningfully bring down the cost of housing there Whistler would have to grow to the size of Vancouver. Regarding the complaint from the development community that it cannot afford to create affordable housing, Melamed's response to them has been "Show us and open your books."

[John Zeger]

On the subject of which level of government should take responsibility for sustainability matters, Jerry Berry, city manager of Nanaimo, said that "local governments are responsible for sustainability in the broadest sense." He added that we are "structurally addicted to growth." Humans are like frogs in water which is gradually brought to a boil. The frogs don't respond to the gradual change so they perish. Berry said that we are gradually becoming used to the growth that is killing us. What is the solution to the problem? Quoting Albert Einstein, he said that "the problems in the world today cannot be solved by the thinking of the level that created them."

[John Zeger]

Letter sent to the Capital News on Nov. 28, 2006:

Dear Sir:

I would like to commend Judie Steeves and the Capital News on their excellent coverage of the outstanding Building Sustainable Communities conference. In particular, I was thrilled to see the extensive reporting of what was said by Dr. William Rees of UBC as his presentation went to the heart of what sustainability is.

Dr. Rees said that we cannot have economic sustainability without first having ecological sustainability as the latter is a necessary condition for the former. This contrasts with some views that were expressed at the conference and elsewhere that sustainability is a balance between economic, social and ecological interests. However, I think it becomes immediately apparent to any thinking person that one cannot have an economy if we don’t have a livable planet.

In recent years numerous articles have been written distinguishing between “strong” and “weak” sustainability. Strong sustainability would recognize that our environment must take priority and that sustainability is a meaningless proposition if we sacrifice our environment in the interest of furthering economic growth. Weak sustainability maintains that it is both possible and desirable to achieve a balance between environmental, social, and economic objectives.

Of the few members of city council who have expressed any interest in the matter of sustainability at all such as Mayor Shepherd and Councillors Hobson and Rule, none could be called advocates of strong sustainability. They are all advocates of “balance” and “efficiency gains” such as “smart growth” and “green” buildings, solutions which Dr. Rees said “are not enough.” Until we elect some people to city council who would move the city in the direction of strong sustainability, Kelowna will continue to drift towards unsustainability, albeit more efficiently.

Yours truly,

John Zeger

[John Zeger]

I am pleased that politicians, civil servants and others from Kelowna, the Okanagan, and elsewhere in B.C. had an opportunity to hear from two leading thinkers, William Rees and Gabor Zovanyi, on the subject of sustainability at the recent Building Sustainable Communities conference. With Rees focusing on the global picture and Zovanyi on the local, both men delivered the message loud and clear that present population and economic growth trends are inherently unsustainable and dressing them up in terms of “smart” or “sustainable growth” is just so much self-deception designed to make us feel good about doing nothing really meaningful to address the problem.

Local proponents of “smart growth” with their mindless “grow up, not out” mantra had better begin to heed their message because the window of opportunity to avoid an ecological disaster is rapidly closing. These sad people are of a mindset that if only we embrace high density living that we will all be saved as they themselves have mentally capitulated to the fallacy that “growth is inevitable” and have simple-mindedly equated controlling growth with raising drawbridges and erecting walls. But apart from saving a little land, what does “smart growth” really accomplish as our overall ecological footprint continues to grow and exceed our environmental carrying capacity with the juggernaut of endless population and economic growth continuing to ravage our limited resources?

Unfortunately, Rees and Zovanyi’s message will likely fall on deaf ears because it is too unpleasant for most people to hear. They want to hear that there is another way out such as by building highrises using LEEDs construction and having everyone switch to energy-efficient lightbulbs. If only we do these things we can continue to overpopulate and carry on with our consumptive orgy, but then we will have sufficiently fooled ourselves into thinking that we have become sustainable thereby excusing us to continue with our excessive ways. Yes, denial is an easier way out than self-restraint as after the pair spoke I overheard one Kelowna city councillor say “We just can’t do that.”

[John Zeger]

Rocky Sethi’s letter critical of Dr. Gabor Zovanyi’s recent talk is a perfect example of the simplistic reasoning engaged in by most “smart growth” advocates in Kelowna.

They begin with the fallacy that “growth is inevitable” and that we had better deal with it as such. Sorry, Rocky, but growth is not inevitable, at least not at the pace that Kelowna has been mushrooming in the past few years. In that regard, I can name numerous cities that have meaningfully slowed population growth with some to the degree that it can be considered to have been stopped for all intents and purposes. Although Sethi says that “growth will occur” all he can really say is that in most cities growth has occurred, and they have grown because those with a vested interest in continuing growth control the levers of power there. Those cities where the citizens are in charge as opposed to developers, realtors, and chambers of commerce have had different outcomes.

Then on top of the first erroneous assumption, smart growthers add another one, “it’s better to grow up, not out,” and often leave the question of there being healthy limits to density unanswered. In other words, to them there are no limits. This then justifies some of the worst examples of urban cramming as tens of thousands of people are packed into areas no larger than one square kilometer as is the case in Manhattan. The reasoning of smart growthers is that if a little bit of density is good then a whole lot must be that much better. This is probably the same crowd that runs to their doctors complaining of diarrhea after overdosing on vitamins.

I’m sorry Rocky, but I’m not impressed with the reasoning in your letter or that of the “smart growth” camp in our city. When you get your Ph.D. like Gabor Zovanyi has done, perhaps then I will take you a little more seriously.