sustainability: moving from talk to action

[CRCP]

Member's posts follow:

[John Zeger]

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There has been a lot of talk about sustainability in Kelowna during the 2005 civic election campaign and since, but that's all we have witnessed. It is good to have a community discussion about sustainability, but unless the talk is translated into action it all becomes so much hot air. One could be cynical and say that by talking about it some local politicians are giving people the impression that something is being accomplished without actually having to commit to any action. For example, Mayor Sharon Shepherd said during the election campaign and since that she has heard some members of the community say that Kelowna is growing too fast. This gives people the impression that she too agrees with this sentiment or is at least sympathetic to that point of view without actually doing anything about our rapid rate of population growth. On the other hand, one could say that talking about sustainability is the first step towards action and that at least now it is being talked about at all.

But the time has come in my opinion to move from talk to action. This can be done by presenting different alternatives towards sustainability to the community such as "smart growth" (densification without controlling the growth rate), slow growth (reducing our rate of population growth), and no growth (halting in-imgration by stopping issuing new residential building permits). We can then have a community discussion about the merits (pros and cons) of these different growth options.

But perhaps even prior to that or at least at the same time, we need to refine what we mean by sustainability or "sustainable development". To help crystallize our notion of what "sustainable development" is it would be useful to operationalize this concept or to put it into measurable terms. This has yet to be done in Kelowna. In that regard we need to come up with some sustainability indicators to see if we have been moving towards or away from sustainability. The Pembina Institute of Alberta has done some excellent work in this area in creating a Genuine Progress Indicator. Their GPI is comprised of 51 factors and is offered as an alternative to GDP which measures only monetary wealth. By now, I think most (although not all) people would agree that "sustainable development" goes beyond just monetary wealth and includes other aspects of quality of life and environmental preservation. The Pembina Institute's GPI is by no means exhaustive nor is it necessarily the best measure of sustainability for Kelowna, but is merely offered as an example of how sustainability can be operationalized.

Here is a recent report by the Pembina Institute on how Alberta is faring in regards to sustainability. Although I don't have the hard data to substantiate it yet, my gut feeling tells me that if a GPI were created for Kelowna that it would show the same measurable decline.

www.pembina.org/pdf/publications/Alberta%20GPI%20Summary.pdf

[John Zeger]

In a recent article Professor Hideki Kaji of Keio University in Japan says that in developing nations creating compact cities is not enough but that planning for sustainability should also involve slowing population growth.

www.fasid.or.jp/daigakuin/sfc/fasid/lec_note/1201w.pdf

But I don't know why Professor Kaji is saying this only about developing countries when the same applies to developed countries such as Canada and the U.S. In the latter scores of cities have made efforts to slow their population growth or at least have strong "slow growth" movements happening in their cities. Many of these cities can be found in California, Oregon, Colorado, Maryland, Virginia and elsewhere.