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Post by CRCP on May 17, 2007 18:45:15 GMT -5
Members' posts to follow.
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Post by Rick Shea on May 17, 2007 18:46:47 GMT -5
This was sent to various local media today.
Dear Sir:
After attending the Okanagan Partnership workshop on Monday evening I’m still trying to decide whether it was more like a carefully-orchestrated musical performance, or an evangelistic event.
The typical planners’ groupthink of “compact development,” “density,” and mass transit were trotted out, and in fact built into a computer simulation and made larger than life on the screen on the front of the room. All of these ideas are in question, with no clear evidence that they accomplish the objectives of saving natural areas, green space, energy, and so on. But the choices in the simulation were carefully laid out and presented so that the pre-ordained result was achieved, and everyone went away spiritually fulfilled. The choice of course was to continue to stuff more people into the Okanagan, and in fact crowd them together even closer in the urban cores, create more profits for the developer and realtor friends of City Council and the Okanagan Partnership, all the while ignoring the most important issue of all.
That issue of course, is why we should do this in the first place. The Okanagan Partnership’s computer model contained sufficient misinformation, flawed assumptions, and pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking that it is useless as a planning tool. And, more importantly, it failed to address the current thinking about compact cities encapsulated in “The Compact City Fallacy” (Journal of Planning Education and Research, 2005) that “the compact city is neither a necessary or sufficient condition for a city to be sustainable,” or, for that matter, livable.
As an example of how useless the model is, in incorporating the idea of “ecological footprint,” nowhere does the model acknowledge the hundreds of hectares of land required in other countries to supply us with our food. Nowhere does the model acknowledge that, every time we purchase an item from China and other countries, we increase the amount of mercury in our oceans (emissions from coal-fired electrical generation). Nowhere does the model acknowledge that increasingly expensive fossil fuels will make our current reliance on cheap imported food and goods less and less sustainable. Nowhere does the model acknowledge the catastrophic decline in global fish stocks, the reliance of agriculture on fossil fuels, and the horrendous pollution in other countries so that we can buy cheap products here. As a result, nowhere does the model acknowledge that increasing the number of people in the Okanagan automatically leads to a less sustainable situation here and in many parts of this planet.
Another groupthink idea incorporated into the simulation is that population growth is necessary for economic growth and wellbeing. This idea has been refuted many times over throughout the world, and in countries with fewer natural resources and advantages than Canada. Yet this old way of thinking continues to be trotted out, with the hidden agenda of course that developers and realtors can continue to make their profits.
It is abundantly clear that old ideas have created horrendous problems for us. The Okanagan Partnership acknowledges that we’re trying to deal with the mistakes made 15 years ago. And they will at least pay lip service to the idea that we have no idea what the limits to growth are in this valley. But, when asked what happens in the future after we stuff in as many people as possible, the response is “let them deal with it.” The mistakes of the past are simply being compounded by the mistakes of the present, and our children will have to deal with them.
And we’re being suckered into leaving that behind as our legacy. Throw in a computer and a big screen, and people will apparently believe anything. In trying to deal with the problems created by growth, we want more growth? Growth is the problem, not the solution.
It was clear that those attending the workshop, and especially the moderator and panelists at that workshop, have no idea what a population cap actually means. It still means that people can come and go, it still means growth in the quality of life, and it most certainly means that the problems we have created will suddenly stop getting worse, and allow us some breathing room to deal with them. The moderator’s typical response - that real estate prices will escalate - borders on the ludicrous, and the ignorant. Kelowna is already the second most expensive city in this country. The current practices have driven up prices to the point where housing is already unaffordable for most. If we’re worried about real estate prices, then we need to significantly change what we are doing now, not just do more of the same. But that’s a bit too logical for most people, apparently.
Population caps have already been implemented in other parts of Canada, and in many, many places throughout the world. They have been implemented for various reasons. In Banff, for example, the reason was to preserve the natural beauty of the park, protect wildlife, and make Banff an attractive place to get away from the crowding and pollution of the cities. Okotoks, Alberta, has stated that their water supply and other infrastructure can only support between twenty-five and thirty thousand people comfortably, and that’s their limit. Yet, in Kelowna, we continue to pave over natural areas, destroy wildlife habitat, approve single family and condominium developments on agricultural land, and allow growth willy-nilly without identifying the limits, and especially without identifying any comfortable environmental margin of safety.
No, I was not one of the converted at the Okanagan Partnership forum. Among others, I have these fundamental flaws of looking into the past and toward the future, asking what is the real root of our problems, not succumbing to fatally flawed groupthink, believing that we are part of the natural world and must do all we can to protect it while there’s still something left to protect, and not succumbing to the greed that is destroying this city and this planet.
Sincerely,
Rick Shea,
Kelowna, B.C.
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Post by Rick Shea on May 19, 2007 11:17:08 GMT -5
The previous letter was posted at Castanet but heavily edited, and received one of the typical mindless responses:
This person clearly doesn't even understand how to use the word "sustain" correctly in a sentence, so I suspect that true understanding of the concept is a distant idea too.
Here is the response I sent to Castanet.
Dear Sir:
In response to B.B.’s diatribe (Critic Short on Solutions), I note that I have proposed solutions many, many times to our problems, and even did so at the Okanagan Partnership forum, although the moderator was quick to cut off any discussion, preferring to stick to the carefully planned agenda and outcome. These solutions have proven beneficial and workable in many other parts of this poor old planet, but pure and unadulterated greed prevents them from happening here.
What I really object to is that the so-called “solutions” proposed by the Okanagan Partnership, and presumably supported by B.B., are only making things more unsustainable, and more rapidly. Their radical and childlike notion that we can simply continue to grow without paying for the consequences has been heavily promoted by the local growth machine, and the propaganda continues at “workshops,” in the media, and in our politics.
Yes, I have proposed solutions, but people like B.B. don’t want to listen because it means having to make serious changes to what we do and how we do it. I note that B.B. offered no solutions at all, but rather can “do nothing but object to what was being said,” while simply “griping about problems” with those who raise objections.
Rick Shea
Kelowna, B.C.[/size]
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