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Green Grows Up — Page 2
Here’s what our leaders know but
can’t say: the carbon economy is toast. We’re
at the leading edge of the most significant transition
since the industrial revolution. It will be a slow-motion
control-alt-delete of just about everything, and the
start of something better. It’s a worldwide phenomenon,
of course, but let’s consider our own backyard.
Think of it as Vancouver 2.0.
What will the next green iteration look like?
You’ll still see cars on the roads by the time
our first big emissions-reduction deadline rolls around
in 2020, but there will be a third fewer of them. “You’ll
notice a dominance of transit of all types,” says
Mark Holland. “Maybe some light rail, and buses
will pick up lots of the load. You’ll also see
a lot of racy little Yaris-type cars and an increase
in small electric vehicles.” The other noticeable
difference: more density. A 2006 Journal of Urban
Planning study found that suburban-style development
produces two- to two-and-a-half times more greenhouse
gases per capita than the high-density urban variety.
Expect a great many more compact, pedestrian-friendly,
mixed-use nodes along all our major transportation corridors,
mini-neighbourhoods that will allow people to live and
shop and maybe even work without getting into a vehicle.
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While a good
deal of the transition to Vancouver 2.0 will come
from big picture policy decisions, the real movement
will come when many of us arrive at roughly the
same decisions at roughly the same time.
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And there will be bikes. Think Beijing, think Copenhagen,
think Amsterdam. Every day will look like Critical Mass—the
monthly political-protest gathering of cyclists—at
least on some Vancouver streets. “Perhaps every
eighth or tenth side street will be greenways dedicated
primarily to bicycles,” predicts Holland. More
people will grow food in their backyards. Almost all
homes will be retro-fitted for energy efficiency. Aside
from the odd roof-mounted solar-thermal collector for
heating hot water, the upgrades won’t even be
visible from the street. And yes, you’ll probably
see a few chimneys—technically more “heatstacks”
than “smokestacks”—as the first neighbourhood-scale
utilities bring dirt-cheap, carbon-neutral warmth and
hot water to homes and offices. In part, this whole-system
reboot will come from above—through the politically
messy business of carbon pricing, subsidy shifts, building-code
overhauls, congestion charges. And part of it will come
from the market, via technologies and innovations that
don’t yet exist.
But the really interesting part of this post-carbon
shift hasn’t hired a press agent. We’re
talking about the chatter—the viral buzz around
dinner tables, in Whistler gondolas, the pubs of Kerrisdale,
the cul-de-sacs of suburbia. Because while a good deal
of the transition to Vancouver 2.0 will come from big
picture policy decisions, the real movement will come
when many of us arrive at roughly the same decisions
at roughly the same time. As Malcolm Gladwell writes
in The Tipping Point, “word of mouth
appeals have become the only kind of persuasion that
most of us respond to anymore.”
Last summer, that philosophy brought together a group
of folks from many walks of life to form an under-the-radar
group called SHIFT. Started by local greens Dale Littlejohn
and Stephen Geiger, the organization now consists of
about 30 people with expertise and connections in transportation,
renewable energy, agriculture, and other sectors. They’re
pursuing a simple but lofty goal: to transform, or shift,
Metro Vancouver into a fossil-free zone, and all but
eliminate local greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025.
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