A glimpse at what the future of our city could be,

EcoDensity here to stay

Despite Mayor Sam Sullivan’s electoral loss, the plan to increase city densities has widespread support

Frances Bula, Vancouver Sun

Published: Thursday, June 12, 2008

VANCOUVER - For the past two years, EcoDensity has been ridiculed as a marketing ploy, an empty phrase for self-promotion by now-deposed Mayor Sam Sullivan, a giveaway to developers, and a recycled version of existing Vancouver policy.

But it was also praised as a much-needed and exciting kickstart for Vancouver in thinking about how to build a more sustainable city.

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EcoDenisty - A flashy name or a mechanism for change? Time will tell

Don’t belive the experts, they have no clue…I suggest using chicken bones for scenario planning

Fazil Mihlar, Vancouver Sun

Published: Saturday, June 07, 2008
Anyone who predicts what the future holds beyond a three-year horizon is a fool. Anyone who believes the predictions of these futurists is a bigger fool. Any politician or business executive who makes decisions on the basis of these predictions is the biggest fool of all.Consider the following prognostications and what actually transpired.

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Commentary

Fazil makes some astonishing remarks in this article. This is par for the course for him and other starry-eyed cheerleaders of endless growth. Three of his examples highlight the power of technological progress over that last 100 years and how history has missed their potential impact. If ‘A’ is a prediction and turned out wrong, then if ‘B’ is also a prediction then it will be wrong by virtue of ‘A’. The logical fallacy of this approach would garner him a failed mark in 12th grade Philosophy. He then goes on to include failed predictions of metal commodity shortages and asserts that a good economics course would explain what we should all know - shortages drive up prices which spur investment which adds to supply, which drives prices down. And just in case you want to talk about using up a resource, economists like to dismiss this as ‘poppycock’ since commodities are fungible.

Most nuanced analysts understand that running out is not the problem or the reality. Many economic reporters use the red herring of ‘running out’ or the ‘exact timing of the peak’ to distract from the larger conversation on trends. Paradoxically, some economic journalists gloss over the economic fallout that rapid and/or sustained loss of cheap oil would exact on the economy, the very subject about which they profess to be so knowledgeable. The short-term difficulty is when supply flows of a needed commodity cannot meet demand because there are real world limits to their availability (regardless of investment). I would hardly call 1000 barrels a second of crude oil a shortage but I would call it a shortage if the world was set up to expect (a better adjective would be ‘perceived to need’) higher flows for an expected economic expansion. We face a collective ‘crisis of scale’ in transportation fuel dictated by real world limitations to supply and bounded by competing goals for human well-being.

Fazil goes on to point out the Tar Sands as evidence that we will transition to unconventional sources of oil. However he conveniently neglects to point out that the outflow is a meagre 2 million barrels a day at a significant cost to the environment compared to traditional drilling. Expansion plans are limited by available natural gas, labor and water. It’s not the size of the resource …its the size of the spigot. Next, Fazil makes the most egregious of Western-centric statements about food - ‘The net result is that there’s plenty of food, but not in the right places at the right time.’ Is this a glaring admission of the failures of the economic system so revered by Mr. Mihlar? He also fails to highlight the input risks to the food production system. Prudence suggests that one must at least consider the fact that natural gas is the lynch pin holding the industrial agricultural system together as it is the precursor to nitrogen based fertilizer.

According to the premises of the article, to speculate about the future (no matter how rigorous the exercise) is to join a litany of ‘doomsday environmentalists, economists, business executives, preachers and astrologers.’ I’m glad Mr. Mihlar isn’t running my business. I want market analysis, future trends and scenario planning. According to Fazil we only need ‘faith’ in the market and a warm cozy feeling that ‘everything is gonna be allright.’ Market analysis, risk management and a rigorous field-by-field supply study or throwing the chicken bones…you decide.

Ben West, West Coast Wilderness Committee Staff

Confidential documents reveal BC government did not consider rising oil prices for multi-billion dollar transportation project
Gateways feasibility was based on gas prices of $0.80/litre!

Vancouver, BC – Freedom of Information documents provided to the Wilderness Committee revealed that BC government officials failed to take into account rapidly rising fuel costs when they were establishing the feasibility of the proposed multi-billion dollar Gateway Project to expand highways, bridges and port facilities around Metro Vancouver.

Transportation experts anticipate that rapidly increasing fuel prices will reduce personal vehicle use and increase the demand for public transportation. The BC governments analysis of the Gateway Projects and gas prices was based on a forecast of gas at $0.80/Litre, but gas in Metro Vancouver is currently selling at around $1.30/Litre, and is projected to rise. The BC governments modeling is based on a 2003 Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) study entitled “Driving Costs” which explores overall operating expenses of vehicles.

“We are disturbed to see that the traffic modeling was based on such out of date figures. At best these projections are shortsighted; at worst they are could be construed as an attempt to justify spending billions of public dollars on a project that will not serve the publics interest,” said Ben West, Wilderness Committee Healthy Communities Campaigner.

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“Peak oil is really a metaphor for peak everything.” Rex Weyler

VancouverIAM.com is the destination for people who want to know what’s going on in Vancouver. It gives you the tools and support to become a video journalist, internet TV and film producer and an active commentator on local politics and everyday issues about life in Vancouver. Rex was recently interviewed with some great video visuals about peak oil by Ian MacKenzie.

Check out the video here

Utopian dreams aside, the suburbs are here to stay

Vancouver architect’s futurist vision ignores population projections

Pete McMartin, Vancouver Sun

Published: Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Ah me. Suburbanites . . . we can’t get no respect.

That the deep thinkers in the inner city characterize the suburbs as sterile wastelands of wife-swapping, Hummer-driving environmental criminals is something I can live with. I don’t drive a Hummer.

That the Death of Suburbia is so accepted a fact among urbanistas that a whole literature has grown up around it I can also abide. Like Twain, I believe the reports of that death to be exaggerated, if not wishful thinking.

Full article

Summary

As usual, poorly researched commentary froths from the mouth of the cynical. Commiting the usual fraud of lumping an entire area of expertise and nuanced analysis into a condescending label of a “gloomy bunch…that believe when the tank runs dry the wheels stop turning and things get ugly — starvation, mass migration, economic collapse, fire raining down from heaven, cats and dogs living together, etc., etc.” Pigeonholed statements like, “They ignore factors like the effects of technological change, and they take a dim and pessimistic view of human nature” indicate a lack of depth and understanding of the research that has been put into the topic. Is it too much to ask to have some informed and nuanced commentary? Mr. McMartin fails to understand the distinction between long term vision/planning that may be necessary in “The new normal” and the untenable proposition of cobbling along with business as usual. Of course, if Rick had merely attempted to paint a picture of the current quagmire then he would have been criticized as an alarmist and chastised for not offering any solutions. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. My hat goes off to Rick Balfour for his tireless work all the while being compensated only by the knowledge that “its the right thing to do.”

Our very own Rick Balfour scores again in the Vancouver Sun!  Does he ever sleep?

City of Swiss-style hill villages envisioned here

Doug Ward, Vancouver Sun

Published: Tuesday, May 06, 2008

METRO VANCOUVER - Sky-high fuel and food prices will eventually make Metro Vancouver’s current planning model of suburban communities linked by gas-guzzling highways economically obsolete.

So says Vancouver architect Richard Balfour who believes the region’s future should resemble Switzerland rather than Los Angeles.

Full article here

Summary

1. Metro Vancouver should begin creating Swiss-style hill villages linked by rail rather than towns on flood plains and valleys connected by pavement.
2. strategic sustainable planning to achieve a new workable pattern of community for a post-oil age
3. oil prices are going to soar to the point where it will become too expensive for Metro Vancouver to import food from southern regions.
4. Southwest B.C.’s low-lying farmland needs to be protected and turned into a “green commons” for food production to serve nearby urban areas
5. clawback of Agricultural Land Reserve land lost in the past two decades to urban development or industry
6. migration and population shifts mean that southwest B.C. and Washington state will have to absorb about another 20 million people

April 25, 2008

Right-wing pundits, Jeremy Leggett, Bill Clinton, and peak oil

By Charlie Smith

For years, right-wing journalists have been dismissing peak-oil theory as a bunch of hogwash.

The Economist magazine’s environment and energy correspondent Vijay Vaitheeswaran poked fun at a group of petroleum geologists that he dubbed the “Depletion Doomsday Gang” in his 2003 book Power to the People. 

It prophesized an energy-rich future that would transform the world.

Back then, oil was trading at around US$25 per barrel.

Today, Vancouver Sun editorial board member Harvey Enchin joined the chorus of peak-oil critics, citing the fall of the U.S. dollar and the discovery of a giant offshore oilfield near Brazil as two reasons why we shouldn’t be concerned.

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