by hans peter meyer
Sometimes I look around me and I have to give my head a shake: How did we get here? Yes, we did have some serious “sustainability” action here in the mid-1990s, thanks to Madame Brundtland’s commission, and the flurry of activity that issued forth from the BC Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (remember those heady days?). But I haven’t seen the likes of this past year, ever.
My work involves listening to and writing about people who are active “on the land” – what a friend of mine likes to call the land use “practitioners,” which means pretty much anyone whose professional or voluntary activities involve “land.” This includes real estate agents and stream stewards, appraisers and wildlife biologists, not to mention planners, engineers, and Mayors and Councillors.
My interest generally has to do with how people with different perspectives and strengths (and blind spots) talk to each other and learn from each other about this complex, messy, heavily contested thing called “the land.” This year I’ve noticed more and more of us who might have shied away from being “environmentalists” are getting active in a raft of activities that, a couple of years ago, could only have been described as “environmental activism.”
For example, I’m seeing more developers working hard to paint their big-acre projects “green.” Maybe it’s the only way they think they’ll get local government bodies to make changes to zoning and approvals. Maybe they’re being smart, preparing for the emerging “green consumer.” Maybe they just want to do the “right” thing.
I’m also seeing folks we used to bad mouth in the ‘90s become the local champions for “design with nature” (forgive me, but it was like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel, blaming engineers as risk-averse obstacles to the changes we wanted). Why are engineers now so often local champions of change? Some tell me they’re concerned about the big-time financial and environmental costs of traditional practices. Others are keen to leave a legacy for their kids: saving a wetland for frogs, newts, birds, bees, etc rather than ditching and draining it – at the same time as providing real estate for housing and reducing the dollar cost of flooding basements.
Here’s a small, telling moment. One of my recent fave organizations (Convening for Action Vancouver Island [CAVI] – more on them at www.waterbucket.ca) was hosting a local “learning lunch” about better “rainwater management practices.” The audience: planners, engineers, fisheries cops, and NGOs. The “telling moment” was a cameo appearance by the CAO and a gaggle of newly elected Mayors. I used to have a green-eyed girl in my life, so I already knew how sexy “green” can be; but these folks are just waking up to the fact. And they were making sure that we got the picture: new Mayors + CAO + “green” infrastructure “learning lunch” = way cool sexy. A few years ago this group wouldn’t have known about the luncheon workshop; they certainly wouldn’t have bothered to grace us with their presence.
The second Victoria Gaining Ground conference in May was another “wow” moment. A showcase of hard, sometimes overwhelming climate-change related challenges from all across North America. And: amazing resolve and creativity in dealing with these challenges. The 3rd GG and a sister event in Calgary are slated for May 2009. Kudos to Gene Miller and his crew for throwing conferences that inspire and give practical examples of how to respond to climate change and enhance quality of life in our communities.
At a “do” celebrating 20 years of grant-making at the Real Estate Foundation of BC, I get another refreshing blast from the present. This time it’s a successful, high profile real estate guy from an Interior town, making a very impassioned case for “green” value development as the only way for real estate and land development to proceed in BC. He isn’t a voice in the wilderness. These real estate guys (& gals) may still be salespeople, but they “get it” that what they’re selling (lots, houses, neighbourhoods) – it all depends on better land use practices for it to sustain or grow in value.
Most recently, I’m at a “sustainability engagement party.” I meet a woman who’s writing a book on “sustainable parenting” and I realize that I’m way out of my depth. A hundred (or was it two hundred?) crammed into a beautiful bit of Burnaby’s rural past (ie. old farmhouse, nicely updated, surrounded by fields of single family dwellings), celebrating the hostess’s engagement, dancing, gnoshing, etcetera – and spiking every other sentence with some reference to “sustainability.” Frankly, my sustainability creds weren’t up to scratch; I retreated to the dance floor where I managed to hold my own.
Finally, right here in my home town there is something even cooler than CAOs and Mayors at a “learning lunch.” We’re participating in a Valley-wide (egad! how did THAT happen?) Sustainability Strategy project (FMI: see http://shapethefuture.ca/comoxvalley/ )! Unimaginable even a few years ago. Then, local decision-makers seemed more intent on rolling over for big-box, big-acre development than wondering about what was sustainable.
How “real” is any of this? I don’t know. I just listen to people and write about what I’m hearing. But what I’m seeing and hearing is that change is happening, usually in places where I least expect it. It seems that most of us – from homeowners to engineers to Mayors – are starting to connect the dots that we can understand (ie. usually the financial data): acting “sustainably” looks like it’s going to cost us less (a lot less) than doing “business as usual.”
2008 has been a good year for “sustainability” in my part of the world. I’m excited. It bodes well for me, my family, and my community. But, first things first: sustaining family values. 2009 kicks off with me getting to see Zappa Plays Zappa with my (real-time) guitar-hero son, who’s just back from Fort Mac, Canada’s own real-time Deadwood. As Frank said, “Call any vegetable, and the chances are good...”
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[originally published in The Island Word, December 2008]
©hanspetermeyer.ca / 2008
