SCIENCE MATTERS By: David Suzuki www.davidsuzuki.org

Making Cities More Livable
May Save the World

Most of the world’s 6.9 billion people live in cities. City dwellers consume about three quarters of the world’s energy and generate most of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change.

If we are to resolve some of the serious issues around pollution, climate change, human health, and energy consumption, we must look to cities for solutions. As the world’s population continues to grow, a shift back to rural living is unlikely. So, what can we do?

Progress in my home city of Vancouver gives me hope – but even here we have a long way to go. The most important move urbanites can make is to get out of their cars. But governments must encourage this with better community design and investments in public transit and pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.

Cycling is the fastest growing method of travel in Vancouver, thanks in part to a municipal decision to expand bike routes, especially into downtown.

Walking is also becoming more popular, with the number of walking trips up 44 per cent since 1994. And increases in the number of people taking public transit are outpacing those in all other urban Canadian centres, with a 20 per cent rise in ridership over the past decade – although government investment in the system has not kept up with this demand, hampering its potential.

Making cities more sustainable isn’t just about shifting from car-centric to human-centric planning. Providing incentives to retrofit older buildings or design newer ones to be more energy-efficient, encouraging economic activity that doesn’t cause a lot of pollution, and creating more parks and green spaces are all essential to making cities more livable and less polluting.

But steering society away from cars is essential. In his book, Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies for the Post Carbon World, UBC professor Patrick Condon points out that “Thirty per cent of the world's carbon dioxide production comes from the United States and Canada, where only about six per cent of the world's people live. Of this amount, about a quarter comes directly from transportation – and the bulk of that from single-passenger automobiles.”

On top of the environmental problems, cars kill. Even though accident rates are going down, thanks in part to technical innovations and regulations around speeding and seatbelt use, cars are a leading cause of death for Canadians, especially young people. According to Statistics Canada, 32 per cent of the 44,192 accidental deaths in Canada between 2000 and 2004 were from motor-vehicle accidents – 70 per cent in the 15 to 24 age group.

Transforming cities doesn’t have to be overly difficult. In Bogotá, Colombia, Enrique Peñalosa made great strides as mayor from 1998 to 2001. By increasing gas taxes, restricting car use during rush hour, creating more parks and bicycle routes, and improving public transit, he helped make the crowded and once-polluted city far more livable.

The biggest challenges to transforming cities include the entrenched belief among many North Americans that cars are an absolute necessity and the failure of many people to see the benefits of a balanced transportation system. The backlash against a few bike lanes in Vancouver has been strong, even though the lanes have done little to hinder traffic or business.

Vancouver was able to avoid many of the problems other cities face, thanks in part to a decision in the late 1960s (spurred by activists) not to expand freeways into the city and to instead focus on a balanced transportation system where walking, biking, and transit are viable options. Statistics Canada reports that Vancouver is the only major Canadian city where commuting times decreased between 1992 and 2005. Cities that focused on expanding roads have seen more traffic and gridlock. As well, Vancouver’s transportation emissions, which were once on the rise, have been arrested.

Unfortunately, Metro Vancouver still risks repeating the mistakes of other cities, as provincial pressure to expand freeways is ever present. We really need to be more forward-thinking.

Professor Condon sums up the opportunities well: “If we change the way cities are built and retrofitted, we can prevent the blackest of the nightmare scenarios from becoming real and can create the conditions for a livable life for our children and grandchildren. It is not apocalyptic to say we can save their lives.”

Fables From old Times
Have Meaning for our Times

When wading through the words of pundits and the babble of political posturing, I can’t help but think of some of the simple truths we learned as children. Remember those stories from Aesop, Hans Christian Andersen, and the Grimm brothers that enthralled us while imparting powerful messages? Two childhood fables seem particularly important today.

Once upon a time, a couple owned a goose that laid a golden egg every day. They became very rich but were not content with a single egg a day. In their greed, they killed the goose to get at the eggs inside. Of course, they found the goose had guts like any other goose, and they ended up with nothing.

I thought of that story while working on a Nature of Things program on the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. In the 1980s, Brazil’s government encouraged people to move to the Amazon to make a living or a fortune. “Land without people for people without land” was how the government promoted it.

And so one of the largest, most complex, and irreplaceable ecosystems on the planet has been logged, flooded, mined, and burned for decades as Brazilians seek their fabled El Dorado, the city of gold. But, as in the fairy tale about the goose, El Dorado is the forest, not the resources being exploited by destroying it.

Many see the destructive activities in South America as a response to poverty. If that’s true, what’s our excuse? In North America, we have demolished the bulk of our original forests through the unsustainable practice of clear-cut logging. Across the country, one logging community after another has gone from boom to bust as forests have been cut down. The golden eggs were the economic benefits of logging, which could have been obtained year after year, as long as the goose – the forest – was healthy.

Over and over, we find ourselves rushing to get more eggs. In doing so, we end up losing the goose. We do it in agriculture as we use up the topsoil created over millennia; we do it in fisheries as our increasing technological power allows us to catch more fish faster; and we do it in northern Alberta as we tear up boreal ecosystems, pollute the water, and inject massive amounts of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, all to get more of those eggs. And damn the goose.

I thought of another children’s tale while listening to the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge interview Prime Minister Stephen Harper earlier this year. The prime minister claimed Canadians were only concerned about the economy and that Canada’s possible involvement with torture in Afghanistan was not a serious concern. Mr. Harper also ignored the massive public demand for leadership on climate change that preceded Copenhagen. The tale that comes to mind is the story of the emperor who wore no clothes.

Long ago, a vain emperor was overly concerned about his appearance. Two crafty weavers promised to make him a fine outfit from material that could not be seen by those who were stupid or unfit for their position. When the weavers pretended to display samples, the emperor couldn’t admit he was unable to see them, for that would be an admission of incompetence or stupidity. His courtiers and ministers were likewise unable to admit they saw nothing. When the weavers came with the finished outfit, everyone oohed and aahed. Putting on the imaginary clothes, the emperor paraded outside so the public could admire him and his new attire. Everyone in the crowd, enthralled by the status of the king and bowed by their desire to be seen as clever and fashionable, remained silent. Only a child, innocent of the claims of the weavers, pointed out the obvious: “The emperor has no clothes.”

We are living in a time when ecological degradation is occurring everywhere. B.C.’s northern forests have turned red, victims of mountain pine beetles no longer killed by winters that have become too warm. Farmers know harvest time is later, birders report birds migrating north two weeks earlier and departing weeks later than normal, competitive skiers tell us European meets are being cancelled for lack of snow. Glaciers are receding, Arctic ice is melting… the list is long. But where the emperor and his sycophantic subjects were blinded by vanity, we are prevented from seeing by the cloak of economics and politics.

Let’s throw off the blinders and see the world as any child can.

Get involved and be part of the solution.