With 2011 safely behind us, it’s time for a last moment of reflection before diving into the 2012 pool. Allow me to publicly shake out the drawer of possible column topics that never got past the “idea” stage:
•Point out that it’s easy being a green city when people in China have to breathe the bad air from the factories that make our fridges, computers, paper clips, shovels, Christmas ornaments and port cranes.
•Congratulate the B.C. government for plugging loopholes and helping reduce speculation on land in the agricultural land reserve.
•Ask why we don’t welcome using BC Hydro’s new smart meters for variable charges for electricity, when the meters’ greatest benefit is rewarding off-peak power use and postponing the need to build expensive new capacity for peak periods.
•Survey people who don’t believe humans cause climate change and ask them if 95% of the world’s top scientists said an airplane was unsafe, whether they would get on board because 5% said everything was OK.
•Remind readers of www.cheatneutral.com, where anyone can go and legitimize their philandering by buying an offset from someone who promises not to cheat on their spouse.
•Count the toll of senior managers who have left since Vision Vancouver came to power at Vancouver city hall, and the sorry morale of those who are still hanging on.
•Look at how getting young people involved in allotment gardens in one housing estate in the U.K. cut “anti-social behaviour” by 50% and how police were “astounded.”
•Look at how the new federal crime bill makes us more like the U.S., where there are now more prisoners than farmers.
•Look at what a “green job” really is, and whether it makes more sense to focus on growing green markets than creating green jobs.
•Figure out which visionary individuals and organizations could take the lead in raising capital and securing a location for an overdue Vancouver equivalent of Toronto’s MaRS Centre, to “connect the worlds of science, business and government, nurture a culture of innovation and help create global enterprises.”
One of my Facebook friends referenced a personal training program she’d enrolled in last year that resulted in her running her first marathon, writing her first book and meeting the man of her dreams. I didn’t run my first – it would have been my fourth – marathon this year, although I did go into four long-distance cycling events. I still haven’t met the man of my dreams, but I did manage to write my first book.
This being my last chance to make good on missed opportunities from 2011, I must make amends for a Major Failure in my book: forgetting to thank all the people who helped me with it. In the interests of space I’ll narrow it down to three. The first is Mark Winston, director of the SFU Centre for Dialogue, who risked his institution’s reputation by taking me on as a Fellow. Then, when we discussed how I would pursue my topic of Planning Cities as if Food Matters, he suggested, “Why don’t you write a book? That’s what academics do.”
So I accepted his challenge, and was thrilled that the good people at New Society Publishers agreed to take me on. So thank you Mark, and thank you Ingrid Witvoet and the whole team at New Society, who continue to shepherd me through the mysteries of book marketing. More than anyone, my life partner Erica deserves thanks for being a constant supporter in this project, and in all ways at all times.
And for 2012, just one prediction: this will be the year we all start thinking about eating less meat – a vegetarian with a Hummer is more environmentally friendly than a meat-eater with a bicycle. Or maybe vegetarians will start driving more Hummers.
Happy New Year. •
