The Futurology Exchange by Okanagan Life Magazine

Fervent Reader Comments

I received the following letter from an Okanagan Life reader, Vern, in response to my column in the January/February 2008 issue. I think the letter speaks for itself, but I give him props for having the courage to share these views publicly. What are your thoughts about what he says?

I read with great interest your editorial "Houston We Have a Problem", and I must say "right on". However, as someone who has seen the problem coming for about forty years, and someone who can read the English language, my criticism is that, number one, you did not use language that the average Joe Blow Sixpack can understand, and number two, you still talked around the subject.

The Future of the Okanagan: A Round Table Discussion Worth Responding To

Compelling conversations don't get much better than this one (available as a text transcript or audio recording), held at the Rotary Centre for the Arts this past November. Okanagan Life Magazine invited some of the Okanagan's best minds and important players to sit down and talk about the Valley's future, as well as options for its sustainability. What we heard at this discussion left us determined to learn more about the issues and with a new mandate to help get the Okanagan's residents involved and participating in a broad exchange of ideas.

Listening to this discussion, it becomes very clear that our shared future is being shaped right now, and if we all go along with the status quo, we may be in for a great deal of unpleasant consequences. Now is not the time to be apathetic.

Hear what a development manager, a wine industry consultant, an organic farmer, an aquatic biologist, a technology expert, a registered architect, a business consultant to First Nations, and three UBC-O professors (from the schools of economics, engineering and sociology) have to say on issues such as the impacts of global factors on the Okanagan, growth and development questions, and the impacts that absentee homeowners have on our communities.

This blog has been set up to share news, views, reviews and interviews on the subject of the Okanagan's future and it's sustainability. I encourage everyone to make comments on anything we post here, beginning with your thoughts and reactions to this round table discussion. Don't leave the important ideas and debates to back room meetings. Get involved and voice your opinions so that our leaders cannot ignore you.

UBC-Okanagan Water Week Event

Indigenous Thinking on Sustainability in a Climate-Challenged World

Date: Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Time: 7 p.m.
Location: Rotary Centre for the Arts -- 421 Cawston Ave, Kelowna, B.C.
Tickets: Tickets are free and will be available as of Feb. 25 -- they must be picked up or ordered in advance from the Rotary Centre for the Arts box office (call 250-717-5304).

Winona LaDuke, a Native American activist applauded worldwide for her work on environmental and social issues, is the World Water Week presenter in UBC Okanagan’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

On March 25 during World Water Week, LaDuke will speak in Kelowna about indigenous views of the environment, efforts to protect land on the White Earth Ojibwe Reservation in Minnesota where she lives, and how thinking seven generations ahead would impact our world’s natural systems -- particularly water, agriculture and energy.

Fresh Outlook Foundation CEO, Joanne de Vries: Sustainability in the Okanagan

When we were doing background research to prepare for the round table discussion that would become the backbone of our Okanagan Life magazine feature story, A Jolt From the Blue ... The Future of Our Valley (January/February 2008), we came across word of a conference that was to be held in Kelowna (November 2007) - the Building Sustainable Communities Conference. We immediately signed up and were bowled over by the quality of the presentations we attended.

This was the second annual conference, hosted by an Okanagan NGO called the Fresh Outlook Foundation, a social marketing organization dedicated to the "development and delivery of programs that enable and encourage sustainable behaviors in people’s home, workplaces, and recreational activities throughout British Columbia."

Fresh Outlook was founded by Joanne de Vries, who describes herself as a communications consultant who has worked 15 years "helping local governments in BC educate and consult with their publics, primarily about sustainability issues such as water use efficiency, solid waste management, energy efficiency, transportation demand management also some strategic and official community planning."

In an interview about the conference, we asked her some of the questions that we planned to pose at our round table discussion. Here's what Joanne had to say.

Aquatic Biologist Darryl Arsenault on Sustainability in the Okanagan

As an engineering consultant and also director of the BC Lake Stewardship Society, sustainability issues are part of Darryl's everyday life. When we interviewed him for a sidebar in Okanagan Life's feature story A Jolt From the Blue...the Future of Our Valley (Jan/Feb 2008), we wanted to hear his thoughts on some of the questions posed at the round table discussion that was the core of the feature. Here's what Darryl said:

Green Builder Andrew Gaucher on Sustainability in the Okanagan

When we interviewed Andrew Gaucher, owner of Green Solutions Inc, for a sidebar in Okanagan Life's feature story A Jolt From the Blue...the Future of Our Valley (Jan/Feb 2008), we also asked him some of the questions posed at the round table discussion that was the core of the feature. Here's what Andrew had to say.

Stuff: 101

Here's a fast, entertaining primer on the lifecycle and impacts of the products we all consume. The Story of Stuff is a website with a 20-minute enhanced video that breaks down the complexities of our modern system of production and consumption into a message that is very easy to understand. It's focus in on the United States, but it applies equally to Canada. Look around at all the stuff you have after you watch this and it will become apparent very quickly just how much one person's impact can be.

Ban the Bags

CBC news reported today (www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2008/01/08/china-bags.html) that China has announced a ban on the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag. Beginning on June 1, "Firms that continue to sell, make and distribute bags thicker than 0.025 mm thick will be given fines and authorities may seize goods and profits..."

Inspired Ideas for a Sustainable Future

Alex Steffen, founder of WorldChanging.com, gives an upbeat presentation of possible solutions to global challenges. Check out the straw that purifies water as you drink it, or my favourite — flowers that change colours where landmines are present below them. He also offers up Vancouver as a city that is implementing some progressive ideas. While some of the answers in his presentation seem irrelevant to us in the Okanagan, I think the message is clear. We need to think differently about how we approach living here. And, we should be very capable of finding innovative solutions to the issues we are facing in this region if we have the willingness to do so.

Cradle to Cradle Design: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

William McDonough, co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, gives a humourous presentation about the need for, and very real capabilities of, designing the products we consume to be fully sustainable and ecologically-friendly — without ending up in a landfill or a "slow motion waste" recycling stream in which the material recycled cannot be used to re-create a product of the same quality as the original.

McDonough also presents plans for an entire sustainable city to be built in China (yes — China!). It's an amazing concept, and should it be pulled off, will give the rest of the world a great template to build on or use as inspiration.

This presentation offers some reasons to remain optimistic about the possibilities for our future. Wouldn't it be great if the Okanagan's new economy could be built with companies and practices with these ideas at their core?

I must give credit to Ethan Andrews, my good friend from Denver, Colorado for passing McDonough's book on to me as a gift. Ethan does some amazing work in the way of environmental art and design with his company Leap Year.