The Futurology Exchange by Okanagan Life Magazine

Big Ideas We Need Now — #1 & 2

Inspired by This Magazine's feature "40 ideas We Need Now," we invited some of Okanagan Life's regular contributors, along with other notable Valley residents to give us a big idea whose time has come, for the Okanagan and for the world. Sadly, more than 90 per cent of those we invited said they were simply too busy. Perhaps, then, the first big idea is that we should all slow down so that we actually have the time to contemplate how to collectively make a better future. Still, we managed to receive a diverse array of ideas that are sure to make you think, make you laugh, make you angry or even make you want to put in your own two cents. Well, here's your chance. Comment on these ideas, or add your own by emailing us. In the meantime…

Super-snooze…Superhero — Shazaam!
by Shelley Wood

In my humble opinion, what the Okanagan needs now is for all of us to just go back to bed — and no, I’m not talking about sex. I have plenty of potential solutions bubbling in my pot of ideas, but a lot of them might just come about on their own if we all just had a few more zees.

Who on city council is going to give the green light to some lousy, short-sighted development proposal if he or she has had a good night’s sleep?

Big Ideas We Need Now — #3 & 4

Inspired by This Magazine's feature "40 ideas We Need Now," we invited some of Okanagan Life's regular contributors, along with other notable Valley residents to give us a big idea whose time has come, for the Okanagan and for the world. Sadly, more than 90 per cent of those we invited said they were simply too busy. Perhaps, then, the first big idea is that we should all slow down so that we actually have the time to contemplate how to collectively make a better future. Still, we managed to receive a diverse array of ideas that are sure to make you think, make you laugh, make you angry or even make you want to put in your own two cents. Well, here's your chance. Comment on these ideas, or add your own by emailing us. In the meantime…

Recognition for the True Captains
by Deanna Kent-McDonald

Lots of big ideas are really cerebral  — impressive with philosophical or controversial weightiness. Whilst many will spin innovative (even grandiose and ridiculously intelligent yet difficult-to-implement) solutions for how to revolutionize the landscape we call life, I can only offer a small simple thread about how to change the fabric of our Okanagan community — and one that might even impact the world.

As a community, we tend to be like all others in that we’ve got a whomever-has-the-biggest-dinghy-wins kind of attitude. But what about our smaller (and extraordinarily critical) day-to-day interactions? I propose we permanently shift our perspective and give the appropriate recognition, compensation and adoration to those individuals who actually run the world (not just those who have enough hull to buy respect). Give the good stuff to those souls who get you through the day.

Big Ideas We Need Now — #5 & 6

Inspired by This Magazine's feature "40 ideas We Need Now," we invited some of Okanagan Life's regular contributors, along with other notable Valley residents to give us a big idea whose time has come, for the Okanagan and for the world. Sadly, more than 90 per cent of those we invited said they were simply too busy. Perhaps, then, the first big idea is that we should all slow down so that we actually have the time to contemplate how to collectively make a better future. Still, we managed to receive a diverse array of ideas that are sure to make you think, make you laugh, make you angry or even make you want to put in your own two cents. Well, here's your chance. Comment on these ideas, or add your own by emailing us. In the meantime…

Knowing Discretionary Spending and Priming the Elements of Discernment
by Don Elzer

Discretionary spending is the amount of money we spend as consumers after we have paid for our staples such as housing. Collectively in the Okanagan we spend about $4.5 billion per year, however, we don’t know a lot about our discretionary spending habits.

Such spending is at the core of knowing and understanding how to shift consumer behaviour and ultimately what drives our local economy. A shift in such local spending patterns can retain millions of dollars locally, and conversely, can mean millions of dollars leaving the community.

We must turn our community economic development agencies into local knowledge centres that understand the details of local discretionary spending patterns. Local initiatives should help compete against big box retailing and the global marketplace in order to retain local spending within the community economy.
Promoting efforts to buy locally grown food, locally made goods and purchase services owned and operated within the community could add 30 per cent value to our economy in the Okanagan and create a formula of sustainability.

Big Ideas We Need Now — #10 & 11

Inspired by This Magazine's feature "40 ideas We Need Now," we invited some of Okanagan Life's regular contributors, along with other notable Valley residents to give us a big idea whose time has come, for the Okanagan and for the world. Sadly, more than 90 per cent of those we invited said they were simply too busy. Perhaps, then, the first big idea is that we should all slow down so that we actually have the time to contemplate how to collectively make a better future. Still, we managed to receive a diverse array of ideas that are sure to make you think, make you laugh, make you angry or even make you want to put in your own two cents. Well, here's your chance. Comment on these ideas, or add your own by emailing us. In the meantime…

Do It Yourself
by Jennifer Cockrall-King & Florian Maurer

Big ideas for the Okanagan? This conjures up the image of Gary Larson’s cartoon of a sheep in the middle of a herd shouting: “I want to be me!” When it comes to needing BIG ideas, we’re in it together with the rest of the world. Let’s cut out the “I am special” silliness.

Some BIG ideas have been around forever. It is more a case of picking them up again when needed, and that’s what our submission is about: DIY. Do it yourself! It’s what an architect and a food writer can agree on. It offers ways to confront grim problems: shortage of food and shelter, abundance of unrealistic expectations. Here is our take on it.

Big Ideas We Need Now — #12 & 13

Inspired by This Magazine's feature "40 ideas We Need Now," we invited some of Okanagan Life's regular contributors, along with other notable Valley residents to give us a big idea whose time has come, for the Okanagan and for the world. Sadly, more than 90 per cent of those we invited said they were simply too busy. Perhaps, then, the first big idea is that we should all slow down so that we actually have the time to contemplate how to collectively make a better future. Still, we managed to receive a diverse array of ideas that are sure to make you think, make you laugh, make you angry or even make you want to put in your own two cents. Well, here's your chance. Comment on these ideas, or add your own by emailing us. In the meantime…

ORT and the Messiah
by Rick Cogbill

I know I should be content, but there’s one thing big cities like London, Tokyo and Vancouver all share in common, and it makes me jealous. For the price of a single ticket, you’ve got a window seat on the cheapest city tour you’ll ever find. I’m talking Light Rapid Transit.

Here in the Okanagan, communities from Vernon to Osoyoos are all on the “invaded communities list,” and whether it’s caravans of out-of-province sun seekers looking for the perfect summer vacation or locals commuting to work, thousands of people and their attendant automobiles flow in and out of our towns every day. That’s why we need ORT  — the Okanagan Rapid Transit system.

Manufactured Landscapes

I may be late to the game, but I recently watched the documentary Manufactured Landscapes. WOW! This was the first time I had seen the work of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky. Watching this film, I really came to realize that I never fully understood the sheer vastness, the enormous scale of the resource extraction and manufacturing that we all rely on for our daily existence and the impacts these activities have on our environment and other human lives. We might live in the beautiful Okanagan, but we all contribute to the creation of these man-made landscapes with how we live and what we buy. It's a small world, and as modern humans we are creating large scars upon it. Seeing is believing. I highly recommend watching this film. I've posted the opening shot of the film below. Also visit Burtynsky's website for galleries of his stunning, and sometimes shocking work.

When Community Growth Causes Personal Pain

This past Friday (February 8) I attended a forum in Kelowna co-sponsored by the City of Kelowna and the John Howard Society of the Central Okanagan. The program was titled: Crime Prevention and Sustaining Healthy Communities.

From that, I was inclined to expect something on the theme of law and order, so the message I heard was quite a surprise.

The keynote speaker Craig Jones, a Phd, criminologist, researcher and executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada, worked from the premise that "rapid economic growth does not benefit everyone equally. Some people - for a complex variety of reasons - suffer severe psycho-social dislocation. Traditional criminal justice responses usually exacerbate such situations."

Well then, certainly Kelowna qualifies under the heading of rapid economic growth. And according to statistics presented in a pre-session handout by the Poverty and Homelessness Action Team of the Central Okanagan, nearly 300 people – men, women, families with children and seniors – sleep outside and in shelters; last year the Kelowna food bank distributed nearly 30,000 hampers to low income families helping nearly 10,000 children; close to 40 per cent of the city’s homeless people are over 50 years of age; and surprisingly, 27 per cent of homeless people work full or part time.

In a city where housing prices have doubled in the last five years, the action team’s figures indicate that 5,000 households spend more than half their income on housing and 22,000 people are at risk of becoming homeless. With a zero rental vacancy rate, the city needs an additional 8,000 affordable housing units.

So I could easily buy a case for severe psycho-social dislocation.

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.

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.