Bravo Arno Kopecky for such high-quality reporting on Iceland’s hydrogen program and Canada’s lack of a forward-thinking energy plan (“Water To Burn,” December). Spending my tax dollars to subsidize oil consumption makes me want to scream.
I have worked in Alberta’s tar sands, those vast oil reserves that lie deep underground, where the crude extraction process uses about two-thirds the energy it yields. Twenty million cubic metres of natural gas is consumed each day, producing far more greenhouse-gas emissions than conventional-oil extraction processes. The giant open pit mines and enormous ponds containing toxic wastewater — both visible from space — alone cover some 150 square kilometres and have permanently destroyed significant swaths of boreal forest. If current activities continue, by 2025 this environmental devastation will spread to 1,500 square kilometres.
In Vancouver I ride a bicycle, occasionally take buses, and always seem to be stuck in traffic. The BC government is building roads that will only increase suburban sprawl and car dependency. Meanwhile, Ottawa continues to subsidize car manufacturers and give tax concessions to oil companies. Surveys indicate that a majority of people would like to be able to bike to work. But if cars are here to stay, at the very least they should, following Iceland’s lead, be hydrogen-powered. Canada must turn to alternative-energy solutions, and hydrogen can be produced through wind generators, photovoltaic cells, tidal power, geothermal energy, and other sustainable approaches.
Vancouver, BC
Lost In Suburbia
Larry Frolick’s dichotomy of organic growth versus planning (“Suburbia’s Last Stand,” November) suggests that human activities are either spontaneous or fabricated. But the nine items Frolick uses to differentiate Toronto’s growth from Mississauga’s show otherwise. For example, he argues, “the former grew organically around water courses, Indian trails, military sightlines, sawmills, local factories, quarries, farmers’ markets, cheap worker housing — and aristocratic fiefdoms like High Park.” This certainly describes an urban geography and history that many of us recognize as a Jane Jacobs sort of city. But even the first of these nine items is not wholly organic, and the remaining eight point directly to planning.
According to Frolick, Michael Moldenhauer, an urban developer, complains that he “spends fully two-thirds of his time” in meetings and argues that “what you pay for in a new house today is not apparent — it’s an invisible mountain of reports and files.” Moldenhauer is acknowledging that over the past thirty to forty years more of the planning for urban growth has been financed and directed by developers, and, indirectly, by their clients. Whenever a new building goes up, there is planning. The issue is not planning verses spontaneity; it’s in whose interest the planning is being done.
While the Ontario government should be commended for tackling southern Ontario’s urban and agricultural future, the real power rests at the municipal level. Hazel McCallion, Mississauga’s mayor, is devoting considerable energy to smart-growth concerns and, as a result, I predict a much higher turnout in next year’s local elections than the 23 percent who turned out last year.
Decisions should be made following basic utilitarian principles (the greatest good for the broadest possible community), including the interests of those living thousands of miles downwind from our carbon emissions, those planning to immigrate here, and those not yet born. Deliberate and unhurried consultation during the planning process will produce positive results, as will the democratic debate I anticipate from a larger, younger, and more diverse electorate — potential planners each and every one of them.
Bruce Flattery
Founding member,
Ontario Farmland Trust
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