Saanich - Judy Brownoff

I was quite impressed with Judy. I have always thought that it must be difficult to be a politician. There aren't many jobs with worse reputations than that. How do you maintain your integrity, express you personal beliefs and try to represent thousands of people who all say different things? I think Judy does a pretty good job at it.

She expressed the frustrations that can occur when dealing with bureaucracy and making changes happen. I wonder if it is because a certain type of person usually goes into politics and the people who are forward thinking are wary of going that way. If more people like Judy were elected, we might not have to complain about how slow change happens. I think she has a great opportunity in this area to be a forward thinking community. There are allot of people in the Vic area that are miles ahead of most of the rest of Canada, sustainability wise. There needs to be more people in areas like this to push the issue because other communities with less forward thinking citizens might find it easier to follow suit after Saanich does it first.

Environmental Ethics

This topic gets me fired up, mostly because this is one area where I tend to differ from most of my classmates. In the 4 quadrant framework for Env ethics, i tend to lean towards the Anthropocentric, Duty-based corner. I love and respect the environment. I believe in protecting all parts of nature, but i do NOT believe that humans are equal to nature. I do not think that humans are just another species on this planet (ruining it most people like to add). I believe that we are set apart and are stewards of the environment. I do not that this gives us free reign to do whatever we please with it, like the Utilitarian anthropocentric view. I believe that we are responsible for maintaining and responsibly using what we have power over. I believe that we are not doing a good job of this, and I don't think it is possible to be proper stewards when everyone in the world has a different view on what should be done with nature.


This is what depresses me when I think about our future. How can we make the planet a better place when we have so many different people who think so differently about how they want to live. I hope there is some way that humans can respect nature enough to stop exploiting it.

Integrated Community Sustainability Planning

It seems like a no brainer that this is a good idea for communities. Yet, if you look at many cities, Victoria and all over North America, you see short sited planning and gridlock, cars and people. Too many people making too many short sighted decisions. I lived in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, for 5 years. These two cities, although separate, were one big city. The street grid in the older Waterloo were based on old Mennonite horse-carriage paths, and the street grid of Kitchener was a modern grid-like structure. They were basically laid side by side, overlapping in places, and they did NOT mesh. If you knew the ins and outs of the city you could get places fast, if you didn't, it was maddening.

Lately the two municipal governments of KW have learned to work together and have strategically tried to improve the road systems. Integrated sustainable planning may take a little more effort, but the long term benefits far out way the headaches that could be avoided. The principles of Integration, Scale, Governance and Inclusion are four pillars of good decision making and should be adopted all over N America.

Sustainability Indicators

The UN has categorizes sustainability into measurable indicators in order to classify sustainability, and i like it. Maybe its because I am a competitive guy. I liked it when Canada was the 'best country to live in' for all those years in the late 90's, now we keep losing to Sweden and Denmark (although I wouldn't complain about free university). I like being able to see measurable results and compare them to other people/countries. Now if I was living in Sierra Leone, I might not care so much that my sustainability score was less than Qatar.

I think that there would be most useful for a country to measure growth. For Canada our indicators can be studied every year to see what kind of progress we are making. This also allows our politicians some baselines for policy making. I was not pleased to see that Canada only has 6 indicators and the UK has over 60. Maybe Canada has less to work on ;)

E-Dialogue

The idea of sharing ideas and connecting with people all over the world seems like a great idea... at first. In principle the idea is fantastic. Bringing together the great minds from all over the world, without travelling and spewing GHG into the atmosphere. You also can have an infinite audience, no worrying about selling out lecture halls. It seems like a great idea.

Then I got invited to one. One of my profs, not you Chris ;), sent some groups an email about a GHG e-dialogue. Some of the world experts were going to talk about this relevant subject. I instantly clicked the delete option on my email account. When my colleagues got the email, there response was similar. Maybe it is because we already spend TOO much of our days with our butts in chairs in class or in front of a computer. I already think my vision has been impaired because off too much face to screen time, the LAST thing i wanted to do was read long-winded typing about carbon footprints. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but i like face to face talking. It keeps me more engaged. The computer and the Internet has brought us many great opportunities, but it also is keeping us inside, too much.

maybe if I was sitting on the beach with a laptop.. then I might be in.

Green Maps

When I saw the Victoria Green Map in class the other day, I thought it was cool, and a fantastic idea. I wish I had one of those for every city that I have lived in. They would be an especially valuable tool to new people moving into the city. I can live in a place for years and not know about a cool store that is within blocks of my place. It is frustrating to me when I find a new restaurant that I love, and I could have been eating there for months and didn't know it! For new residents of a neighborhood, it would be like a welcoming gift, and would be an instant connection to their new surroundings.

I find that I get into ruts, where I go to what is familiar. The same restaurants, grocery stores ect... There are probably hundreds of interesting things in Victoria that I will miss out on doing. Every once and a while I get adventurous and explore, looking for new things to do and almost every time I find something I love. This tool will help fast track those random adventures and help connect me to my community.

Holistic Planning

Who is better suited to plan a major community development program, a panel of experts, or the people who live in the community affected? I think most people in the class would say that it is the people in the community that would know whats best for them. So what are we spending all this money for training at University? What is the point of having experts if you are going to let lay people make the decisions? In my experiences with the masses, in general, people will make more short-term beneficial decisions. People want lower taxes, lower prices, more variety.... and NOW, regardless of the future consequences. Hoe else can you explain the climate crisis we find ourselves in?

Trained experts are hired in order to prevent rash decisions. During class discussions I heard a variety of opinions on this topic and my best culmination of those ideas is that a panel of experts should be hired to create a plan based on the general desires of the masses and let the people edit and/or choose from options created by the experts. This will maintain the integrity of the quality of work while allowing the public to feel involved in the process. Its like Ive heard from many nurses who say they know more about the patients than the doctors, but it is important to always make them feel like what you are doing was their idea, to maintain their dominant stature over the nurses.