Urban Vancouver

I was cross country skiing on Christmas day. The snow and ice on the trees sparkled in the sun making the whole scene a true winter wonderland. Relaxing, timeless, beautiful - a true winter wonderland.

Then I noticed that most of the trees were red. I was skiing through a forest of dead trees killed by pine beetles, which are raging out of control due to global warming.

Still beautiful, but not quite so relaxing. And a good reminder that that things have changed.

But many of us have not come to grips with how much things have changed. Rafe Mair has an article in the Tyee today that gives a good account of how greed and mismanagement has created the present economic mess. However, he asserts that "2008 isn't much different than 1929" as if we can afford a return to unbridled economic growth on our finite planet.

How to Create a Depression

Why we're in this mess despite so many warning signs.
By Rafe Mair
Published: January 5, 2009
[snip]
2008 isn't much different than 1929. Over optimism bred careless credit controls and in due course the bubble burst. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

[snip]

And, as sure as God made little green apples, it will happen again. It always has and it always will.
http://www.thetyee.ca/Views/2009/01/05/Depression/?utm_source=mondayheadlines&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=050109

A second Tyee article by Rex Weyler asserts that things are different now, and 2009 is the year many of us will give up on economic growth and embrace steady-state economics. Giving up on economic growth makes the whole concept of a recession or depression obsolete. "2009, will signal the birth of a genuinely innovative economics that will eventually displace the patchwork rationalizations for greed."

Idea #10: Biophysical Economics
New ideas for the new year.
In the future, economists will return to earth.
By Rex Weyler
Published: January 2, 2009

TheTyee.ca

The year 2009 will witness a tsunami of appeals to economists to fix, as disgraced Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan put it, the "flaw" in their thinking. Most will get it wrong.

The proposals for bailouts, regulations and government spending sprees all share one tragic flaw: they assume no physical or biological limits to human growth. Most economists cling to an 18th century mechanical universe that conjured an "invisible hand" of God, that would allegedly convert private greed into public utopia.

Indeed, a few got rich, but the meek inherit an earth featuring child slavery, sweatshops, a billion starving people, toxic garbage heaps, dead rivers, exhausted aquifers, disappearing forests, depleted energy stores, lopped-off mountain tops, acid seas, melting glaciers and an atmosphere heating up like a flambé.
[snip]

Take a few minutes to read the whole article at http://www.thetyee.ca/Views/2009/01/02/Economics/

Things have changed big time since 1929. Building roads to stimulate economic growth worked to some extent in the 1930s, today you only have to look around you to see how much things have changed (at least in the interior of BC).

(This cartoon illustrates Rafe Mair`s article - but the message better matches Weyler`s)

http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/DUNG.PDF.

Here in South Delta where we are surrounded by farming and the other allowable farm uses on farm land, composting is actually becoming a growth industry. Cheaper than paying to dump certain farm byproducts at the Vancouver/Delta Landfill and they have something to sell at the end of the composting process.

Now, in the world of agricultural fertilizer, 90% of nitrogen fertilizer comes from natural gaz, and with Peak Oil, any fossil fuel fertilizers may not be very affordable in the future. When our "turf sod" growers here roll up their fields of sod, they have to replace the loss of dirt or growth medium. They do this by bringing in truckload after truckload of "compostable" medium. Manures of all types from the Fraser Valley and many loads that I won't bother mentioning here. The biggest problem is how local residents of Ladner react to the smells generated by this use of composted materials.

Most of us in North America are simply disgusted at the thought of having to deal with our own excrement, not to mention having to talk about it. But it is a reality that will soon be upon us, in ways many of us never could have imagined. Most gets flushed down to the local sewage treatment plant and then a certain amount gets flushed out to sea. This site http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/savage/DUNG.PDF. gives an interesting history of what the Japanese did and I would guess still do.

Really, this is just another aspect of recycling our waste and our future.

...'We are told that 'Rent was adjusted on the basis of how many tenants there were and was raised if the number of occupants dropped.'The excreta might even be sub-divided. 'The value of human wastes was so high that rights of ownership to its components were assigned to different parties. In Osaka, the rights to fecal matter from the occupants of a dwelling belonged to the owner of the building whereas the urine belonged to the tenants. Feces were considered more valuable and hence commanded a higher price.'The commodity became more and more valuable, so that 'as the price of fish and other fertilizers rose, the value of night soil rose correspondingly, and vegetables were no longer sufficient to pay for it. By the early eighteenth century, with the increase in new paddies in the Osaka area, the price of fertilizer had jumped to the point that even night soil had to be purchased with silver.'The competition for night soil even led to open conflict. 'In the summer of 1724, two groups of villages from the Yamazaki and Takatsuki areas fought over the rights to collect night soil from various parts of the city.'Even in the 1930s 'every scrap of human manure is used to-day...The school and village office rent out the right to collect their night-soil.'....

http://www.nowpublic.com/tag/P3/news

And there is more at this link.

European bank funding BC P3s may be broken up by new owners

by mike_yvr | December 26, 2008 at 09:30 am

Dexia, the Belgian-French bank that's involved in several public-private partnership schemes in British Columbia, may be broken up by the governments who bailed it out.

The bank is providing financing for the Royal Jubilee Hospital expansion in Victoria, a new Surrey outpatient hospital, and the Golden Ears Bridge linking Maple Ridge to Surrey.

In the wake of September's credit crunch, Dexia received a bailout worth $11.3 billion from a number of European governments.

A media report today suggests that the state-owned French bank that took part in the bailout is considering carving out Dexia's French operations and merging them with the postal service.

Dexia has faced a number of problems recently.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the bank may be exposed in the Bernard Madofff alleged fraud scandal to the tune of $115 million (US),

And Dexia's inability to raise capital due to the world-wide shortage of credit forced the British government to bailout a major highway project near Carlisle.

Despite the crisis facing P3 lenders like Dexia, Depfa and other banks, the B.C. government agency reponsible for managing P3 schemes insists that taxpayers will not have to bailout projects like the Royal Jubillee Hospital expansion.

Nobody wants to be the Christmas turkey, but after a state-backed rescue earlier this year a carve-up could be in store for Belgo-French bank Dexia.

According to a report in French daily Les Echos published on Friday, France's state-owned lender La Caisse des Depots is backing a takeover of Dexia's French activities. The lender threw Dexia (other-otc: DXBGF - news - people ) a 2 billion-euro ($2.8 billion) lifeline at the end of September, as part of a 6.4 billion-euro ($9.0 billion) rescue package backed by the governments of France, Belgium and Luxembourg, and is reportedly considering merging the bank's French operations with France's state-owned postal bank, Banque Postale, to solve its funding difficulties.

http://www.saveourrivers.ca

This "novel" idea of giving up growth to stop climate change may well be a pipe dream, but it is also the only absolute way to stop climate change.

Why ‘Run-of-the-River’ is no Solution

Written by William E. Rees, PhD, FRSC
Sunday, 21 December 2008 10:56

Fact: Most public policy directed toward so-called sustainability, including
alternative energy, is directly or indirectly oriented toward maintaining
the status quo by other means—i.e., it emphasizes growth through efficiency
or is geared toward increasing supply rather than reducing demand. This
(along with kow-towing to the private sector) is what run-of-the-river hydro
is all about.

Problem: Governments (and even most ‘environmental’ organizations) have yet
to confront a contrary two-fold reality that demands a very different
approach:

Scientists, particularly climate-change scientists, have grossly
underestimated the scale and rapidity of climate change. Arctic
warming/melting is 80-100 years ahead of the IPCC’s business-as-usual
scenario. The most recent peer-reviewed research suggests that the world
will be hard-pressed to avoid stabilizing GHGs at less than 650 ppm CO2e
which implies a 50% probability of a catastrophic 4C° of warming.
Eco-footprint analysis shows that the world is in over-shoot, using 25-40%
more of nature’s goods and services each year than the planet can
sustainably produce. We are depleting essential natural capital.

Solution: There is nothing for it but to GIVE UP GROWTH. The era of material
exuberance in the First World is over. Public policy that does not reflect
this reality merely accelerates ecosystemic—and ultimately
societal—collapse.

In this light, the mad scramble by governments everywhere to re-establish
‘normal’ growth after the recent implosion of the world’s greed-driven
financial markets is tragicomedy on a global scale. Sustainability requires
that we should, instead, be planning a stable way down for everyone while we
still have the capacity to do so. Governments should be negotiating a global
treaty on ‘contraction and convergence’ by which the First World would
shrink its per eco-footprints to converge, at a sustainable level, with
justifiably growing per capita EFs in the Third World. We should aim to
de-carbonize the global economy completely by 2025. All this implies an 80%
reduction in per capita consumption and waste production by North Americans.

The good news is that the implicit serious conservation effort would
generate more energy from existing sources than can be derived by
supply-side approaches. Ecologically hazardous run-of-the-river hydro is an
unnecessary growthist strategy.

By the way,‘zero growth’ may be blasphemy today, but within a decade or so it will have become holy doctrine.

The inventor of the "eco-footprint" concept, Dr. William Rees is one the world's foremost ecological and sustainability experts. He teaches at the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning.

For Immediate Release
Dec. 24 2008

Chilling December Phone Calls from Ministry of Transportation Inform Residents of Expropriation

Wilderness Committee says, "'Minister is Misleading Residents About What They are Really Delivering us for Christmas"

Vancouver, Healthy Communities Campaigner Ben West from the Wilderness Committee wants lower mainland residents to look closely at what our government is really delivering for Christmas. "The BC Government's Minister of Transportation, Kevin Falcon, has been doing lots of media appearances talking about public transit recently, but the reality is there aren't nearly enough buses on the road due to under funding, Translink is going broke," said West. "Meanwhile Kevin Falcon has been giving nasty Christmas presents this month, notices of expropriation to residents of North Surrey and Delta" said West.

With no contractors in place to build the highways proposed in the Gateway plan the Ministry of Transportation have begun early stages of bull dozing and laying sand along portions of the proposed route of the controversial South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) highway. Residents in Bolivar Heights have raised complaints about the lack of consultation and now the bulldozing over baseball diamond fields in the popular Bolivar Heights Park. One of the next spots planned to be demolished is a Christmas tree farm in North Delta which is locally owned and operated by a long time resident.

Brad Major, a local fire fighter, and professional arborist has started a small business on his families beautiful 1 acre property which is located in the trajectory of the proposed SFPR highway route in North Delta on the banks of the Fraser River. Brad is un-happy residents who have been told that his property will be expropriated by the provincial government to make way for the proposed SFPR highway which would connect Delta Port to Highway 1 as part of the Gateway Project. He was contacted this month by the Ministry of Transportation by phone and told they would remove him out of his home within a year.

"No amount of so called 'market value compensation' they push me into could make up for the true value of this land," said Major. "These properties which would be destroyed by this highway are homes, places where families and communities live," said Major. "I just can't believe those Government Grinches are doing this, it's sad because this land will be covered in families Christmas trees when them come through to build a highway over us. We grow trees and re-plant them as part of our environmentally friendly business. They could be paving over our Christmas trees within a year, to deliver Christmas goodies to Vancouver," Major explained. We want to capture carbon with trees, they want to get lots more trucks through Delta to delivering goods to Vancouver and in the meantime they would be delivering a big increase in carbon emissions. That's not a present that we asked for and its definitely not what any of us need or want," said Major.

Earlier in December Minister Falcon held a press conference in Gateway Skytrain station in Surrey to discuss a study he has ordered to look at either spending our money on extending the Skytrain in Surrey or investing in light along the same route. The 10 million dollar study would not be done before the scheduled May 2009 provincial election. At a press conference in Vancouver last week Minister Falcon talked about approaching the federal government for transit funding as part of the upcoming budget. Falcon then met with new Federal Transportation Minister John Baird, the highly criticized former Environment Minister who continues to face scrutiny for policies that facilitate climate change. According to Falcon they discussed investment in public transit even though much of the proposed BC Transit Plan is scheduled for 2030. There was no mention of the billions of dollars the BC government needs to pay for Gateway which they have indicated they want to start work on immediately.

"Anyone who is concerned about climate change or would like to see our money actually spent on smart public transportation instead of Gateway should consider sending a Christmas e-mail to their MLA and cc it to their MP the Premier and Prime Minister and tell them what you think about it" urged West. "There is still a chance over the holidays for our provincial and federal government to take a closer look at the blatant contradiction between their stated goal of taking action on climate change and their eagerness for short sighted gluttonous expansion that will just make things worse. Everyone that understands the frightening implication of this project hopes that our governments make their new years resolution to follow through on their low carbon 'diet' plan and redirect the funds from Gateway to smart growth investment in the buses and light rail everyone really wants for Christmas" suggested West.

A poll commissioned by the David Suzuki Foundation early this year showed that approximately 60% of residents South of the Fraser and approximately 70% of people across the lower mainland overall would like to see funds diverted from highways to transit in light of concerns about climate change.

-30-

sillygwailo has added a photo to the pool:

bmann has added a photo to the pool:

Taken without looking as I wandered by. About the only photo that turned out halfway interesting.

BuckyHermit has added a photo to the pool:

Squircle #36

BuckyHermit has added a photo to the pool:

Squircle #35

(Part of Guess Where Vancouver, Jan. 6/2009)

If you have not yet read this book, now we have its title being used to explain and describe what Obama, the next US President is likely up against.

Others have certainly encountered moments of intense angst — George W. Bush after 9-11 and John Kennedy after the Cuban Missile Crisis come to mind. But Mr. Obama faces the Long Emergency (with apologies to acerbic social commentator James Howard Kunstler who wrote a book by that name). He walks onto the world stage at a time of unprecedented turmoil in international economies and financial markets.

How long will this emergency last? How long before we get back to “normal?”

/snip

flyer_e901 has added a photo to the pool:

New Flyer D60LF at Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal - Delta, British Columbia

d.yaro has added a photo to the pool:

Usually this control panel is locked under a cover. As the trains are run by a computer system there is no need for manual intervention under normal running conditions.

IMG_2609.JPG

The Tyee’s series of new ideas for the New Year reaches number 10, and lashes out rather indiscriminately at economists.

Now if there is one thing we all know about economists it is that they never agree - not even with themselves. They always hedge their advice with the words “but on the other hand …”

The present crisis is not the fault of economists but can be squarely blamed on a political philosophy that decided to oversimplify the amount of economics that it used. Frankly no-one who has ever studied the subject seriously would say that “perfect competition” was in any way prescriptive - it is just an abstraction for heuristic purposes. It is based on a some quite unlikely premises - but is designed to explain what would happen if they prevailed. It is only used in the classroom because economics is hard to do as a laboratory experiment. Yet a whole bunch of right wing nuts decided that they could introduce policies as though not only were perfect competition possible (it isn’t) but actually existed (it didn’t). No one with a degree in economics would think that.

The idea of limits to growth is not new either. The Bruntland Commission coined the phrase. But the world chose to ignore that body’s sage advice. Again that was wilful political self interest. No-one wanted to confront the hard necessity - and there are still plenty of people who seem to believe that we still can get away with not really changing buisness as usual.

We cannot now do anything else sensible but start to address the ludicrous imbalance of distribution that sees a small minority consume enough to use up three planets while the rest starve. We have to deal with climate change - it is too late now to slow it down let alone stop it. We have either passed peak oil or soon will - either way we cannot behave as though there will always be a cheap source of energy.

Just about everything that the conservative political philosphy has been promoting for most of my adult life has been shown to be false. So that is enough evidence for us to abandon it. And we now need to seriously work on how to do things differently. Any other direction is simply antithetical to our continued existence on this planet.

Posted in Economics      

sillygwailo has added a photo to the pool:

sillygwailo has added a photo to the pool:

memaxmarz (Janis) has added a photo to the pool:

Our transit system can not cope with the snow we get. The station I use is 5 stops from the most popular exit, so by the time the train gets to us it is packed to the gills. This may not look like many people, but I waited as 4 trains came by and in the little group I was standing in only 3 people managed to squeeze onto those trains.

I ended up taking an east bound train to Metrotown, a further 3 stops from my destination, and still had to wait for 2 trains before I managed to cram myself into the pack. My God, there wasn't room to breathe! This morning was a very uncomfortable commute. I would like to continue taking the Skytrain rather than drive, but it better get better than this when the snow ends.

Philadelphia Enquirer

The US federal gas tax is a predicated tax. That is to say it can only be spent on two things - building roads and investing in transit. It cannot be used for maintaining existing systems either. So the states have a financial incentive to neglect the maintenance of road and bridges until they can get federal funding to build new ones.

Dedicating tax revenue stream to a particular purpose is populism. It appeals to those who dislike taxes - and government spending in general - by limiting the ability of politicians to make spending decisions. Of course this has not stopped the politicians at all - it simply changes the way decisions are made. There is now a fund in existence and the p0liticians regard getting their constituency as much as possible of it as a badge of honour. This of course has made the highway fund one of the biggest pork barrels in the country.  Pork being the spending benefit that the local business community gets from these projects.

The rise in gas prices in the middle of last year encouraged Americans to drive less, switch to more economical vehicles and use transit more. At the same time transit systems across the land are running low on operating funds and many are considering servcie cuts and fare increases to balance their books.

The immediate short term fix is to raise gas taxes. Americans pay some of the lowest pump prices (including tax) of any nation on earth - but that does not help a new American president make an unpopular decision at a time when people have seen their disposable incomes fall.

The financing commission believes the long-term solution is a mileage-based revenue system. While details have not been worked out, such a system would mean equipping every car and truck with a device that uses global positioning satellites and transponders to record how many miles the vehicle has been driven, the type of roads and time of day.

Creation and installation of such a system would take about 10 years.

No mention of congestion in there - but that is what “time of day” is needed for. Again, expect a howl of protest. Although Americans in the last eight years have seen many of their personal liberties eroded or ended altogether in the “war on terror” the overall response has been muted. People put up with nonsense like searches at airports and being forced to drink their own breast milk because of the link to security. They are much less likely to accept tracking of all their movements even if it does mean that the bridges might actually stay up a bit longer. But tracking every mile that is driven to pay for a bus driver’s wages seems less likely to raise much of a cheer.

As I have commented elsewhere, dedicating taxes is not a Good Idea - except in the very short run concern to get a new tax accepted. Much better to have all taxes go into a general fund, then make decisions based on current needs and priorities. Federal funding must be made available for operations and maintenenace as well as capital spending and full life cycle cost analysis must become mandatory. An ounce of maintenance is usually worth several pounds of investment.

But we also need to pay heed to this debate because we too have been suckered in to this gas tax farago. Translink gets its funding from the volume of gas sold - and as people make better decisions about driving less and using transit more its funding suffers. This is perverse. While there appears to be some element of equity in transferring money from the pocket of the SUV driver to the bus passenger  the present reality is that Translink’s funding is inadequate - and the better it does its job in terms of increasing market share the less revenue it can expect.

We need to think differently - and the level of discourse about taxation has fallen to a very low point when any discussion of tax is described as “cash grab” and all politicians are assumed to be only interested in filling the pockets of their supporters. We have to start the deabte in terms of what direction  we need to take and how we use the tax system to correct the wprst excesses of the unfettered market. Obviously the way we pay for energy, ignoring all externalities has lead to a very wide range of ills. Not that countries that tax fuels more heavily have done a great deal better - but tyhey do tend to have more and better transit service at least. And smaller  more fuel effcient vehicles. But that is not a function of how the specific tax revenue is spent - it is based on people behaving rationally when faced with price signals that make some sense.

Posted in Economics, energy      

k3nt has added a video to the pool:

The bus could not gain traction. Could not back up nor go forward.

Erich J. Harvey has added a photo to the pool:

After pushing a few cars I took this photo. Oak street was at a standstill.