(Ht Beth)
To View File:
http://http://vancouver.ca/greenestcity/PDF/Vancouver%202020%20A%20Bright%20Green%20Future.pdf
Vancouver's Greenest City Action Team released their 74-page report Vancouver 2020: A Bright Green Future: An Action Plan for Becoming the World's Greenest City by 2020 this morning at the Gaining Ground/Resilient Cities conference. I thought you all might be curious to see what Vancouver (and our rock star mayor) is doing. I don't know of any direct BGI connections on the Action Team, but if anyone else does, please let me know.
Here's an excerpt. The full report is attached.
A Letter from the Greenest City Action Team
At the beginning of 2009, Mayor Gregor Robertson assembled the Greenest City Action Team and threw down an audacious and exciting challenge: to develop a plan to make Vancouver the greenest city in the world by 2020.
During our first meeting in February we brainstormed about what Vancouver
could accomplish over the space of a decade if it was genuinely committed to
becoming the greenest city on Earth. There was palpable excitement in the air as people described their visions of the city’s future. As if to endorse the ideas being discussed, a peregrine falcon swept down from the sky and landed on a railing just outside the window of our meeting room. Peregrine falcons are the fastest animal in the world, reaching up to 320 kilometers per hour (200 mph) when diving in pursuit of prey. Peregrine falcons are also a powerful symbol of hope. The species became endangered in the 1950s and 1960s because of the use of organochlorine pesticides, particularly DDT, which thinned the shells of their eggs. After DDT was banned in North America in the 1970s, an extensive recovery effort was undertaken. Eventually, peregrine populations bounced back and the species is no longer considered endangered in the US or Canada.
The peregrine falcon can be seen as the living embodiment of Vancouver’s greenest city aspirations. To be the best in the world. To be a source of inspiration, optimism, and hope. To demonstrate that concerted efforts can turn back the tide of ecological damage that humans have inflicted on the natural world and restore nature’s wonders. And we must do so in a way that capitalizes on the tremendous economic opportunities presented by the global shift to a cleaner, leaner economy.
In April 2009, the Greenest City Action Team issued its first report, Greenest City: Quick Start Recommendations, including 44 concrete actions that the City of Vancouver could begin planning and implementing immediately. We are pleased to report that work on more than two-thirds of the recommended actions is already underway.
Vancouver 2020: A Bright Green Future is the road map for the next stage of a journey that will challenge all of us—citizens, businesses, and governments—to demonstrate our commitment to making the planet a better place for our children and grandchildren. Moving towards an environmentally sustainable economy is a monumental challenge, but cities at the forefront of this tectonic shift will reap tangible and long-term benefits in terms of green jobs, improved health, and prosperity.
Vancouver 2020: A Bright Green Future sets out the broad long-term vision as well as ten specific goals that we need to achieve by 2020 in order to become the global leader in progress toward an environmentally sustainable future. A series of more detailed implementation plans—for the green economy, energy-efficient buildings, clean transportation, urban forest management, and so forth—will need to be developed by city staff through wide consultation with the community. And then it’s up to everyone to do their part, to rethink, re-evaluate, and re-imagine the way Vancouver works and how we lead our lives.
It has been an honour and a privilege to be part of the Greenest City Action Team. We look forward to doing everything we can to help Vancouver achieve its goals in the months and years ahead.
Sincerely,
[the team...all of their signatures are in the PDF]