Vancouver To Become Kermit The Frog By 2020

Artwork by Erastus Salisbury Field [1805-1900]

It’s all there in the fancy brochure. Vancouver wants to become the world’s “greenest city” by 2020, and mayor Gregor Robertson vows to make it happen. The 10-year plan aims to reduce our “ecological footprint”, protect watersheds and agricultural lands, and cut down on cars in the city. The green action plan is signed by the mayor, former Premier Mike Harcourt, among many others, including green hero David Suzuki.

The long-term goals:

1. To create a green economy “mecca” and create 20,000 green jobs.

They intend to do this by gaining an international reputation as a mecca of green enterprise. So look for Vancouver’s industry to tank shortly. They want to “eliminate” dependence on fossil fuels. Which is sort of like saying I want to eliminate my dependence on going to work. And they want to lead the world in green building design and construction. To exemplify that they made their announcement in the new Vancouver Convention Centre which features a green roof. And at the low cost of $1 billion to taxpayers, I’m certain we’re all quite enthralled with it.

2. Green Communities

Driving is so twentieth century. In a city with an annual average rainfall of 1117.2 mm, walking and cycling in Goretex is the way to go. We should also be encouraged to create “zero waste”, and with that goal in mind, let’s toast with our champagne classes from the New Year in which we promised to create zero new calories to our midsections. Vancouver will also create a “one-planet ecological footprint”, so be ready to cut your electricity and natural gas, and find a bunker to hunker down into to wait out until such technologies are invented that allows this Star Trekian desire.

3. Human Health

We will get the best drinking water and cleanest air in the world, which means doing more than we currently do now, which is to let mother nature blow the smog down into the Fraser valley where it belongs. And we’re going to become a world leader in urban food systems. So you’d better stock up on Doritos, beer, and Beef Jerky now, because I don’t know whether this new green utopia will allow such food choices.

Indeed, this new “low-carb[on]” diet can be called the Robertson diet. We shall all soon be dining on the freshest of B.C.-grown spinach spouts with an ecologically biodegradable runcible spoon, while taking shade under our green roofs, and drinking in the oxygen-pure air like that of a Michael Jackson hyberbaric chamber.

I look forward to living in this world of the future, working at my green job doing green-like things with green-like people. All of this will be achieved, mind you, while sustaining economic and population growth, just as the Robertson diet prescribed:

“All of that means we can reduce our city’s ecological footprint, at the same time employing more people,” Robertson said.

Join me tomorrow when Michael Ignatieff explains his new plan to turn normal straw into 100% pure gold!

Also See

My article on civil rights in B.C. wound up being posted as an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun.