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Newsmakers of the year: Whistler's top stories

Ironman Canada leaves Whistler, Greta Thunberg put climate change on the front page
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Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg captured the attention of the world as she spearheaded the "Fridays for Future" climate strike movement. Glacier Media editors in British Columbia chose the Climate Emergency as the newsmaker of the year in 2019. SHUTTERSTOCK

Do you ever get the feeling that you're living through the calm before the storm?

Flipping back through Pique's pages from the past 12 months, one almost gets a sense of delayed or impending-not doom, necessarily, but drama at the very least.

Because 2019 was, for want of a better phrase, quite boring.

Lacking in the major, resort-shaking headlines we've seen in years past-like changing ownership at the mountain, a new mayor and council, landmark anniversaries or natural disasters-2019's headlines were mostly business as usual, perhaps in anticipation of something bigger.

We did have a federal election in the later months of the year, but for those paying close attention, it was mostly bereft of substance and rife with personal attacks and misinformation at the federal level.

The Sea to Sky's campaign was cordial in comparison, with Liberal Patrick Weiler eventually taking the win.

We've heard for some time now that Whistler's booming resort economy is due for a slowdown-will that play out over the next 12 months?

How will the 2020 American election affect life in our little resort bubble?

What other fractious, contentious geopolitical developments will play out beyond our borders, how will local decision makers respond to our rapidly changing world?

Alas, we're getting ahead of ourselves.

For now, let's kick back, relax (preferably with a hot chocolate, and possibly some deep, calming breaths), and reflect on the year that was.

ANOTHER YEAR IN TINY TOWN

The biggest news story of the year, as voted by Pique readers in our annual Best of Whistler poll, was the announcement in May that Ironman Canada won't return to the resort in 2020.

The landmark triathlon will head back to Penticton in 2020, a year before its contract was up in Whistler, to the dismay of some locals and the relief of many others.

Whistler's new council, sworn in back in November 2018, made progress on several fronts, including the community's most pressing issue: housing.

Work continues behind the scenes on Cheakamus Crossing Phase 2, which could yield up to 750 new homes, while the Whistler Housing Authority opened projects at 1020 Legacy Way in Cheakamus (24 units and 53 employee beds) and 8350 Bear Paw Trail in Rainbow (20 units and 39 employee beds for seniors)

A third, at 1330 Cloudburst Dr. in Cheakamus that will add another 45 units and 103 employee beds, is slated for occupancy in 2021.

Meanwhile, a new 200-plus bed Whistler Blackcomb employee-housing building got the necessary municipal approvals, and will begin construction in 2020, while an initiative to allow private developers to build employee housing in exchange for bed units has left a bad taste in the mouths of many residents-and changes to the guidelines to allow said developers to include "limited amounts" of market housing in their proposals did nothing to wash it out (residents revolting against a recently announced project on Alta Lake Road is just the latest example of several).

Two new committees launched in late 2018-on governance and strategic planning-met behind closed doors throughout the year, and the public will presumably see some of the fruits of their labours in the coming year.

There were frustrations, too.

A project to build three washroom buildings in Whistler Village at a cost of $4.5 million seems exorbitant to many, though Mayor Jack Crompton says the municipality is confident the spend is reasonable.

Many Pique readers, as evidenced again by our annual poll, are still waiting on a local pot shop following cannabis' legalization in late 2018.

Paid parking is still having an impact on neighbourhoods, childcare is still a challenge, the housing file isn't moving fast enough for some, and the decision to create a new senior management position for CAO Mike Furey (as chief of strategic planning and partnerships, lasting until early 2021) remains questionable in the eyes of many.

The RMOW has budgeted $75,000 in 2020 for a professional hiring firm to broaden the search for Furey's replacement, who will continue on at his previous salary-the municipality's highest paid staffer.

And the implementation of regional transit-a stated goal of more than one council member before the election-appears to be stalled out.

As previously mentioned, all of these issues seemed to be bubbling just beneath the surface in 2019. Is 2020 the year they boil over?

FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Asked to choose their favourite trend of 2019, Pique readers chose action on climate, and an increased awareness around environmental issues, as their second favourite trend in our annual reader poll.

Pique's headlines from 2019 reflect that and then some.

A global climate march in late September drove millions to the streets demanding climate action, and in Whistler, nearly 600 marched in the rain for the cause.

"I really feel like there was an energy at the march that I've never experienced before," said Aaron Murray, one of the Whistler march's organizers.

"It was that collective energy of, 'We can do this. It's possible to change.'"

The Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) officially brought on a climate change coordinator in May, Maximilian Kniewasser, who will be charged with implementing actions from the RMOW's Community Energy and Climate Action Plan. The move came two years after the municipality first committed to hiring a climate coordinator.

A zero-waste committee is also in the works.

Councillor Arthur De Jong, in his first year, took on a host of environmental issues, including (but not limited to) a campaign to get local businesses to close their doors in winter and working to ban single-use plastic locally.

While he ran into some administrative red tape on both fronts, he says he won't be deterred.

"I will do everything that I can, in partnership, to be able to do a number of the small actions that we didn't get done this year, like [the] closed-door merchant policy in the village, like banning of single-use plastics, and have a whole list by the end of Year 2 of what's doable in the next two years that will have greater impacts, in terms of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions," De Jong told Pique in September.

"That would mean that we've been able to achieve some transit goals that we don't yet have; certainly more local transit, as well as regional transit."

THE YEAR THAT WAS

While Whistlerites are right to be anxious about the threat of wildfire after some smoky, smouldering summers, 2019 was a welcome reprieve.

Just over 800 fires occurred province-wide this year, burning a total area of 21,000 hectares (compared to 2,117 fires burning 1.3 million ha. in 2018).

In April, communities in the Sea to Sky and beyond were devastated by the news that pro skier Dave Treadway had died after a 30-metre fall into a crevasse in the Pemberton backcountry.

Hundreds attended a memorial at the Fairmont Chateau Whistler on April 22.

According to his father Tim, Dave had a knack for making "friends and fans everywhere," whether a group of "tattoo-parlour bike mechanics" in Thailand, an old Korean man he taught card tricks to on a flight to Canada, or a lonely neighbour who would sit with Dave around a fire discussing the deeper meanings of life.

"You know how interested he was in people," remembered Dave's mom, Deanna. "Always caring for other people until the day he died. That was David."

A controversial strata termination, it was reported in late October, could force the sale of iconic Whistler businesses Sushi Village, Black's Pub and the Mexican Corner for "nickels on the dollar." The RMOW says it has raised the issue with the province, but sees no obvious legislative fix.

And on Nov. 14, Pique celebrated its 25th anniversary.

In the words of publisher Sarah Strother, "we have no better singular purpose than to reflect our community and tell Whistler's stories: stories of where Whistler's been, its people and its places ... and all that's still to come."

Changing our focus to news that captured the attention of the entire province, editors at Glacier Media in British Columbia have chosen the Climate Emergency as the newsmaker of the year in 2019. Its significance as an issue globally, nationally and locally was a recurring theme in our coverage, as this story from Glacier's Nelson Bennett notes. Included at the bottom of the story are local links to some of our coverage of climate change in our community.

Every epoch produces "a man for his time," and in 2019 that man was a girl.

It probably didn't take Time Magazine's editors long to decide who would grace their cover this year for 2019's person of the year.

Regardless of whether you think Greta Thunberg is a messiah or the marionette of climate change alarmists, there's no questioning the impact she had.

Somehow, a 16-year-old girl from Sweden managed to do what Al Gore, Bill McKibben and countless activists before her failed to do - mobilize people to take to the streets in the tens of thousands to demand action on climate change.

And if there were one word or phrase that summed up the western media's preoccupations in 2019, it would either be "impeachment" or "climate crisis."

As part of the Covering Climate Now project, led by The Nation and Columbia Journalism Review, close to 400 media outlets around the world agreed in 2019 to start covering climate change as a "climate crisis."

It's estimated that four million people participated in climate strikes around the world on September 20. Police estimated the turnout in Vancouver on September 27 to be 100,000.

Another 10,000 were estimated to have turned out to hear Thunberg herself, when she visited Vancouver on October 25.

An Ipsos poll found climate change to be the second highest concern among voters in the federal election, the results of which were read by many as a referendum approving strong government action on climate change. The absence of any real climate change policies may have cost Conservative Party Leader Andrew Sheer votes.

Public pressure also resulted in a number of fossil fuel divestment decisions by universities, banks and pension funds in 2019.

In October, Norway's KLP pension fund announced it would divest its holdings of four Canadian oil sands producers, and AXIS Capital Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:AXS) announced it will no longer insure new oilsands projects or pipelines associated with oilsands.

In December, the University of British Columbia's (UBC) board of governors officially declared a climate emergency, and announced it would begin divesting its endowment fund of fossil fuels.

In 2019, fourteen parliaments, including Canada's, formally passed resolutions declaring a climate emergency. Pope Francis even weighed in, calling for a "radical energy transition."

Though questions surround the time scale of the radical energy transition that climate strikers have demanded - many observers say it will take decades - there are signs that it has at least begun, however, and one academic believes the climate crisis zeitgeist of 2019 may have given it a much-needed push.

In the U.S., 11 coal companies filed for bankruptcy, just since Donald Trump took office, according to Newsweek, as utilities switched to renewables and natural gas, and investors fled what has become a stranded-asset risk.

The global stock of electric vehicles increased 63% in 2018 over the previous year, according to the International Energy Agency, which forecasts global EV stock to hit 130 million by 2030, under existing policies, or 250 million, if more aggressive climate action plans are implemented.

In B.C., EV adoption spiked in 2019, thanks in part to a new federal subsidy. CleanBC's target is for zero-emission vehicles to represent 10% of all new passenger vehicles sold in B.C. by 2025. But it already hit 9% in 2019, according to Energy and Mines Minister Michelle Mungall.

In 2019, the U.K. marked a milestone when it went for more than two weeks without generating any power from coal, thanks to nuclear power and a major build-out of wind power.

"Also, decades of efforts to make wind and solar commercial are now finally bearing fruit, winning against coal and gas generation in auctions without subsidies," said Chris Bataille, one of the authors of the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project.

He added battery prices are falling a decade ahead of expectations, and that large automobile manufacturers are now "betting real capital on decarbonization."

In Canada, a national carbon tax was essentially affirmed by the electorate, which may not have handed the Trudeau government a majority, but elected more MPs from parties that support carbon taxes and other climate change policies than those that didn't.

"When major changes are made like that, there's a kind of inertia, and even if a new government has a different ideological orientation, they're hesitant for a variety of reasons to reverse course," said David Tindall, a UBC sociologist who studies social movements.

Even if the climate emergency movement of 2019 loses steam, it may have provided enough push on the policy front to create a lasting impact, Tindall said.

"Even if there is a short-term or medium-term downturn, in terms of public opinion, I think that sufficient climate action has been made that the progress is going to keep going," he said.

"So there's a lot of actions that are going on, and even if public opinion goes down in six months for a while and this becomes more of a backburner issue, I think that these concrete actions are going to have inertia and are going to have a concrete effect."

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