First, Coro Strandberg made us more aware of our power as consumers in bringing about social, economic and environmental sustainability.
Then Guy Dauncey talked about climate change and the simple solutions already out there that can help us to reduce our impact on a shrinking planet.
Wade Davis peeled back the veil, making us aware how our North American brand of culture and civilization runs contrary to the laws of nature and our own spirituality – the world, he said, is as we dream it.
Last but not least, Dr. David Suzuki introduced his plan to make Canada sustainable within a generation, exposing the faulty assumptions behind the economy and pointing out the dangerous disconnect that exists between our actions and the consequences in this world.
All four speakers approached the sustainability issue from different angles, but had one thing in common – hope. They all believe that Canada and the world are waking up to recognize the environmental limitations of our planet, and the consequences of our social and economic systems.
All four speakers were in Whistler as part of the Sustainability Speaker Series, hosted by Whistler. It’s Our Nature group and the Early Adopters of The Natural Step framework for sustainability. Each speaker attracted an audience of between 300 and a 1,000, with standing room only for Wade Davis and David Suzuki.
That shows a lot of interest in sustainability in Whistler, and maintaining that interest and enthusiasm will be the biggest challenge for sustainability advocates now that the Speaker Series has wrapped up.
Mayor Hugh O’Reilly says it’s important to build on the momentum created by the Speaker Series, although the public has to recognize that a lot of the work will actually take place behind the scenes.
"I know after the last Speaker Series there was a perception that the sustainability process stalled, and maybe in the public’s view that’s accurate," said O’Reilly. "I do know that the municipality and the other Early Adopters have been working on this in their own organizations from the beginning and have a lot of exciting things going on."
According to O’Reilly the launch of Whistler. It’s Our Nature and the Speaker Series created excitement and a sense of expectation, but much of the actual work moves slowly at an administrative level. For more than two years, teams from the Municipality and consultants have been studying different aspects of sustainability and making reports and recommendations that are just now becoming available.
"We’re trying now to do the really hard part, which is to implement things like the Natural Step and sustainability into our businesses and the community. There’s a big filter as we go through the strategies and into the actual implementation. Nobody has done a lot of this work in the past, and it’s great to have a theory, but it’s another to actually put it into place," said O’Reilly.
The Comprehensive Sustainability Plan (CSP), which has been under development since 2002, will play a big role in determining how Whistler functions between now and 2020. This document will ultimately decide how and where future development can take place and will include long-term strategies to reduce air pollution, become more energy efficient, enhance alternative forms of transportation, and more. It will touch on every aspect of municipal planning, applying sustainable principles to everything, says O’Reilly.
There will be more opportunities for the public to get engaged with the CSP planning process in the near future, he adds, and the Sustainability Speakers suggested dozens of other ways for people to get involved as individuals, as business leaders and as members of the community.
"There’s a difference between walking the talk, and actually delivering on this, and we have a lot of people working really hard to do just that… because the community keeps supporting us. We know that, because when we did the high level survey for the CSP, protecting the environment was still the highest rated issue for people in Whistler."
The RMOW is the only municipality if Canada going through a CSP process, and according to O’Reilly the rest of the country is watching.
"At the Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting a lot of the work we’ve done is already being recognized for the leadership role we’ve taken. A few days ago we made a presentation the Lower Mainland Municipal Association that was well received," said O’Reilly.
"Although it may not seem like we’ve done much in Whistler and the CSP may not be as exciting for people as David Suzuki, it’s already part of our DNA. The Natural Step and the CSP is going to be our roadmap."
O’Reilly says the Olympics are going to be a key part of sustainability in Whistler, providing the principles are incorporated early enough in the planning to showcase the innovation and technology that will make sustainability a reality.
"It’s all part of a bigger sustainability plan, and we’re all trying to drag the agenda along to 2010," he said. "I really see the Olympics as vehicle to do this, but of course the benefits of that will be around long after the Olympics are gone. We need the right people and the right plan in place to make that happen."
Shannon Gordon, the sustainability coordinator for the RMOW, says there have always been two parts of Whistler. It’s Our Nature. The public part, which includes the Speaker Series in 2004 and in 2002 and the release of a household sustainability toolkit, is more challenging.
"How do engage people with this every week without burning them out on it?" she asked. "How do we keep people excited? That’s a problem we’ve been working on.
"It’s true that it’s tough to keep people involved after the Speaker Series, everybody is saying ‘now what?’"
The other part of the Whistler. It’s Our Nature is the activities of the Early Adopters of The Natural Step, a group that includes Whistler-Blackcomb, the RMOW, Tourism Whistler, the Fairmont Chateau Whistler, AWARE and Whistler Fotosource.
The Early Adopters are attempting to apply the Natural Step – a set of system conditions for sustainability created by Swedish oncologist Dr. Karl-Henrik Robert – to their own operations.
"But although it seems that nothing has been going on, the Early Adopters have been making some huge changes in the way they do things, mostly internally, so you wouldn’t hear about them," said Gordon.
"This is an experiment for them at this stage, but when they have successes they would like the public to know about them… and that’s one way to keep the public engaged."
The CSP is another way.
"The one thing that I would love to promote is that people, if they want to learn more about sustainability, should come out and get really engaged in the next stage of the CSP and really encourage the sustainability focus," said Gordon. "If (sustainability) is important to them I really hope that they make sure that their expectations are well represented in the CSP… and can support it because it’s their community plan."
The Speaker Series was a starting point to make people aware of the issues of sustainability and to rally their support behind long-term plans like the CSP, says Gordon.
"We’re down in the fine details right now, and that’s not always exciting for people to understand," she said. "As long as people understand what we’re doing then it makes our job a lot easier.
"When Hugh or I goes to talk to another community about what Whistler is doing around sustainability, one of the biggest things we’ve talked about is that we’ve begun to establish a common language around Whistler and a common understanding of sustainability.
"If we’re not always on the same page, at least we have a very high level awareness of what sustainability is, and that’s a large part because of what (local papers do). It’s in the paper every week."
If people are motivated by our recent speakers, Gordon suggests following their advice to achieve sustainability within their homes and businesses. All four speakers have been published and mentioned specific ways that people can change their lives to decrease their ecological footprint.
One of the easiest ways to get involved is to take the David Suzuki Nature Challenge at www.davidsuzuki.org which is a simple 10-step program. Almost 200,000 Canadians have already signed up.
Mayor O’Reilly was one of the first people to sign up, along with the mayors of Pemberton and Squamish. So far, he says, it’s been easy.
"It’s a piece of cake," said O’Reilly. "I do all kinds of things every single day so it’s a no-brainer. I said that to David Suzuki when I signed up, because we do these kinds of things in our community, whether it’s taking the bus or riding your bike to work.
"In my house I have a tourist accommodation, andwe do all the cleaning ourselves, my wife and I split the chores in half… and we haven’t used a chemical in five years.
"We’re so lucky here, the community is so conducive to that kind of thing, the Valley Trails, our public transportation… we’re working hard on the hydrogen highway stuff. It’s all starting to bubble around us."
You can learn more about the Natural Step and the Early Adopters at www.whistleritsournature.ca.
