Re: “Preparing for peak oil”, April 17-24

Vancouver architect and planner Richard Balfour thinks that a sustainable population for the Lower Mainland is about one million people, half the current size. On the other hand, Metro Vancouver is currently in the midst of a Regional Growth Strategy exercise whose main premise is that the regional population will grow to about three million by 2030.

There is a book-publishing frenzy on the topics of peak oil and global climate change. The scientific consensus is that the future will not be a continuation of the past. We are approaching a discontinuity or tipping point—perhaps a series.

If a structural engineer designs a highway overpass that collapses, that person may be subject to professional sanctions. Metro Vancouver appears to be ignoring the rapidly approaching discontinuities that may result in urban collapse. Are the professional planners who are guiding Metro Vancouver’s Regional Growth Strategy prepared to face professional censure by their accreditation organization?

Like Balfour, not all municipal planners have their heads in the sand. The planning staff of the City of Burnaby provided a report on peak oil to city council on January 4, 2006. Metro Vancouver’s planners need to read the Burnaby report.

In the end, the buck stops with our political leaders. To date, the leadership is lacking for a sustainable bioregional strategy that may require no growth.

> Derek Wilson / Port Moody

A shortage of food in B.C. Huh? Let’s see, we have a huge amount of land in Metro Vancouver, much of which is taken up by useless leafy trees. Useless leafy trees that grow no fruit. Contractors and cities could plant fruit trees instead of fruitless leafy trees. Then we could have millions of tons of apple, pear, peach, and cherry trees all over the region. Then talk of food shortages would end.

Canadians these days are not natural farmers anymore. We’ve lost our connection to the land, but we can get it back. In these days of peak oil, it seems like a good time to start.

> Ben Griffin / Burnaby