Miscellaneous

by Eva van Loon

Saturday, January 19, the City, Sliammon, and the Regional District hosted a first meeting on a “Sustainability Charter” for Powell River.

In recent years, municipalities in UK, Australia and North America have embraced this manifestation of people’s urgent need to “Do something!” about eco-crisis. Any definable community, from UCLA to five-star resorts, can devise a Sustainability Charter.

Will this cutting-edge document become law? Not necessarily, but Charters do have fresh moral force. Good people follow moral guidelines, right? We’ll expect our Council to follow the spirit of our Sustainability Charter in all things.

Before wrangling over the ‘correct’ definition of sustainability, or the need for a ‘Precautionary Principle’, let’s listen to the rising buzz of planetary conversation. Consider this (read the full article on our website):

“A ‘perfect storm’ of complementary crises may be emerging…involving… peak oil, accelerating climate change, serious economic disruption, loss of democracy, significant resource depletion (including fresh water and arable land), international instability and terrorism, increasingly disruptive technology developments and wild-card events such as pandemics….

“Small unexpected developments could turn any of these challenges…major catastrophes within a very short time ... or change the game entirely. If we could be certain what the future would bring,… perhaps we could discover or develop the best approach…. But we can’t. We just can’t be sure. And that’s the rub.

“Now here’s the surprise: In these circumstances of profound uncertainty, the fact that we disagree about our collective future and how to handle it could be our most important asset.