Posts from — September 2010

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has released the first study of its important new Climate Justice research program, which is seeking to understand how the shift to a green economy can be accomplished without sacrificing social justice.

As Marc Lee, one of the authors, points out in this summary, jobs that would decline in a green economy — like oil and gas and carbon-intensive manufacturing — are not that numerous, but well-paid. Those likely to grow in a green economy, like energy retrofitting, are numerous but not well-paid. To maintain political support, a green shift has to take that social equity consideration into account.

The cost of such a shift for BC? Lee estimates about $2 billion a year, well within the range of the current carbon tax regime.

A Board of Trade seminar last week on oil tanker safety drew protesters, who are legitimately concerned that increased traffic in Burrard Inlet could result in a catastrophic spill. (Interest in the issue exploded after the City of Vancouver’s July forum on spill risks in the inlet.)

Inside, executives of the city’s shipping business, which has a global reach, sat with maritime union leaders and others to hear Joe Angelo, deputy managing director of the Independent Association of Tanker Owners, describe the dramatic improvements in tanker fleet safety in the past 20 years.

Angelo and the demonstrators probably could agree on the goals of the association: zero fatalities, zero pollution and zero detention, the term used for the seizure of a vessel for safety or other infractions.

Since 1991, the global tanker fleet has gone from a majority of vessels with fragile single hulls to 95 percent double-hulled. That dramatic shift saw the average age of the fleet drop to eight years.

Those to factors produced a steady drop in incidents of oil spillage to record lows in both 2008 and 2009, despite increases in tanker traffic. The global fleet is also shifting to higher-quality fuels, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and much tougher construction and maintenance standards, to further reduce spill risks.

While the risk of a spill is not zero, the improvements in fleet safety may mean the debate on oil exports should shift to the bigger questions of how Canada is managing its energy resources in a period of global warming.

Council today approved plans to upgrade and reopen two long-shut Downtown Eastside hotels, restoring 66 desperately-needed rooms to the city’s low-cost housing stock.

One is the soon-to-be renovated American Hotel, a 928 Main St., a formerly notorious den of crime and misery. New owners will complete an upgrade to bring 42 rooms back into service, six of them at the welfare rate of $375 a month, the rest at a very low market rent.

Also coming back online is the Pender Hotel, at 31 West Pender, where the Vancouver Native Housing Society will operate upgraded 24 rooms at the welfare housing rate.

Credit is due to Councillor Kerry Jang for his continuing efforts to bring cheap housing back onstream.

For the record, the American Hotel decision was opposed by Wendy Pedersen, of the Carnegie Centre Action Project, who disagrees that the rooms could be counted in the city’s SRO totals because many are at market rents. The alternative, Jang replied, was almost certainly demolition and construction of new condos.

When I told CTV reporters Shannon Paterson that the Dunsmuir bike lane had quadrupled bike traffice, she was sceptical and went out to check. The findings: the city’s numbers hold up and the bike numbers on Hornby, where a new lane is proposed, are much lower.