Vancouver
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Walking: A simple focus for the Smart Growth movement
I expected to hear a lot more about sexy green urban design projects at the New Partners in Smart Growth conference in Seattle last week. I expected more sleek design and big new developments akin to Dockside Green in Victoria, British Columbia, or Vancouver’s Olympic Village. Maybe American urban planners are better at keeping it […]
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Vancouver’s Olympic village aims for green, runs into problems
Vancouver’s vision for its Olympic village looks dazzling from afar, like the city itself. Up close the details get hairier.Photo: ecstaticistThe city of Vancouver, British Columbia, has a lot to brag about. It’s got an enviable location, wedged between the Strait of Georgia and the snow-capped Coast Mountains. It’s a perennial winner of “most livable […]
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Carbon tax gets big nod from voters in B.C. election
British Columbia held its provincial election yesterday, with the province’s carbon tax playing a big role–and coming out a big winner. Aside from the economy, probably no issue was more important than the ruling Liberal Party’s climate plan, passed last summer and subsequently the opposition New Democratic Party’s (NDP) centerpiece campaign issue. A carbon tax […]
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Canadian eco-rap and other youth offerings in Vancouver
When Premier of British Columbia Gordon Campbell asked delegates at the World Conference on Sport and the Environment whether they had flown to the Vancouver event on Monday, hundreds of hands shot up. If any of them saw the irony of reaching an environmental conference through the carbon-intensive method of jet travel, they didn’t let […]
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Enlisting sports fans in the green movement begins by understanding them
Near the end of the World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Vancouver yesterday, Kim Smither of marketing firm Octagon Worldwide displayed a series of photos of screaming, face-painted sports fans. “Imagine the power you’d have if you could harness this,” she said. Talk of “harnessing” the passion of sports showed up everywhere at […]
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Canadian activist warns warming could cripple winter sports
Vancouverite David Suzuki and his namesake foundation surface in the U.S. news from time to time, typically through climate initiatives and ocean conservation initiatives such as its estimate of the carbon impact of the 2010 Winter Olympics. But for our Northern neighbors, the 73-year-old Suzuki is a household name. He’s become the Canada’s preeminent environmental […]
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A roundup of notable speeches from the Sport and Environment Conference
The big news of day one at the World Conference on Sport and the Environment in Vancouver, British Columbia, was the unveiling of a carbon neutrality plan for the 2010 Olympics. The rest of the day’s events were a lot like the offset plan: solid at their core and short on details. During a keynote […]
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Vancouver Olympics Committee shopping carbon offset plan
The Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) wants make the 2010 Winter Games carbon neutral, but the plan it released Monday counts on help from the private sector to make it happen. At the World Conference on Sport and the Environment, VANOC announced a plan to neutralize 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide, mostly through renewable energy and […]
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Vancouver showcases preparations for 2010 Winter Olympics
For the next two days I’ll be reporting from Vancouver, British Columbia, where it’s hard to walk two blocks without running into a construction project related to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Eleven months from the opening ceremonies, Olympics buzz is fairly palpable, with games-related ads on the airwaves, heaps of Olympics gear […]