Tag Archives: politics

Climate Emergency: A 26-Week Transition Program for Canada

January 5, 2020Climate, EconomyA circular economy, aviation, Bank of Canada, Bioeconomy, Building retrofits, canada, Carbon fee and dividend, carbon tax, Climate adaptation, Climate education, climate emergency, cycling, District heat, Ecological forestry, electric vehicles, first nations, fossil fuels, freight, green buildings, Green business, Green Climate Fund, Green finance, Green industry, Green New Deal, organic farming, PACE Loans, Passive house, Pay-As-You-Save, politics, Public banking, railways, Regenerating nature, Regenerative farming, renewable energy, Social finance, solar PV, transit, Transition, walking, Wind energyGuy Dauncey

This is a work of imagination.

But the urgency of the crisis is real,

the need for the suggested programs is real,

and the data included in these proposals is real.

3rd Edition. March 2020

A printable 40-page PDF of this paper is available here:

PDF Climate Emergency

A video of Guy Dauncey presenting a brief summary of this paper is here.

“This is a practical, down to earth concrete step by step transition strategy for the Canadian government to get real about the climate emergency. A must read for all Canadians to make a difference and communicate to their elected officials new policies and programs that will make a difference now.” – Professor Ann Dale, Trudeau Fellow Alumna, Canada Research Chair, Royal Roads University

“This is vital reading. It maps out an evidence-based route ahead; to open real conversations around what we actually need to do in these testing times. It should be read by politicians and policymakers, local and regional councillors, business front-runners, university and health service delivery managers, indeed everyone who wants to explore how we can collectively build the new zero carbon world we so urgently need.” – Paul Allen, Project Coordinator, Zero Carbon Britain project at the Centre for Alternative Technology

“Visionary and thorough, Dauncey’s 26 week Transition Program deserves close scrutiny in Canada and beyond. His passion for a clean economy shines.” – Raffi Cavoukian, C.M., O.B.C., singer, founder of Raffi Foundation For Child Honouring

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Ten Green New Deals – How Do They Compare?

September 27, 2019Climate, EconomyBernie Sanders, business, canada, community, Development, electricity, Elizabeth Warren, food, Green New Deal, Green Party, Jay Inslee, jobs, Nature, NDP, Oil, politics, taxes, transportationGuy Dauncey

By Guy Dauncey, Revised September 29^th 2019

Guy Dauncey is founder of the BC Sustainable Energy Association, co-founder of the Victoria Car Share Cooperative, and the author or co-author of ten books, including The Climate Challenge: 101 Solutions to Global Warming and Journey to the Future: A Better World Is Possible. He is currently completing The Economics of Kindness: A Ten-Year Transition to a Green Cooperative Economy. He lives in Yellow Point, on Vancouver Island, Canada. His website is www.thepracticalutopian.ca.

I premise my analysis on five statements:

The climate emergency is real.
The ecological emergency is real.
The inequality, household debt and affordable housing crises are real.
A new global financial crisis is lurking, caused by excessive corporate and private debt and banking deregulation.
We need a ten-year mobilization to achieve a rapid transition to a green cooperative economy that is human-friendly, community-friendly, climate-friendly and nature-friendly, leaving self-interested capitalism behind us.

Continue reading Ten Green New Deals – How Do They Compare? →

Six Green New Deals: How Do They Compare?

September 13, 2019Climate, Democracy, EconomyBernie Sanders, business, community, ecology, electricity, Elizabeth Warren, energy, finance, food, future, Green New Deal, Green Party, jobs, money, Nature, Oil, politics, transportationGuy Dauncey

This blog was updated on September 27th 2019 to TEN Green New Deals – see here.

Brett Kavanaugh’s Better Angels

September 28, 2018politicspoliticsGuy Dauncey

Halos

Like so many, I watched the Senate hearing on Brett Kavanaugh, transfixed. A lot of us do things in our teenage years that we later cringe at and regret. It’s how we handle our regrets later that matters, once the stupidities are done. What struck me first was how belligerent and defensive he was, and, how whiney.

What struck me next is how he could if he had wished have adopted a much easier approach, and won the hearts of all Americans, of whatever political stripe. Since he seems unwilling to do that, I am willing to do it for him: Continue reading Brett Kavanaugh’s Better Angels →

Let Us Advance Up The Ladder of Democracy

September 14, 2018DemocracyBritish columbia, Democracy, politics, proportional votingGuy Dauncey

Ladder

by Guy Dauncey

Democracy is a very recent social invention. Most people don’t like it when the societies they live in are blatantly unfair, with privileges and glory for the rich and hard labour and exploitation for the poor. In consequence, starting a thousand years ago, people in nations all over the world have gradually prised power out of the hands of their ruling elites and established democracies.

It has been incredible hard work. In 1794, Thomas Hardy, a London shoemaker, was charged with high treason for proposing one person, one vote. His sentence, had he been found guilty, would have been to be hanged by the neck, cut down while still conscious, disemboweled, beheaded, and his body to have been cut up into quarters. Fortunately, a Grand Jury of nine respectable citizens, after debating the matter for nine days, found him ‘Not Guilty’. The London crowd went crazy, dragging him through the streets in triumph.

Continue reading Let Us Advance Up The Ladder of Democracy →

BC’s Climate Intentions Papers: A Timid Response – and the Twelve Solutions We Really Need

August 20, 2018Climate, Economy, energyBritish columbia, buildings, climate crisis, economics, electric vehicles, energy, jobs, NDP, politics, transportationGuy Dauncey

Timid Response

August 20, 2018

I wish I didn’t have to write this. I count myself a friend of the NDP/Green Alliance, and I had high hopes for the government’s new climate action plans. [1]

BC’s Ministry of Environment has published a series of Clean Growth Intentions Papers, with a deadline for public feedback of August 24^th, in the heart of this fire and smoke-filled summer. In my head, I can see that they have been framed in a very positive way, emphasizing the multiple economic benefits of engaging in climate action, reframed as clean growth.

But the policies floated contain little that is new. They are really timid. And by downplaying the climate crisis almost to a state of mental non-existence, they have written the urgency out of the picture. In my heart, I feel as if they have been written by a holiday season policy-drone operating on auto-pilot. Hard words, but that’s what I feel.

Continue reading BC’s Climate Intentions Papers: A Timid Response – and the Twelve Solutions We Really Need →

Canada’s Housing Crisis: A Permanent, 100-Year Solution

June 14, 2017Economyaffordable housing, AirBnB, banking, canada, community, community land trust, cooperatives, couch-surfing, credit, ecovillage, energy, homelessness, housing, housing crisis, Housing First, inheritances, money, Passive Home, planning, politics, quantitative easing, tax evasion, tiny homes, zoningGuy Dauncey

100-Years

Guy Dauncey is the author of Journey to the Future: A Better World is Possible and nine other books. He is an Honorary Member of the Planning Institute of BC and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.

June 2017. This is an updated and expanded version of Canada’s Housing Crisis: 22 Solutions, originally published on The Practical Utopian in December 2016.

A PDF Version of this essay can be downloaded here: Canada’s Housing Crisis – Guy Dauncey.

Executive Summary

Canada’s housing crisis is far more severe than most people realize. The fundamental problem is an excess of money pouring into the housing market from various sources, combined with an abdication of responsibility by all levels of government for the past 30 years.

There are many on-the-ground solutions, demonstrating positive ways to build affordable housing. And there are seven new housing-related taxes that could raise the funds needed for a massive expansion of affordable housing.

The fundamental cause of the problem is the excess of funds flowing into the market, and until this is solved house prices will continue to rise, and most other solutions will seem like never-ending sandbagging.

The money supply problem can be solved. The money can be obtained to restore safe, sustainable, socially designed affordable housing as a fundamental human right.

And by establishing an Affordable Housing Social Justice Connector, a permanent, hundred-year solution can be put in place that will guarantee that Canada need never confront a housing crisis again. Continue reading Canada’s Housing Crisis: A Permanent, 100-Year Solution →

A New Cooperative Economy

May 3, 2017Economybanking, business, community, cooperatives, energy, finance, food, housing, jobs, new economy, planning, politics, poverty, renewable energy, solidarity, sustainability, taxGuy Dauncey

Guy Dauncey, April 2017

essay-3

This essay was submitted to The Next Systems Project Essay Contest, in which it won second place. “We received hundreds of submissions from 30 different states and 26 countries, proving that many around the world not only believe system change is necessary, but have thought long and hard about what a new system should look like and how we might get there.” http://thenextsystem.org/announcing-the-winners-in-our-essay-competition/

http://thenextsystem.org/…/2017/04/Dauncey_AtLargeSecond.pdf

You can download the essay as a PDF here. A New Cooperative Economy

Our task is to fashion a political vision and a political narrative that is a compelling answer to neo-liberalism and the ideology of competition, free markets, and the primacy of capital. We need a political economy of cooperation, solidarity, of mutual benefit. – John Restakis, Civil Power and the Partner State, 2016

Our modern economy is in crisis. Can we build an alternative economy as our ancestors did in the transition from feudalism to capitalism? It’s a question that takes us deep into our values, culture, history, politics—and visions of the future.

Continue reading A New Cooperative Economy →

Canada’s Housing Crisis: Twenty-Two Solutions

December 3, 2016Economyaffordable housing, AirBnB, community, community land trust, cooperatives, couch-surfing, ecovillage, homelessness, housing, housing crisis, Housing First, inheritances, Passive Home, planning, politics, renting, tax evasion, taxes, tiny homes, zoningGuy Dauncey

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This essay was updated in June 2017. The new version is here: https://thepracticalutopian.ca/2017/06/14/canadas-housing-crisis-a-permanent-100-year-solution/

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Executive Summary

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