I just read “Sustainable Prosperity,” the provincial government’s recently dropped 2022 Progress Report on the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act (EGCCRA) that, frankly, lost me at the title.
We need a new definition of “prosperity” before we can start talking about it in terms of “sustainability” because our old definition is so closely bound to the idea of never-ending economic growth that the phrase becomes oxymoronic. We also need to be clear about who, precisely, is to prosper.
The authors of this report want you to read it within the framework of the EGCCRA, introduced nine months ago by the current Tory government, because if you accept that the government has had only nine months to combat climate change, you might find these results impressive:
Did you know that in 2021:
- 1.6 per cent of vehicles sold in Nova Scotia were electric vehicles
- 459 electric vehicle and 1600 electric bike sales received the electric vehicle incentive.
- 30.4 per cent of electricity came from renewable energy sources.
If, on the other hand, you read it bearing in mind that “global warming” entered the lexicon in 1975 and Margaret Freaking Thatcher of all people called for a global treaty on climate change in 1989, you will likely be less impressed. You may even be pushed dangerously close to despair.
Just over 30% of our electricity from renewables? So, only 70% from fossil fuels? Clearly, we’ve used these decades of awareness of the dangers of climate change wisely.
EVs
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the ways in which technology can hinder rather than help us progress as a society, frequently by assuring us we don’t have to change what we’re doing, just how we’re doing it.
I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve been listening to the interviews author, podcaster (and Newfoundlander) Paris Marx has been giving in support of their new book, Road to Nowhere: What Silicon Valley Gets Wrong about the Future of Transportation—a book I have finally started reading. I am only one chapter in, so this is not going to be any sort of comprehensive review, but it has already provided me a fascinating lens through which to view Nova Scotia’s approach to greening transportation.
“Sustainable Prosperity” doesn’t actually talk much about transportation, but when it does, it references the “active transportation” plans of 29 Nova Scotia communities and electric vehicles (EVs). Active transportation is, obviously, a good idea, although it is in its very early stages in this province and right now seems to be more about riding bikes or walking for recreation than for actually going about your daily business. The Ecology Action Centre has created maps showing proposed and completed infrastructure which will give you a sense of where things currently stand.
Basically, while walking and cycling are to be encouraged as much as possible, most CBRM residents will not be walking and biking from say, their homes in Louisbourg to their jobs in North Sydney—let alone from CBRM to Halifax. This will be a job for “public transportation,” for “buses” or “trains”—none of which rates a mention in this report.
Instead, the alternative to active transport is EVs, which leads me to believe the goal is not so much to change what we do–own our own cars, struggle to find places to park them, sit in traffic, run over pedestrians in crosswalks—but how we do it—in electric rather than internal combustion vehicles.
Jaywalking
The first chapter of Marx’s book explains that this automobile-dominated world we live in was not inevitable, nor was it built with the best interests of people in mind; rather, it was fought for by capitalist interests—automakers, oil companies, construction companies (who benefited from suburban sprawl)—the same sort of interests now pushing EVs as the answer to climate change.
Source: Paris Marx website
Marx actually sheds light on something my mother has always told me about her grandmother, an inveterate jaywalker who claimed drivers had to stop for you no matter where you crossed the street. I thought this was a story about my great-grandmother being a rebel, but it’s actually a story about my great-grandmother having known a time when the streets belonged, not to cars, but to everyone. As Marx writes:
The city streets of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century were nothing like those we use today. Pavement was rare, as the mixing of tar and stones was not patented until the early 1900s. Most streets were covered in dirt, cobbles, or gravel, and while there were still used to get around, they worked very differently. Streets were not the exclusive domain of the automobile, with all the colored lights at every intersection and parking spots lining many streets—indeed, there were few motor vehicles to speak of. Instead, the street was shared by horse-drawn carriages, streetcars, bicyclists, and pedestrians. People could walk in the street, linger for a conversation, or buy something from a vendor. It was even a space where children could play, especially on the side streets. They were a shared space where everyone moved at a relatively slow speed, compared to the present, and that allowed people to navigate their interactions despite all the different users on the same stretch of road.
Marx doesn’t overly romanticize these streets, he acknowledges they also contained horse manure and dead animals, but he makes it clear we could have lost both these things without ceding our streets entirely to cars.
A word from our sponsor?
Instead, we have literally built our world around cars and if this environmental update is any indication, Nova Scotia is not planning to change that anytime soon. There is an actual call-out to a private sector EV dealer in the 2022 update:
All EV is the largest dealer of pre-owned electric vehicles in Canada. They take an educational approach to finding the right electric vehicle for customers’ lifestyles and needs. They are driven by education and innovation and also work with manufacturers/educational institutions on electric vehicle programming and curriculum development to help raise awareness and break down misconceptions about EVs, help companies to transition their fleets to electric and solve unique challenges like EV supply and long wait times with innovative short-term leases.
The Steele Auto Group—”Atlantic Canada’s largest auto dealer”—bought All EV Canada in July 2021, so this is basically an advertisement for a local car dealership smack dab in the middle of a government environmental update.
NS Premier Ian Rankin made his February 2021 EV rebate announcement at All EV.
It’s a scenario Marx actually warns about at the end of their very first chapter:
We now risk a further deployment of luxury mobility into an already broken transportation system by industry leaders who downplay political problems in favor of technological solutions that fail to grapple with the complexity of the situations into which they are intervening.
His conclusion seems highly relevant to me:
We cannot allow them to determine the future.
The book is great and you will be hearing more from me about it, I promise.
