Gary Holden has taken a rare step for a CEO, he is publically criticizing the Alberta government, Trans-Canada Energy, TransAlta, ATCO Power and Capital Power for pushing through a transmission line from Calgary to Edmonton to Fort McMurray that will cost up to $20 billion.

According to Holden, the future is not monolithic power lines, but smaller facilities closer to where electricity is needed. He went on to say in the Edmonton Journal that, “In addition, more and more people will opt to install renewable energy technologies like solar panels in years to come. Homes and businesses will generate a portion of their electricity needs on their own roofs. One has to question why so many transmission infrastructure upgrades are being forced upon us when the future of generation is changing dramatically.”

In Chris Turner’s article in Alberta Views titled ‘Kill (Your) Bill’ the future is where customers can “generate their own renewable energy and feed it back to the grid in exchange for a credit on their power bills. You'll generally hear this process referred to as net metering or two-way metering.” Enmax is currently testing the Stirling powered WhisperGen which is the size of a dishwasher that will allow customers to do just this (hopefully in a couple of years).

(Note: Turner is recommending “a feed-in tariff model, which involves setting prices higher than market rates for green sources, thus going far beyond encouraging the odd “alternative” installation, instead putting renewable power at the very centre of the energy market. In the German case, the feed-in tariff in less than a decade created an industry that employs 250,000 and turns over $40-billion in annual revenues.” Sounds like the best ever to me.)

In a time of Enron’s, Bernard Madoff’s, and gross executive bonuses for those who caused the financial meltdown, Gary Holden is one of the few CEOs who doesn’t make the words corporate social responsibility oxymoronic. I wish all CEOs were of the mold of Gary Holden. He takes corporate values seriously. More importantly he sees the future, rather than pretending the past is going to last forever.

CivicCamp

CivicCamp was the force that allowed the Bow River Flow to not get derailed. Alderman Druh Farrell took a beating in the media for suggesting closing down part of Memorial Drive for bikes and pedestrians. The reaction was so fierce and strong that Farrell was ready to back down until she attended a CivicCamp event at the Knox United Church on Saturday April 18. There were an estimated 165 people who attended this event and the energy there saved the Bow River Flow (also kudos to Druh Farrell and the volunteer organizers who worked tirelessly to pull off the Bow River Flow). Next year the Bow River Flow should be bigger and better, possibly linking many communities in the inner city. Cyclovia here we come!

The impact of Civic Camp was impressive during the Plan It Calgary debates. Supporters filled City Hall and had to wait up to almost 4 days to have their 5 minute say at City Council. I have never seen such a ground swell of support in the Chambers before. It was amazing. The people spoke, but unfortunately the majority of councillors watered Plan It Calgary to a meaningless slop. Without CivicCamp though, Plan It Calgary would have been completely abolished.

Civil Disobedience makes a come back

Perhaps Plan It Calgary needed a little more than just showing up to talk. The over hundred supporters could have used a little peaceful non-violent civil disobedience to show that suburban sprawl and crappy public transit is unacceptable and that the implementation of Plan It Calgary is so important to the future of our city that we are willing to get arrested for it. 

            

Greenpeace brought civil disobedience back into the mix here in Alberta. Protesting the grotesque tarsands in Northern Alberta, Greenpeace said that letter writing, talking to politicians, and voting is not enough. In defense of Greenpeace, UofA professor Laurie Adkin wrote a great op-ed in the Edmonton Journal wisely reminding us that, “Non-violent civil disobedience is not an act of terrorism, but an act of citizenship.”

                 
 
Many Calgarians did just that in 2009. On September 15 Tavis Ford, was part of a Greenpeace action that occupied Shell's Albian Sands mine, 80 kilometres north of Fort McMurray. He also got arrested on September 30th at a Suncor tarsands mine. In an article in the Calgary Herald Ford said, “Civil disobedience is a cornerstone of our democracy. People from Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Steve Biko to Nelson Mandela have used civil disobedience and breaking the law to achieve profound change.”

Ford greatly inspired me to become civil disobedient. With this, myself and four other Calgarians (and two Edmontonians) occupied the office of Jim Prentice, Minister of the Environment, until getting arrested for mischief. Part of that group was Alex Doukas, the shining star of Calgary. Doukas went to Copenhagen as part of the Canadian Youth Delegation. There Doukas was part of a sit-in to encourage a fair, ambitious, and legally binding global warming agreement. 

        

If we want to change the world, we need more of the Best of and way less of the Worst of 2009.