Last night, New Democrat Party Environment Critic, David Eggen, convened a discussion panel at the New Unitarian Church in Queen Mary Park on the topic of: The Urbanite's Connection to the Environment. Here is the first draft of my comments:

I call myself an environmentalist, and I associate with many people who also call themselves environmentalists. But it's clear that, as an urban person, there is a difference between me and many of my peers. This difference is most obvious when we talk about our weekends and holidays.

For, I hug no trees.

I never go to a national park or a wilderness area. I watch no birds nor paddle canoes. The Willmore Wilderness is only a green area on a map. I don't even go to cabins at the lake.

On my weekends, I stay in the City of Edmonton. On my vacations, I visit even larger cities.

My connection to the environment is more abstract and mundane. It is abstract because it emerges out of responses or mitigations to environmental issues as opposed to what bioregionalists call "a sense of place". The connection is a purely cognitive reaction to knowledge driven issues like climate change - the rapid increase in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere; consumerism - the cultural idea that promotes attempts to satisfy ego gratification by the purchasing, using up, and throwing away of material goods at an every increasing rate; and cumulative incrementalism - the paradoxical condition whereby individuals may each do a thing which is perfectly acceptable in and of itself, but collectively has disasterous consequences. Cumulative incrementalism - wherein the logic of simple cost/benefit analysis cannot be defeated.

Why should any individual impose a 20% reduction in the annual distance that he drives his car? After all, he's sunk all the capital to buy it, and spends the thousands of dollars in average annual maintenance and legal costs regardless of distance driven. And alternative transportation would add on costs of their own over and above those associated with car ownership. If your kid is begging you to drive him to hockey practise or the mall, why take on all the costs when you know that the benefit of you alone doing that one thing, in and of itself, will not be detectable. It's so easy to say, "it won't make a difference".

My connection to the environment arises out of the effort to solve these problems.

Now, that doesn't sound very good, Myles. That actually sounds kind of negative. And it may not be as inspiring as hiking in the backcountry and looking out over an alpine meadow. But as I said, my connection is both abstract and mundane. Because against this abstract backdrop of issues, I play out my day-to-day lifestyle behaviours.

My bus pass. My bicycle. My car-sharing co-operative. My pedestrian-friendly neighborhood where everything I need is walking distance away. The abstract backdrop of issues adds a layer of meaning to many of the mundane activities of my life so that in doing them I feel a connection to the environment. First, do no harm. Well, do less harm.

I said also that I like to visit larger cities. I like the great cities for what they demonstrate a city can be.
But what I seek in them is best exemplified by Walt Disney World in Central Florida. Before he died in 1966, Walt Disney said, "I don't believe there's a challenge anywhere in the world that's more important to people everywhere than finding solutions to the problems of our cities. But where do we begin... how do we start answering this great challenge?"

Disney worked to take up this challenge with his original vision of an experimental community of tomorrow (EPCOT) which he wanted to become a design incubator for municipalities all over the world. And even in it's paler execution as a collection of theme parks, Walt Disney World embodies the essential - the fundamental - qualities of an urban environment:

Dependable Mobility
Education Enriched Environment
Ambience of Reassurance (Safety)
Occupations and Fulfillment

Providing these things, in a breath-takingly efficient manner, is exemplified by Walt Disney World, and should be the goal of all urban environments.