Submitted by Ron RobinsonNelson, BC
Is tomorrow the day after this one, or does it include our future beyond the next election? How we perceive tomorrow will shape how we design our future. The day after this one does not require extensive design – purposeful organization of time, materials and infrastructure to achieve a desired and long lasting outcome.
Recent poles of the Canadian electorate suggest that the Canadian tomorrow has a priority focused on jobs, health care and child care. Without these things, future tomorrows are less likely to have a positive outcome.
Our future and all its tomorrows include the reality of climate change. If you look at the BC Government’s “Discussion Paper: Climate leadership Plan 2015”, there is a significant lack of real discussion on how we can transition out of a carbon based economy – the root cause of climate change.
Similarly, in the new “Canadian Energy Strategy July 2015”, transition out of a carbon based economy is alluded to; but the real focus is to increase efficiencies, reduce consumption and still maintain growth to meet market demand.
Clearly, jobs, health and child care fit in here somewhere. Our tomorrow may have to include jobs that are part of an expanding green economy. Health Care may have to consider how our collective degradation of the planet is having a direct impact on our health. In terms of Child Care, what would be the rationale for bringing children into a world that we are killing?
In terms of design, the input parameters have to change. We cannot assume that the same parameters that have put us in our current dilemma can help us out. A very significant change in design parameters has to be made if we want our tomorrow to extend beyond the day after this one.