Stockholm does while Toronto just talks
My Toronto Star colleague Christopher Hume has written up a great series of columns over the past week comparing clean-energy and green initiatives in Stockholm, Sweden, to the lack of action in Toronto. In his first article, “Canada, It’s Time To Grow Up,” Hume compares his return to Toronto from Sweden as a trip back to the dark ages. He points out that the Scandinavian country started to get serious about weaning itself from oil back in 1973. In fact, Sweden has set a goal for itself to eliminate its dependence on oil by 2020. Perhaps that goal won’t be reached, but at least it has the goal.
Hume’s other articles look at the success and public acceptance of an IBM-designed downtown vehicle tolling system in Stockholm for reducing urban congestion; the clean track record in Malmo and other Swedish cities for using energy-from-waste facilities to generate electricity and reduce post-recycled municipal solid waste; the quick redevelopment of Stockholm’s waterfront compared to the paralysis we’ve experienced in Toronto; and the increased use of biogas and biofuels in Linkoping to power buses, taxis, cars and even trains.
I spent a month in Stockholm and travelled the country on a fellowship back in 1995 and learned first hand how much more progressive it is compared to North America. Hume’s series is particularly timely as Toronto’s mayoral race gathers momentum, and it highlights how little we truly have done and how, when looking at a city like Stockholm or country like Sweden, tangible green initiatives can be done today to tackle pollution and climate change.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
