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Vancouver environment


Blog by Patricia Houlihan - Personal Real Estate Corporation | February 15th, 2007


As an environmental lawyer now turned realtor, I have an avid interest in media reports regarding the environment.  Living in Vancouver, with all of its amazing environmental features, just accentuates that.  This morning a great mortgage broker I know sent me an article that talked about both climate change and real estate-the start of a perfect day for me....until I read the article. Sadly, it reports that while Canada had committed to reducing it carbon emissions by 6% (as compared to 2012 levels) by 2012, it looks like we will increase our levels by 35% and we are apparently one of the worst offenders of all of the parties who signed the Kyoto accord.  In fact, the USA is doing better than we are!
This week, both at the federal and provincial level, our politicians are making noise about working on the climate change issue.  Given the serious impact it is having on our planet (have you seen the pictures of the polar bears perching on small patches of ice because they are too tired to swim anymore, they have no food, and there is no ice to be seen?) hopefully the political words will turn into action....I would hate to see first Richmond, and then Vancouver, covered in water from too much polar ice cap melting (ok-I am not a scientist so I can't say for sure that is what would happen but if you can believe what you read in the paper...)  Now the article that the broker sent me raised this issue and finished off with information on what is likely to happen with the bank of Canada rate and the current state of the housing market in the USA.  I can't really see that it tied the climate change issue to the housing issue but there is a connection although not as clear as you might think. I was explained to my environmental law students last night the strong connection between environmental protection and the economy-whent the economy is doing well, politicians are much more likely to support environmental protection measures-as is the public.  When the economy is not doing well, people want jobs and environmental protection affects our resource industries and can therefore affect jobs.  Where this occurs there is little support for protection of the environment.  As one student said last night, people should realize that the long term health of the environment will save a lot more jobs than the ones saved by short term refusal to protect the environment.....
How does this all connect to the housing market?  The short answer is that both house sales and environmental protection tend to fall when the economy is bad and increase when it is good....a longer answer will be seen in the TV program that we are currently working on ECO Homes-a show looking at good and bad home features as they relate to lowering the impacts of home building on the environment and ensuring the healthiest possible materials are used in your home....stay tuned!