Well then, here’s a chance to dig into a not-so different world: the Vancouver Airport Authority Board.
The Federal Government has reopened its posting seeking qualified candidates from whom it will select a nominee to fill a position on our Board. As stated in the Federal Government notice, we are seeking candidates with experience in one or more of the following areas: managing large capital or land development projects; international business, particularly in Asian markets; new economy, particularly in business intelligence and analytics; aviation and airline transportation industry; tourism marketing; or the legal industry.
I guess it’s out of the question to include a regular rank and file traveller on the Board. Someone who routinely suffers the indignities and expense of air travel by commercial carrier instead of travelling First Class or by private jet?
The feds were considering selling off the country’s major airports, including YVR, and putting the funds into the infrastructure bank for things like transit. Think about that in the context of climate change.
With now the worst forest fire season in 60 years settling deep into our lungs, record-smashing average annual world temperatures year after year since the 90s, a warming ocean lapping at our doorstep, deep drought again on the food-basket Prairies, each one of us who passes through the airport check-in and boards planes overseas on non-essential trips should be really starting to question their personal contribution to this mess.
At one kilogram CO2 per 20 passenger kilometres (one tonne every 2,000 km) our personal contribution cannot be passed off any longer. The hypocrisy of family, colleagues and even some climate bloggers is unparalleled; to rant against Kinder Morgan and brag about a teenage child who is interested in the climate change issue, then whisked off to one or two overseas vacations every year by the parents is especially telling. Minimizing overseas vacations to a handful in a lifetime can be forgiven. But some climate action supporters now nearing retirement have racked up dozens of long trips and 200,000+ km in the air, and many don’t seem to be able to effectively treat this addiction to rampant consumerism. Money is power and convenience. Cheap flights have made a terrible contribution to our predicament.
Sell the bloody airport already.
With YVR now reaching new records of over 20 million passengers per year the airport is only destined to continue growing for a while. Parag Khanna, he is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, points out that there could be many more millions living up north in the next few years, due to climate change and the greening of the northern regions. He references a map from the New Scientist showing how many areas will be lost to rising waters.
Expect many more passengers arriving at YVR.
http://www.paragkhanna.com/home/2016/3/9/the-world-4-degrees-warmer?rq=warmer
Earlier this week Business Traveller reported that Boeing has projected a demand for 2,100 new airplanes in India alone, over the next two decades and 41,000 worldwide.
With YVR now reaching new records of over 20 million passengers per year the airport is only destined to continue growing for a while.
We’re supposed to be impressed?
Here are a few more public transport numbers for comparison purposes:
– BC Ferries carried over 21 million passengers in 2016. This is independent from cars.
– The 99 B-Line express bus alone carried 17 million passengers last year.
– The SkyTrain rail system clocked 137.4 million boardings last year.
– The entire TransLink system surpassed 200 million boardings from January to June, and 385 million in 2016.
There are far better targets for public infrastructure investment than YVR.
Oh well, another completely innocuous comment that expanded on Alex’s comment above and referenced a scientific study, as well as a business report this week regarding the airplane market projections – censored! Poof! Not kosher. Squashed. Follow the meme or get out. Verboten!
So sensitive aren’t you.
Author
Hi “Mary” it seems you are referring to an anonymous comment from “Frankly” posted earlier today. Our spam filter (Akismet) identified it as spam, for what reason I do not know. I have approved the comment for publication.
Akismet identifies and quarantines about 100 spam comments per day, and in fact makes PT’s comment section possible. Without it, this section would be unreadable. The penalty we pay is an occasional false positive — around 1:500 or so.
Do you want to revisit your remarks?