Rise up with the Sunrise Movement

A relatively new and very exciting movement south of the border I pay a lot of attention to is the Sunrise Movement. The force behind the Green New Deal, it’s a powerful social movement that includes a broad section of society. But it’s mostly driven by a lot of smart young people.

The Sunrise Movement is not just about phasing out environmentally destructive jobs. More importantly, it’s about creating new jobs that support a sustainable future. Members of the Sunrise Movement recently occupied the office of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wearing T-shirts and carrying signs emblazoned with slogans like “Green Jobs for All” and “We have a right to good jobs and a livable future”.

In Quebec, a similar movement started last winter — Le pacte pour la transition, or The Pact. All this got me thinking about what sort of green new jobs we might advocate for here in Vancouver.

Arts and culture are a good place to start. My partner, Penny, is an artist and her environmental footprint is very small. At the same time, the arts and culture sector in Vancouver is very underfunded. This is a double dilemma since Vancouver is the most expensive city in Canada; at the same time it has one of the highest per-capita ratios of artists in Canada.

CBC’s Maryse Zeidler has been doing a great job of bringing this quandary in Vancouver to light. But I like to think that in the new green world of tomorrow, arts and culture will play a much larger role in Vancouver, and throughout society.

Software development, film animation, and other technology sectors, including the clean energy sector, already make up a big part of Vancouver’s economy, and could easily be encouraged by all levels of government. (Twelve Canadian startups were named by Global Cleantech 100, a list of the world’s 100 most-promising cleantech companies. Five of those were in Vancouver!)

High tech jobs are typically green jobs that pay well, which goes back to my June 11 blog about a made-in-Canada Green New Deal. In it, I point out that workers in fossil-fuel industries must be supported in their efforts to get re-trained for jobs in the new green economy.

Another “Sunrise” possibility: UBC was recently ranked No. 1 in the world for taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. It was also rated No. 1 in Canada for making cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, according to Times Higher Education, a U.K.-based data provider engaged with university excellence.

In just one example of their progressive, sustainable work, UBC’s chemical and biological engineering department recently made headlines around the world for developing a bacteria-powered solar cell that works as well in low light, like we have so much of here in Vancouver, as it does in full sunlight. The department also does research and development in other sectors with a green bent, like nutraceuticals — those hybrid pharmaceutical/food supplements you might buy at Nesters Market or Whole Foods.

These are the kinds of green sectors and initiatives we need to start really pushing for, and supporting in politics and on the ground if we all — young and those of us who aren’t so young — want to enjoy our rights to good jobs and a livable future.