“It will literally have to be a ‘renaissance’ -- a social and political agenda the like of which Canada has not seen for 150 years,” says Professor David Wheeler of the Schulich School of Business and current Director of York’s Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS). Nevertheless, Wheeler and his colleagues do not believe that such a massive attitude shift needs to be expensive.

“One of the reasons I think meeting the CO2 emission reduction targets envisioned in the Kyoto Accord will not be as expensive as people fear is because as a society we really haven’t paid any attention to the problem as yet,” says Professor Peter Victor, York’s former Dean of Environmental Studies. “We’ve never tried to control carbon emissions because there was no reason to think about it, no framework of laws and regulations, no financial incentives.

“Now surely once we turn our minds to the problem,” Victor adds, “we’ll be able to come up with some pretty good options. I think there are a lot of unexplored opportunities in new technology that will assist greatly in achieving our goals without undue long-term expense.”

The academics – all leading members of the newly formed York Institute for Research and Innovation in Sustainability (IRIS) – embrace the disciplines of economics, natural science, business, law, social science, geography and political science.

They point to evidence from the recently published Millennium Ecological Assessment that climate change threats are real and potentially cataclysmic. The professors also point to the analysis of 12 of Canada’s leading civil society organizations that the country risks missing its Kyoto targets in the absence of tighter timelines and effective and legally enforceable compacts with industry.

To achieve the 270 - 300 megatonne greenhouse gas emissions reductions mandated by 2012 will require more than technological ingenuity and an appropriate legal framework. Professor Stepan Wood of Osgoode Hall Law School points out that many international legal and scientific experts now believe that even if Kyoto targets are met, it will only delay climate catastrophe.  “Ultimately, reversing the harmful changes to the global climate system and the inevitable resulting harm to Canadian and other economies will require much more,” says Wood. 

Some of the elements of a technological and social renaissance that York’s multi-disciplinary researchers believe need to be part of the federal government’s vision include: pedestrian- and bike-friendly streets, safe neighbourhoods with strong public facilities, community-based planning, cities without gasoline-dependent cars, provinces without coal-fired stations, elimination of urban smog with its attendant health and economic costs, elimination of fuel poverty through massive investments in social housing infrastructure, radically more efficient and innovative high technology industries that can export environmental solutions.

“The good news is that such a vision would be more socially, environmentally and economically sustainable,” says Victor.  

York’s professors are so convinced that a more sustainable Canada would be a happier, healthier and more socially cohesive Canada,  that they today launched the ‘Renaissance Project in Environmental and Social Change’ to prove it. To see the IRIS statement, The Economics of the Good Life please go to:    

http://www.iris.yorku.ca/Home/IRISCommentary/index.html

York University is the leading interdisciplinary teaching and research university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city.  The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 180,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 faculties and 21 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries.  This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges.

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For more information, or to arrange an interview, the media should contact:

Jeff Ball, Media Relations, York University, 416-736-2100, x22086 / jball@yorku.ca