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Join VV's Energy Network to help pare our energy "needs" down to the minimum, using only renewable and sustainable sources. We are a network of solutions at every scale, from homes to communities and cities to the globe.

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Our city claims its "emissions have already been reduced to 1990 levels and Vancouver is on track to meeting the Kyoto target (6% below 1990 levels by 2012)." But with Vancouver BC's largest city, how does this square with the fact that the province's GHG emissions are up 32% in this same time period? Vancouver added a hundred and forty thousand people (+28%), built 70,000 new dwelling units with insulation at just R-2 while ripping down and carting away 20,000 better-insulated homes in the process, and all this growth and development activity "reduced" Vancouver's carbon emissions?

If this assertion by Vancouver City Hall were even true, is it due to the de-industrialization of Vancouver and the flight of jobs out into surrounding cities, causing ever more commuting traffic and harder-to-serve pathways for transit? And why are Vancouver's huge port GHG emissions strangely left out of its reporting?  What else was excluded? Cement production, the most carbon-intensive building material, doubled since 1990, and Vancouver used much of it.  But of course, all of it came from Delta or Richmond.

Do you feel Vancouver has an adequate Energy Descent Plan? How would we live using only a fraction of the energy we currently use?

This Village Vancouver Energy research and project Team is charged with analysing and critiquing Vancouver's energy performance, making recommendations for improvements, and--most importantly--implementing them. We are not just a talk shop. We set targets and measure our progress, openly and right here on this site.

A unique and comprehensive resource on energy sustainability across almost all uses is David MacKay's Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, available free on-line by clicking here.

Check out how to install a Solar Roof here.

The best collection of research links on Peak Oil and alternative energy, the latter customized to the climate of the Northwest, is here on the Sightline Institute's web site. If you know of other important resources, please post them on these pages here orsend them to us.

While acting locally, global thinking is also needed. Few better arguments for building a green energy economy, and suggesting clear policy means of to do so, are the subject of this April 2010 article by Nobel-Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman--click here to view as a PDF . Carbon taxes, carbon tariffs, and global carbon cap-and-trade are all discussed here, rationally and fairly.