anonymous - November 01st, 2005
Hey Jamie - Thanks for your kind comments but I'm concerned that my aspiring local political career will be unsustainable if I'm branded anti capitalist! Having spent over 20 years as an investment banker its hard to change stripes. That is a very lengthy discussion that we'll have one day I know but in the interim rent the DVD "The Corporation" to get a better understanding of the negative aspects of the corporate legal structure but also to be inspired by capitalists such as Ray Anderson CEO of Interface the worlds largest commercial carpet manufacturer. He is perhaps the most radical and succssful capitalist you've ever seen in a suit.
Similarly if I'm doing my enviro work or negotiating to try to get some of our remaining wilderness protected, I do so from a business point of view, having Whistler surrounded by wild places makes more economic sense to our tourism product than it being filled with roads and cutblocks. Also, this kind of progress requires that we have to understand the needs of capitalist industry or we'll never get anywhere in discussions and we'll never achieve any improvement.

Here is an explanation taken from our very own homegrown groundbreaking sustainability initiative: >Sustainability means meeting the needs of global society indefinitely. Since meeting human needs depends on natural processes, sustainability also means maintaining life-supporting ecological processes, such as capturing energy from the sun by photosynthesis and purification of air and water.
Sustainability for Whistler and other communities means maintaining opportunities for future generations and not diminishing our economic, social and environmental capital ? "harvesting the apples but not the tree."
You can learn TONS more at: www.whistleritsournature.ca The Natural Step Framework (www.naturalstep.ca ) was the tool that we adopted to help guide us to a sustainable future. It has formed the basis for our Comprehensive Sustainability Plan Whistler 2020 and it guides the decisions and actions at the muni and at other organizations in town. In my opinion, after creating the top mountain resort in North America our greatest accomplishment in Whistler was to put sustainability at the core of our thinking. It's not just about doing the right thing for our planet, it is very good business too. A personal example. I drive a SmartCar. It uses very little material compared to a conventional car. It uses hardly ANY gas. I drive to Vancouver to run errands and come back to Whistler and fill it up for between 8 and 10 bucks. It is a sustainable solution from a material, emissions and economic point of view.
The reason I'm running for council: I heard it said that a high profile candidate feels our economic downturn is as a result of Whistler having paid too much attention to the environment and sustainability and not enough to the economy. That kind of old school thinking has no place in Whistler and I will do everything I can to see that we stay on track. Many people are not aware of it but what we are doing here from a sustainability perspective - coupled with what had better be a "less unsustainable" olympics than the usual has the power to inspire people around the world in a small way. Thats a big responsibility and we're up to the challenge in Whistler.
Eckhard Zeidler

anonymous - November 09th, 2005
Our loss of revenue indubitably has something to do with our failure to 'grow' the overall market and last year's lousy snow. As for the quote above. It is perhaps unfair to sieze on the particular words in a generalized opinion. None of us may care to hear our own words quoted with a slightly different slant. Maybe it would be fairer to say " It is not so much that we have paid too much attention to sustainability but that we have paid too little to business."

anonymous - November 16th, 2005
Listen to Eckhard. He knows his stuff. He will be a fine addition to council.