The Guardian. August 19, 2021. Off the top, this article appears to be a simple account of how one man renovated a 150 year old building in Ithaca, NY. But once you get past the initial paragraphs, you find the ideas it contains are more significant than that. In essence, it’s a tale of how one small city developed and funded an incentive program to expand the number of building renovations that would reduce a structure’s use of fossil fuels and carbon footprint. And the significance of this undertaking is anything but minimal. “An often-overlooked but significant contributor to climate change: buildings make up nearly 40% of US carbon emissions.” That datum is the fact that underlies similar approaches elsewhere and makes this thinking also relevant to cities like Nanaimo. We may be a long way, geographically, from Ithica, NY, but our current City Council is telling us that local sustainability is also their priority. Perhaps Wallace Street should consider a similar approach to incentivize building owners and developers. [ARTICLE LINK]