Quote:
Originally Posted by Bunk
Thought experiment:
It’s 2030, Calgary is thriving.
What happened? How’d we go about securing this prosperity?
In your view, what is the mostly plausible scenario by which this happens?
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Some thoughts come to mind.
- Regional Embrace of regenerative agriculture
- Invested in advanced nuclear to synthesize carbon neutral combustion fuels
- Serious embrace of reclaiming long tooth oil and gas assets and continued automation of assets that will continue to produce. Seriously re-consider the structure of colonialist based royalty structures and the associated laws.
- Push to support carbon pricing and related products
- Leverage cheap energy to become a world centre for cryptocurrencies and cloud computing infrastructure (first combined power plants and data centres behind grid connection)
- Advanced construction and manufacturing base expansion. Much more stringent energy efficiency and carbon capture standards on building codes. Increase population density and reduce dependence on personal vehicle use.
- Participation in space commercialization.
- Commercialized some of the great research going on in material science and AI going on at the U of A.
- Support software development ecosystem. Expand incentives to attract skilled immigrants and support the marketing of fledgling tech start ups. We are in a market access desert, and can't keep having Ubers and solarwinds and and and being invented here and then having to go to the valley to hit.
- Expand regional importance of integrating Indigenous knowledge into the Crown system and recognizing sovereignty while supporting self governance for non treaty tribes.
- Assist in opening up the north as an export frontier as an alternative to the West coast
- Assist in securing the limited port potential of the West Coast
- Major investments in education and health research and infrastructure. SO much is possible here as evidenced by the CoVID crisis.
- Focus on improving biodiversity regionally (linked with 1, but should expand into the city and protected areas as well)
EDIT: Did not omit arts support on purpose. I feel like vitality in arts is a lagging indicator. We will know we are on track when arts flourish.... these things seem like they can't be prescriptive. Creative people work with the boundaries of constraints and require patrons. I don't know... could we have better hubs or venues? I feel like this is a "boring community" issue.
EDIT 2: Increased support for skilled trades & don't over-focus on renewables and energy storage which are inherently limited in their utility and are massive resource drains.
