Tamara Harbar Going green
Stratford Festival founder Tom Patterson had what it takes to be a great environmentalist: hope, a positive vision of the future, and innovative thinking backed up by action. That was my conclusion after vacationing in Huntsville last week.
I’d read Stratford's newspaper stories about the new Ontario Heritage Trust plaque honouring Tom Patterson and the bold beginnings of the Stratford Festival, which reinvented Stratford after the CNR shops closed. Then, while in Huntsville, I chatted with energetic and bubbly environmental studies student, Heather Davis, and couldn’t help noticing the qualities Tom Patterson brought to a struggling 1950s Stratford were the same ones Heather said were necessary for sustainable communities.
First comes hope. Heather emphasizes hope so much she’s coined a new word and calls herself a “hope-ist.” Some environmentalists breed doom and gloom, but Heather said, “I want to breed hope instead and a vision of the future where quality of life is better.”
The Town of Huntsville seems to want that, too. To build a future with a positive and sustainable quality of life, Huntsville is putting itself on the environmental map. It helps that a University of Waterloo campus for environmental research has just been built here.
According to Heather, town council understands it needs to walk the environmental talk to attract more environmental researchers and projects. A citizens’ group called the Local Environment Advisory Forum (LEAF) kick-started a process that now sees the town drafting the “Unity Plan – Huntsville’s Guide to a Sustainable Future.” Ideas are being gathered from the public, town council, staff and a consulting firm on how to balance Huntsville’s economic, social and environmental needs. Heather is also contributing her masters’ thesis research about Huntsville to the Unity Plan.
That reminded me how Patterson kick-started his theatre idea by approaching Stratford’s city council, which paid for his trip to New York. Since Stratford didn’t even have theatre facilities then, Patterson was flying on hope and a positive vision of the future.
Next come resilience and innovation, two other qualities also necessary for long-term sustainability. Heather explained that resilience is more than the ability to bounce back from tough times; a resilient community needs to be like a good boxer. “Any boxer can take the hits and bounce back,” she said, “but a good boxer is agile, looks ahead and avoids knock-out punches in the first place.”
Innovation, said Heather, “is simply the inventive creativity that lets communities seize available opportunities and also create opportunities to get out of sticky situations.”
Heather is fascinated by how innovation can lead to transformation, since transformation is essential when the status quo doesn’t work anymore.
Listening to Heather, I realized Patterson didn’t bother with an unsustainable status quo when the CNR shops closed. Instead of approaching CP or other rail companies for train-related opportunities, he thought outside the box-car of the time and headed in an innovative direction that transformed Stratford.
Every community needs a Tom Patterson to bring hope, resilience, innovation and transformation to how we think about and treat the environment, too.
It’s reassuring to know the Heathers and Huntsvilles of the world are working on it.
Book Peek of the Week: Read one of Heather’s favourite books and become a hope-ist, too – Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need, by Chris Turner.
