Putting the brakes on cars: upset that Switzerland hasn't met its commitment to reduce air pollutants, Parliament in 2000 enabled the Federal Council to act by decree. Swiss News examines one "clean air" approach ignored to date.
| Auteur | Shepard, Lyn |
The eastern Swiss skiing resort of Arosa--a town embedded between the towering Weisshorn and the Amselflue--could become this country's and the world's first "emission-free" community by 2020.
At least that's what Chur-based architect and ecologist Raimund Hachler insisted in a 2001 book co-written with 34 fellow contributors from mountainous Canton Grisons. In Hachler's plan, Arosa would join other Swiss skiing resorts--Braunwald, Murren, Saas-Fee, Wengen, and Zermatt--as a car-free community. But, unlike the others, it would also convert completely to solar, wind, and waterpower energy heating. That would make it not only a Swiss model but an international one.
But Hachler says the resort's politicians and business leaders have ignored this unique chance to act as role models in safeguarding the Alps' fragile ecology. He calls it a "window of opportunity likely to slam shut" if decision-makers don't act soon.
Critical voices
Hachler explains that the book containing his essay on Arosa's "window"--Graubunden, weiter als das Auge reicht--appeared as a response to the Grisons' business community's call for ideas on how to promote the canton's future. In it, he and other social critics proposed solutions to a quagmire of problems. But they focused on the canton's delicate ecology and how to save it from speculative ruin.
Yet long-time observers of Swiss politics recall that such reform efforts have faced dogged national opposition to curbs against diesel CO2 emissions. Indeed in 1985 a right-wing Auto Party emerged to defend driver interests--the world's only such party. The fringe movement renamed itself the Freedom Party in 1994 but remains outside the mainstream today.
New World lags behind
Despite this lobby, Hachler admits that Switzerland's modest progress in the "clean-air" sector looks impressive in contrast to the world's worst air polluter, the USA. The western sales and marketing manager for SnowSports Industries America (SIA), Dave Wray, agrees, saying he knows of no USA or Canadian resorts that ban diesel-fuel cars or plan to.
"The American culture and transportation infrastructure just does not lend itself to this type of set-up," Wray contends, adding with a touch of sarcasm: "Besides, where would you put all those SUV's?" Canada too lags far behind Switzerland. Only the Province Quebec ski resort of Tremblant boasts a car-free policy. The idea seems to interest "green" activists but has not spread to resorts in the Rockies.
An...
Pour continuer la lecture
SOLLICITEZ VOTRE ESSAICOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
