The province of Quebec, recently dubbed by Al Gore as "the conscience of Canada on the environment," was host to the 7th biennial "Americana International Environmental Technology Trade Show and Conference" at the Palais de Congres in downtown Montreal. With nearly 10,000 participants and more than 400 exhibitors, this event has become one of the largest of its kind in North America.

The 150 or more presentations were divided into eight concurrent tracks: Drinking Water, Waste Water, Solid Waste, Air and Climate Change, Contaminated Soil and Groundwater, Sustainable Economic Development, Green Buildings, Bioproducts, and Sustainable Development. Presentations were split roughly half-and-half between English and French. The well-organized event provided real-time translation services through wireless headsets to all attendees, and also on-hand were a number of cheerful volunteers to provide any assistance.

The theme of the conference was "Environment: Fuelling the Economic Engine"-an excellent choice of words because it embodies the changing mindset of many Canadians: the realization of where our way of life originates from.

Our economies have always been fuelled in this way; it is not something that is new. But what is new is the increasing number of people actively questioning and educating themselves about how and where their energy and food are supplied. More importantly, people are interested in what the long-term outlooks are for those supplies and how to use them more efficiently. Unfortunately, a recurring theme throughout the three-day event was the overuse of the word "sustainable" in statements like "sustainable growth," "sustainable development," and "sustainable process." There was no one definition employed for this word, and in many contexts it implied that "sustainable" is something that lasts for only one or two generations.

That's sustainable??

For instance, two delegates from Saudi Arabia gave a presentation about "sustainable development" in their country. They spoke of the explosive growth rates of 3-6% a year in their cities. And they spoke of the huge economic opportunities available to foreign investors to meet the demands of this growth. At the end of their talk I asked where all the water would come from to feed these cities, and they admitted to the audience that Saudi Arabia is facing extreme challenges due to their underground aquifers emptying at alarming rates. They said this is not a problem though, because water will be supplied by desalination plants, plants that do not exist yet and that would be fuelled by natural gas. This is in no way "sustainable development," not by my definition (which is "capable of continuing indefinitely").

My suggestion for the next Americana conference is that a clear and concise definition be established for the word "sustainable" and guidelines be determined for the presenters to follow. For example, a presenter would have to provide a disclosure of how their use of the word follows the conference guidelines. This one small, easy step would dramatically influence the overall discussion, since false statements and misconceptions would be filtered out from the onset.

Over the past year I've attended more than a dozen environmental conferences in both Canada and the US. At the majority of these, political representatives were rarely in attendance. Americana proved to be much different: the closing keynote was given by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It was a noticeable contrast to last May, where at the "Climate Change Technology" conference in Ottawa, the former Environment Minister, Rona Ambrose, was scheduled to give the opening keynote but didn't show. At that time, many Environment and Natural Resources Canada employees were stating that their projects were on hold indefinitely until further notice from the government.

But is it real?

Fast-forward to Montreal where Patrick O'Neil, the Chief Director of Environmental Policy Development for Natural Resources Canada gave a break-down of the government's recently announced "EcoEnergy Initiative" that espouses the mantra of "Using Less-Living Better." Mr O'Neil walked the audience through how the billions of dollars would be divvied up among the various projects: Clean Air Regulatory Agenda, EcoEnergy, EcoTransport, and EcoTrust. I asked him afterwards if many new hires would result from this initiative, and he responded that a few would, but for the most part, none. Which leads me to wonder if these public servants have been doing nothing but waiting ever since the Conservatives came to power, and I wonder what effect another federal election might have in delaying action on the environment.

Strolling through the exhibition hall of over 400 booths, I was pleasantly surprised to run across a familiar site from the Kootenays of British Columbia. At the Canadian Wooden Dome (CWD) Company booth was a large photograph of the eco-resort "Villa Dome Quixote" located in New Denver, BC. The resort consists of a number of unique and highly visible dome chalets. I've driven past this resort many times over the last few years but had never made the effort to stop in and get the story. It turns out that these domes are the prototypes for the design of an environmentally friendly and modular, monolithic dome building being manufactured by CWD.

The company uses the lumber trim-ends from sawmills that are normally considered a waste product. These 2x4 scraps are used as the vertical supports for the compact, modular frames that are then stacked like blocks in an igloo-inspired pattern to build the dome structure. The horizontal supports of these frames are made from OSB, a manufactured wood product partially made from wood-waste materials. This type of design allows for the quick manufacture of modular components that can be transported from factory to building site easily and efficiently. The design of these domes also allows for quick assembly, normally taking just one or two days, depending on the dome size.

The energy savings achieved with these structures are numerous: the embodied energy of the materials is very low compared to conventional lumber; the wood-waste created during the building process is considerably less than that created by con-ventional construction methods; the interior air space (volume) is 30% less than a conventional building of the same floor space, reducing the building's heating requirements; the unique window placement can allow more direct sunlight to enter, using less window space than conventional placements; and the list goes on.

With dome living, any type of interior arrangement can be created. There are no walls and no load-bearing posts or trusses to work around. In its most basic form the dome is very similar to a yurt and, not coincidentally, Mongolia has ordered thousands of these domes to help introduce stable and efficient housing design to their expanding cities. Approximately one-third of Mongolians are nomadic and live mostly in yurts. In recent years, they have migrated from a nomadic lifestyle to city dwelling. It is anticipated that these dome houses will be readily adopted throughout the country.

That empty feeling

A number of other building technologies were on display throughout the expo hall. Many were based on simple concepts that achieved significant savings in both the building processes and energy use. This was very encouraging to see.

However, at the end of the event, I was left with the feeling that we will strictly follow the government's mantra, "using less-living better" in an attempt to keep our current way of life, without making any fundamental changes. Many of the presentations seemed to be aligned with this mindset: that we will do things differently (read: more efficiently), but still live in the same way. It's an attempt, in my opinion, to avoid the real problem: growth.