Like many of you (or ideally many of you) who attended EPIC, the Sustainable Living Expo back in March, I signed up for my free subscription to Granville Magazine. I enjoy reading ‘green’ articles and books on how to leave a smaller carbon footprint but as with many such publications, ideas are somewhat tricky to contextualize and put into practice when solutions are posed but not where those solutions can be found locally. Now there is a city magazine to use as a resource and reference to help us realistically maintain the beautiful environment we have come to enjoy as Vancouverites. I’ve been waiting all this time to get my premier issue and it finally arrived in the mail yesterday. I was psyched! Until I looked at the cover.

I’ll let you be the judge. I’m uncertain if I’m an anomaly, but the magazine just didn’t set any kind of an impression on me. I don’t know if it was the layout, the writing, the imagery, the colours or the font. Something about the periodical just didn’t scream “Read Me!” I didn’t know what to focus on with this cover and the model blended so much into the background that the trees may as well have been the main subject and not the fashion being modeled by the woman.

That’s another thing. For a brand new magazine, you’d think they would have picked a topic that was unique or unusual to highlight. We live in a city that is becoming more and more eco-aware and is rich with local independent designers. If there is one field in this subject that I’ve seen too much of already, it’s fashion. If the cover had read something along the lines of “Vancouver Fails the Environment,” maybe that would have piqued my interest. Because we live in such a gorgeous city, people may just assume that we’re doing our part to save the planet. How many of you would be shocked to find that we actually don’t have a lot to brag about? I’m too lazy to look up the statistics so you can go ahead and fault me for that but the fact is there are many European countries and cities whose governments have set cuts in emissions that our own MPs wouldn’t even consider. Tim Flannery, Australian scientist, conservationist, and author of the critically acclaimed The Weather Makers once told me that Canada is one of the least educated countries when it comes to climate change solutions.

I would have liked to read about simpler ways to incorporate geothermal technology in our homes or to at least encourage the building industry to build all new homes and condos using this type of heating and cooling system. Telling us to buy Energy Star washing machines is great but I would have liked to see them specify the ban of top loaders altogether! Not only do they waste a ridiculous amount of water but they ruin clothes and send them to pill city.

There was also one burning question that kept popping up for me. For a sustainable living magazine, shouldn’t it be printed in recycled and untreated paper? The thick glossy pages certainly didn’t feel like recycled paper so I looked for some information on that. I would have been appalled if the publishers hadn’t used post consumer recycled content. Thankfully they did, though only a mere 30% of it is eco-friendly. If Granville Magazine wanted to save some trees, they should have considered making this an online magazine. If YOU really want to save some trees, you might be better off checking out websites that provide similar content, such as www.treehugger.com.

Maybe my expectations were too high or maybe I’ve already been overexposed to all things green. Maybe I just needed a Snickers bar. Whatever the reasons for my disappointment, I decided to set aside the magazine and went to catch a screening of Knocked Up (not bad by the way. Hilarious at times and often crude, but funny).

Today, I gave the magazine another chance. I read a couple of articles and found out that the title was actually the original name for our city. I didn’t know that there was a monthly gathering to share information on what’s going on in the environmental community called Green Drinks. There is a good article on recycling which also offers some drop-off locations for materials that are not usually picked up by the recycling trucks, such as Styrofoam. There’s actually good stuff to be found, though some of it can be somewhat dated. With all my other journals lying about at home, I don’t know if I would choose to pick this one up over the others so if you would like to give this magazine a fair chance, I’d suggest you carry it with you in transit to work or to school.

What I appreciated was not being preached to. I didn’t feel like mother nature’s enemy and never felt as though I was being guilted into change. Overall, it isn’t as bad as I made it originally sound, but you may not realize that until you’ve actually read the contents of the magazine. I am still very much looking forward to the next issue, although I’ll have to wait several months as Granville is only published four times a year. I have to admit I didn’t learn a heck of a lot more than I already knew, which concerns me a little because that might possibly mean there isn’t that much out there to report on. This is after all, a city magazine, not a national or international one. My question is, for a magazine which touts sustainability as its focus, will it itself be sustainable?

If you’d like to get a copy delivered to your home, you can do so by getting a free subscription (free only in BC) at www.granvilleonline.ca. You can also call 604.299.2116 or 1.800.663.0518 to request it.