$100 Windfall

Hi,

Within the next few days you will be receiving a $100 cheque in the mail from the Government of British Columbia.

I want your $100.

This cheque is the one-time “Climate Action Dividend” distributed to every British Columbian. The government hopes you will spend this money to help reduce our collective greenhouse gas emissions to help slow climate change.

How can you spend that $100 meaningfully?

Perhaps you can buy some compact fluorescent light bulbs to reduce your energy consumption or put the cash toward a new push lawn mower. If you don't even pause to think about the meaning behind the government's initiative, you might simply cash the cheque and go out for dinner or fill your car's gas tank.

I want to suggest that your $100 can be spent in a very meaningful way that will result in helping shape long-term beneficial change.

I want you to donate your $100 Climate Action Dividend to Smart Growth BC and join our “1,000 Friends of British Columbia” campaign.

For the past few years, I have been a volunteer director on the Board of Smart Growth BC, the province's leading advocacy, education and research group

striving to raise awareness about the connection between land use, healthy, vibrant communities and a sustainable approach to protecting our natural ecosystems. We are making great progress in shaping positive change in this area, development by development, community by community.

Your tax-deductible contribution will support Smart Growth BC’s work linking our communities’ built form and land use patterns to the climate change impacts and adaptation scenarios that they elicit.

Research on urban form and climate change is just emerging, but the links are already clear. Communities that have integrated “smart growth” principles into their growth plans:

· are more walkable and better able to provide efficient transit -- an increasingly important consideration as fuel costs rises;

· are surrounded by productive and protected farmlands providing residents with increased food security;

· conserve carbon sinks such as forests, wetlands and other naturalized areas; and

· redirect and encourage a strong local economy by keeping small businesses in town centres alive and thriving.

Creating smart growth communities means planning for the long term. Smart Growth BC is helping community planners and decision-makers across the province incorporate smart growth principles to achieve the resiliency necessary to deal with climate change in the future. Smart growth communities are able to respond and adapt to both the direct and indirect effects of climate change.

Your donation will not only help Smart Growth BC fulfill our mission to create more livable communities in BC through education and outreach, research, policy and advocacy, and implementation – you’ll also help BC reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

Please do your part by depositing your $100 Climate Action Dividend in your bank account and then writing a $100 cheque made payable to SMART GROWTH BC.

This is discretionary money you are receiving. You can spend it wisely by supporting our work today!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR CONSIDERING MY REQUEST.

For more information, see:

http://www.smartgrowth.bc.ca/AboutUs/Issues/ClimateChange/tabid/105/Default.aspx

Smart Growth BC

314-402 West Pender Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 1T6

T 604.915.5234

F 604.915.5236

info@smartgrowth.bc.ca

www.smartgrowth.bc.ca

Smart Growth British Columbia is a registered charitable organization under the Income Tax Act (Canada).

Charitable Registration 89568-6616-RR000.