UVic announces car-free campus

MEDIA RELEASE (Read Martlet Op-Ed here)

January 26^th, 2011

UVIC ANNOUNCES CAR-FREE CAMPUS

UVic has announced that it plans to eliminate all automobiles on campus in the coming months.  Earlier plans to destroy the rabbit population have been cancelled, said UVic spokesperson Kruce Bilpatrick, because it has become clear that the automobiles are a much bigger problem.  “Automobile owners leave their vehicles on a daily basis, leaving UVic to shoulder the burden of a growing population of cars,” said Bilpatrick.  The automobiles aren’t simply an eyesore, according to Bilpatrick.  They release toxic fumes, they are reliant on an unsustainable fossil-fuel economy, they encourage narcissistic consumerism, and they frequently kill rabbits and other animals.

Cars also present a much more systemic and potentially disastrous problem for the university: parking lots.  “Parking lots are getting out of control at UVic and we need to take immediate action to reverse this trend,” said Bilpatrick.  UVic revealed its “Campus Transition Plan”, which details a 5-year plan to get rid of parking lots, with more gardens and more paths for pedestrians and cyclists.  As part of this plan, UVic will also be turning most of its lawn space into food-producing gardens.  “Once we started thinking about all the wasted space on parking lots, we started to recognize that lawns are a pretty stupid use of space, too.  In comparison to the automobile and lawn epidemic, our rabbit problem is actually quite small,” Bilpatrick said.

Alongside this transition, UVic is considering a number of more immediate measures to reduce the car population, including a campaign to educate the UVic community on the dangers of feeding gas to the cars.  The campaign features a set of posters with wild animals such as eagles, deer, and rabbits, which reads “you wouldn’t feed gas to an eagle; please don’t feed the cars.”

“The methods under consideration are basically the same as those we used on the bunnies,” said Bilpatrick: “poisoning, trapping, and shooting.”  By far the most economical solution would be to hire a sniper who would shoot out the gas tanks of parked cars, blowing them up.  Poisoning would entail placing sugar in gas tanks, or bashing the engine with a big hammer.  However, a number of students, faculty, and community members have expressed concerns that these methods are inhumane.

Students and faculty from the Jeeter V Pustavsen School of Business have filed an injunction to stop UVic from killing the cars, and they petitioning the university to adopt a more humane method of capturing and sterilizing the cars.  “Our group is working to find a car refuge where the cars can live out the rest of their days in peace,” said a representative.  The cars would be trapped, their gaslines snipped, and they would be transported to one of the car refuges.

Bilpatrick emphasized that he’s open to options, but the university needs a rapid response.  “Whatever the long-term solution is, it’s clear that UVic’s car infestations and parking lot epidemics have to be confronted immediately.”  In the meantime, Bilpatrick is urging UVic community members to walk, ride a bike, or take the bus to campus, and to dig up lawns and plant gardens wherever possible.

Media contacts:
Patty Pitts (UVic Communications) at 250-721-7656 or ppitts@uvic.ca

More information: http://vfnl.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/uvic-announces-car-free-campus/

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Clearly, this is a fake press release.  Hopefully an entertaining one.  Maybe it will also raise some questions.  What makes it possible to conceptualize ‘the rabbits’ as a problem to be solved?  What makes it possible for ‘the rabbit problem’ to be conceptualized and ‘solved’ through a systematic and sustained effort of mass trapping, killing, or shipping to far-off places?  And what prevents UVic from tackling the (arguably) much more obvious problems like car culture or pollution?  Obviously, cars can’t be conceptualized as a problem in the same way that rabbits can–that’s what makes this press release ridiculous.  At the same time, maybe it helps us think differently about bureaucracy, politics, and the way problems are formulated.  UVic formulates environmental problems quite differently, usually in terms of ‘sustainability’: UVic is working towards becoming more sustainable, and we can help, by making slight modifications to already-existing structures and practices.  UVic is buying more local food, and we can too, as individual consumers.  Change comes slowly, we’re often told.  Well, we know it does when it’s directed by bureaucracies or managed by established authorities: it’s designed to move slowly, and to make those authorities seem necessary or natural.

But what if part of the problem–part of the reason we can’t fundamentally change our collective practices and our everyday lives–is because politics is immediately bureaucratized, managed, and individualized?  Does this politics change the ways we live our lives, or does it do more to leave things the way they are?  What would it mean to do things differently?

Clearly, we can’t ‘reject’ bureaucracy: it’s around whether we like it or not.  But maybe we can engage with bureaucracies and established authorities differently, in ways that don’t allow politics to be immediately swallowed up by procedures, routines, and policies.

Maybe we can also engage with bureaucracies more creatively and effectively, if we understand the way they formulate problems.  Or maybe, we can begin to formulate problems ourselves, rather than reacting to the ways they’re formulated bureaucratically?  What would it mean to formulate ‘the rabbit problem’ differently?  Maybe ‘the rabbits’ aren’t the problem at all, and we should be looking at our own relations to land and non-humans.  Maybe what we have is a ‘bureaucracy problem’ or a ‘proceduralism problem’ or a ‘consumer-capitalist’ problem.  Maybe all three at once…

This happens all the time.  When people begin to formulate problems themselves, their politics often appears irrational, naive, or ineffective from the perspective of established authorities.  This is because people have begun to play a different game, according to different rules.  A home run looks pretty silly, if the referee thinks you’re playing tennis.  How can we invent and play new (political) games with each other, rather than relying on the ref?  Or: maybe there’s already a bunch of different games being played, but they’re obscured or destroyed by the big game of ‘serious politics’: slow reform, established procedures, clear demands.

This means changing the way we relate to politics, and how we make judgments.  If the effectiveness of politics can’t be measured or judged by its effect on policies, then how do we make judgements about it?  How do we decide what to do, who do it with, and how to go about it?  How can we formulate problems ourselves, in our communities, in a way that’s responsive everyday life?