One of the best things about having a client like Vancity is that they never stop doing astonishingly cool things worth passing on.

Their latest initiative kind of takes my breath away (and then kindly gives it back again).

Usually, when a bank or credit union offers a new mortgage product, they spend money hand over fist on TV ads, print ads, brochures, balloons, clowns, elephants… whatever it takes to sell it.

Vancity and Citizens Bank are doing something different. They’re making a deal with their customers: “If you don’t make us lift a finger to sell this new mortgage to you – if you just phone up and ask for it – we’ll take the money we would have spent promoting it, and invest it in a fund to fight climate change.”

They call it the Climate Change Mortgage. (I call it the Don’t-Make-Me-Come-Back-There Mortgage, which is why they don’t hire me to name their product lines.)

Their site explains the potential:

• The average mortgage in Canada = $250,000
• Take 10 basis points or one 10th of a per cent each year of that mortgage
  over a five-year term = $1,250 per mortgage into the fund
• 100 Climate Change mortgages = $125,000 in the fund over 5 years
• 1,000 Climate Change mortgages = $1.25 million in the fund over 5 years
• 10,000 = $12 million and so on.

The remarkable thing about their pitch is that it doesn’t appeal to customers’ wallets; you don’t save a dime over their usual mortgage rates. Instead, they’re appealing directly to the prospect that a customer’s choice of mortgage could make a difference in one of the greatest challenges of our time.

They also acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers yet:

Right now we have our Vancity and Citizens Bank of Canada climate change experts exploring the best way to invest the funds. It also depends how big the fund gets, but at this point we expect our focus will be on ways to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

We will keep you posted as we continue to work with the brightest minds in the climate change field to determine how the fund can be used to have the highest impact.

If you’re interested, check out their web site or call them at 1-866-566-6651.

Incidentally, Vancity CEO Dave Mowat talks about the Climate Change Mortgage on YouTube:

Between that and his blogging on ChangeEverything, he’s just a podcast away from a Web 2.0 trifecta.

Those of you who aren’t willing to content yourselves with the feed from this blog, who are willing to brave seeing my mug on top of every page just so you can read these posts in all their original glory… your sacrifices have not been in vain.

Over on the right-hand side, you’ll see a new little widget I’m trying out. It’s called a Lijit, and it uses Google to search not only this blog, but large swaths of my entire range of Web-2.0-y goodness… as well as my whole blogroll. Take it out for a spin, and let me know what you think in the comments to this post.

For a more in-depth explanation, have a look at my post about Lijit on Social Signal.

My first feature request – I wish you could opt to style Lijit yourself in CSS. Instead, the widget’s Javascript snippet brings in a bunch of inline CSS styling of its own… including some that made it too wide for my blog’s layout. I’ve had to rejig the page to accommodate it, which is pretty much the exact opposite of how a well-behaved widget should work.

• Alive In Baghdad
  A grassroots effort to bring the experience of everyday Iraqis to the world’s consciousness through a weekly videoblog straight from Iraq.
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• Have Money Will Vlog
  A site that lets people propose videoblogging ideas… and lets readers donate to make those ideas happen.
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Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us

I’ve never seen a more compelling case for the transformative implications of Web 2.0. And in only five minutes.

• Void your warranty… and upgrade your Core Duo Macbook to 802.11N
  Goose your wireless networking speed (and kiss AppleCare goodbye) with this hack, translated into English from the Macbidouille original.
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• Passer un MacBook Core Duo au 802.11n
  Hack your Macbook Core Duo, connect to faster- than- fast 802.11N networks, and wipe that grin off the smug faces of those Core 2 Duo owners.
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• The Nuisance Of The Read More Flag
  Merlin at Angry Donuts helps you customize the “Read More” link in Drupal with a custom module.
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If she isn’t there already, Mary Walsh enters the quotation books:

He may be a senior federal cabinet minister, but Peter MacKay, who was booed at the East Coast Music Awards gala Sunday in Halifax, says he’s also human.

During his speech at the Metro Centre, MacKay, the minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, said he was pleased to be funding the event “here in Toronto,” then tried to recover quickly with Ottawa.

He got Halifax correct on the third try, but by that time he was almost drowned out by the crowd’s laughter and boos.

When comedian Mary Walsh later took to the stage, she referred to the federal Conservatives as the “arse-lickers of Satan, who can’t even remember what town they’re in.”

You just know that somewhere, some focus group moderator is testing ads with the tagline “The Conservatives: arse-lickers of Satan. A message from the Liberal Party of Canada.”

There, I’ve said it. Readers east of the Coast Mountains, you may commence hating me… now.