We are witnessing a stunning global loss of biodiversity that some are calling the Sixth Great Extinction. Human activity has degraded migration corridors, leaving species with nowhere to go. It is a painful irony that Vermont has encouraged some of this essential habitat to be fragmented and whittled away under the pretext of climate action.
As the Vermont Climate Council readies its plans to dramatically reduce Vermont’s greenhouse gas emissions, they embarked on a series of public engagement events to field questions from curious citizens. Here are some we all might consider asking.
Successful climate action will require each of us — at the individual, local and state level — to do our part to both reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help prepare Vermont to respond to the impacts that a changing climate will have. The Climate Action Plan will help guide that work.
Discussing the goal of greenhouse gas emission reduction versus strengthening and modernizing infrastructure, Campany admitted, “We can go negative emissions tomorrow, and for everybody in Vermont we’re still going to be dealing with the same issues.”
This fall, state officials, local leaders and members of the Vermont Climate Council invite the public to attend one of several events to learn about the development of the state’s Climate Action Plan and help prioritize approaches.
The Climate Council would be wise to include asking the Legislature to modify the Global Warming Solutions Act to address issues resulting from weather extremes in its recommendations in the Climate Action Plan. The “solutions” cannot be all about technology and buying more stuff.
I’m willing to bet a large majority of voting taxpayers’ priority amongst this smorgasbord of spending choices is to keep their money for themselves with no interest in seeing it “redirected” away from their pay checks, savings accounts, wallets, and household budgets, especially for the purposes of putting their unemployed neighbor in a Prius.
In a supposedly free society, is it really the role of government to “break the will” of bad guy Vermont senior citizens on fixed incomes trying to heat their homes in February? We would say not.
The Vermont Climate Council has met just three times, but already concerns have surfaced about white supremacy and conflict of interest.
What I suspect we’ll get is a hugely expensive program that does nothing to stop climate change, undermines our ability to adapt to it, and diverts resources away from real solutions.
It is worth pointing out that no one in the Vermont press corps has ever been willing to ask this very basic question of any of the GWSA’s advocates, perhaps because they knew what the honest answer is: “Vermont can’t stop or even affect climate change.”
Massachusetts only reached its 2020 goal because of Covid-19 restrictions on travel. If it takes a pandemic for Massachusetts to reach it goals, that should tell you how many sacrifices Vermonters must prepare to make to reach our 2025 GWSA goals.