This commentary is by Maeve McBride, who is the coordinator of 350Vermont. She lives in South Burlington.
[I] am a mother, a scientist and a person of faith. I have two boys ages 4 and 8, and I will forever be their protector. This is the first reason I occupied the governor’s office, because they are in danger. We are on pace to surpass tipping points of climate chaos by the time my youngest graduates from high school. Unless we rapidly shift off fossil fuels, we will have released enough carbon to increase global temperatures beyond 2oC of warming. Nearly every nation in the world agrees that we must not exceed 2 degrees. The 64 occupiers on Oct. 27 came from all parts of Vermont and represented every generation from teens to parents to grandparents in their 70s. We have been voicing our opposition to the fracked gas pipeline for over two years at public hearings, with state officials, and in the press. Despite enormous cost overruns and increasingly alarming climate predictions, the fracked gas pipeline project continues.
I occupied the governor’s office to send him a clear message that he is misinformed on natural gas. It is not a bridge fuel as the industry claims. An article in the esteemed journal Nature concluded that natural gas will not be a bridge fuel to a cleaner energy future because it will delay the use of renewable energy sources. Fracking for natural gas, outlawed in Vermont, is a dangerous and extremely polluting process. A recent study out of Yale showed that people living close to fracking wells have greater incidence of upper respiratory conditions and skin ailments, like rashes, itching and burning. Additionally, in 2011, scientists from Cornell University measured significant methane leaks from fracking wells. Since methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, the overall emissions footprint from fracked gas exceeds the footprint of coal by their analysis. In sum, the science says that fracked gas is blocking our progress on renewables, making people sick, and not reducing emissions.
It’s unjust that thousands of Vermonters expressed opposition to the pipeline and were ignored by the permitting process. It’s unjust that land may be seized via eminent domain, while the true beneficiaries of the project are large corporations and institutions like International Paper, Middlebury College and Agri-Mark.
As a person of faith, I object to the pipeline on moral grounds, and I chose to pursue the time-honored tradition of civil disobedience following in the footsteps of other moral leaders. The injustice of this project is many-fold from the communities sickened near fracking wells to the sacrifice of prime agricultural land in Addison County. It’s unjust that thousands of Vermonters expressed opposition to the pipeline and were ignored by the permitting process. It’s unjust that land may be seized via eminent domain, while the true beneficiaries of the project are large corporations and institutions like International Paper, Middlebury College and Agri-Mark. It’s unjust that residents might switch to natural gas hoping to save on energy costs (like Vermont Gas claims), while gas prices are anticipated to sky-rocket. Residents would do better for their pocketbook and the climate if state government provided assistance for weatherization and incentivized other options like cold-climate heat pumps or high-efficiency wood stoves.
Finally, the Time’s Up, Rise Up action on Oct. 27 was not an isolated event. On Oct. 29, 10 people were arrested for blockading a methane gas storage facility on the shore of Seneca Lake in New York. This month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was blockaded for a week because of their lack of oversight on fracking projects. Sandra Steingraber, who some call the Rachel Carson of our time, has said this, “I actually want people to feel like they’re in danger and their kids are going to die if we don’t do something, because I truly believe that that’s our situation. And then, if you think your kids are going to die because of an imminent threat, wouldn’t you do something really big to solve it?” The climate justice movement is big and getting bigger. We have big demands — stop the pipelines, divest, and tax carbon pollution. Join us.
