Editor’s note: This commentary is by Elizabeth Courtney, co-author of “Greening Vermont: The Search for a Sustainable State,” and former executive director of the Vermont Natural Resources Council. A version of this commentary first appeared in the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus and Rutland Herald Sunday edition.
[V]ermonters are all about taking bold action at the very local level, from Act 250 to groundwater protection. Yet ironically, we seem to have lost the “bold” when it comes to tackling climate change and the search for a clean energy future. The excuse? Vermont is too small to matter in a global arena.
This has led me to question what it means to be working in a tiny state to address a global crisis. What are the problems and opportunities we encounter today with the concept, “think globally act locally?”
To help answer these questions, I asked four of my colleagues, Paul Costello, Jake Claro, Beth Sachs and Cara Robechek, to join me in a discussion at the Vermont Folklife Center with 20 or so community members. The big take-away for us was: Today, we have the communications technology that can take a bold, local initiative to a global level in an instant. In this age of social media, ideas travel fast. For better or worse, images and concepts can go viral. Vermont has a reputation for providing models for other states and nations with initiatives such as the feed-in-tariff, the Genuine Progress Indicators, GMO labeling and the livable wage. The energy efficiency work of the Vermont Energy Investment Corp. and Efficiency Vermont has been embraced worldwide.
Perhaps our elected officials need to know we’ve got their backs … and that we’re holding their feet to the fire, that we know Vermont can lead the nation in taking the bold, necessary steps to curb global warming.
The latest bold, local effort that could gain at least regional if not international traction is the idea behind a proposed — nearly revenue neutral and income sensitive — “carbon pollution tax” that would simply make the price of carbon polluting fuels reflect their true cost to the environment and to society.
Sadly, there seems to be scant enthusiasm from the administration and lawmakers for this effort, at the present time. But if not now, when? Perhaps our elected officials need to know we’ve got their backs … and that we’re holding their feet to the fire, that we know Vermont can lead the nation in taking the bold, necessary steps to curb global warming.
We know the cause of climate change. We have the science to predict the outcomes if business as usual prevails. We have even the dreadful experience of the effects of the early stages of climate change.
Where is our will to take bold action, right here in Vermont?
Let’s think globally, and act boldly.
