“We might have just elected a president who thinks climate change is a hoax,” Johanna Miller greeted the crowd gathered at the Lake Morey Resort. “The imperative of local and state efforts has never been greater.”
Miller, energy program director for the Vermont Natural Resources Council, was one of several experts, community energy committee members, lawmakers and business leaders who used their microphone time to express concern about the incoming president’s environmental perspective.
“Our job is to keep the light of progress burning in what are going to be some dark years,” Darren Springer, chief of staff for departing Gov. Peter Shumlin, said in his opening address. “There’s no hope coming out of Trump Tower or Washington, D.C.”
Springer and other speakers noted the incoming commander-in-chief has tweeted “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive,” while senior staffer Reince Priebus has added that the administration’s “default position” was that “most of it is a bunch of bunk.”
Those comments reminded Springer of when, starting his career just after the re-election of President George W. Bush a decade ago, coal produced half of the country’s electricity and consumers had yet to see an electric car or a light-emitting-diode bulb.
“We have to acknowledge we’ve come a long way since then,” said Springer, noting coal now generates only one-third of the nation’s power. “The good news is we have the technologies and the political will to fight a polluter agenda.”
Lauren Hierl, political director for the Vermont Conservation Voters advocacy organization, said the state offered a more promising landscape.
“It’s clear we’re in for some challenging times,” Hierl said. “This puts Vermont in a pretty unique position in the national context.”
But several participants saw lessons in last month’s vote. Sen. Mark MacDonald, an Orange County Democrat, noted several House colleagues lost after they were targeted for considering a carbon tax.
“This group here understands what the problem is, but we need a strategy on how to take it on with our neighbors,” MacDonald said. “The people who vote for Donald Trump are the same people who vote for Bernie Sanders. We need a solution to what’s hurting people in their pocketbooks that also happens to reduce our carbon footprint.”
Saturday’s ninth annual conference drew participants from Vermont’s more than 100 community energy committees as well as government and industry groups. Its theme of “Local Leadership, Local Action: Partnering to Get to 90 by 2050” was inspired by a state goal to generate 90 percent of energy through renewable sources by the mid-century.
“Climate change doesn’t bend on elections,” Miller said. “We have to ensure Vermont is a beacon of hope and model of innovation. We have an obligation and an opportunity.”
