Editor’s note: This commentary is by Dan Jones, of Montpelier, who is a member of the Sustainable Montpelier Coalition.
[T]he most recent climate reports tell us that we have less than 12 years to radically reduce our carbon production or the storms, the droughts, the floods, and the extreme weather events of climate change will be making life unlivable for most of us. Fortunately, youth, at least, are focusing on what is happening to the planet. Across Europe, children are marching out of school to demand that serious attention be paid to the climate crisis. In Washington, young progressive politicians are demanding a Green New Deal.
One might think Vermont, as one of the most progressive states in the country, would be figuring out how to jump on this bandwagon, if for no other reason that we want to attract caring creative young people to help build our future. Our state marketers have a different approach with their campaigns enticing youth to come for the elite winter sports or the promise of a cash bonuses for moving here to work from home. Think about it. Yes, this bonus approach has gotten a lot of public press, but it’s based on an approach to building our economic future on money that is made profiting interests outside Vermont. Tourists and remote web workers will be producing wealth for companies headquartered far away. While some of that money stays for the workers here about, the gross profit goes elsewhere. I believe that our state should be a bit more foreseeing and dynamic. We need to attract young people who would come to produce innovations and wealth that profit us here.
I suggest an alternative marketing narrative. “Vermont,” it would say, “where we are building a sustainable future today!” We want young people to come be part of creating the social, structural, innovative and resilient future needed here.
In fact, what one might call “the resiliency sector” such as the “CRD Climate Economy” effort or the Center for Rural Innovation are starts in this direction. But it’s not just technology — what we really want are the green youth, and to get them we need to nurture their vision of a world they will help build. We want to attract the youthful energy and yearning, those hoping to be part of creating the social, structural, food and energy innovations that will be needed in building a resilient local future. That is going to be a key component of future wealth. If we got really good at such innovations, this knowledge will then become its own form of an export commodity.
Indeed, we already have the core of a resiliency sector in Montpelier. The city is committed to being “net zero” by 2030. The state is grappling with lowering our carbon addiction. A few years ago, the Sustainable Montpelier Design Competition provided the foundational work for a new direction, and it’s helped to inspire a lot of people at the state and local level to get engaged. But it still requires a lot of commitment and energy to make this vision happen. In our rapidly aging city, where will that come from?
Recently, however, I have run across some people whose stories give me a bit of hope. These young people had found the visions that came out of that design competition now influencing their work and even their motivation to stay around. One young man, who calls himself Phoenix, exhibits the same curiosity and commitment that drew so many of my friends to Vermont in their youth, back in the ’70s and ’80s. My friends are aging quickly and no longer feeling the same fervor to build a promised land here in the Greens. Their children have often left to find fortune in the cities. We just don’t seem to be attracting a lot of such adventuresome youth any more. Talking with Phoenix, however, created a swelling of optimism in me. While traveling around the world, Phoenix stopped in Holland, where biking is the primary mode of transport. He thought he would return to live there. But he happened to be in town two years ago when he was taken by the imagination and possibilities brought forth in the Sustainable Design Competition. That inspired him and he decided to stick around and see how he can be part of building that sustainable future with us here.
Then there is the community-minded Caledonia Spirits distillery opening in Montpelier, owned and operated by a native son from Plainfield. Ryan Christianson is a bright light for Montpelier as the city seeks to grow in a direction suggested by the finalists of the 2017 net zero design competition. The evidence is clear in that poster copies of the winning design are hanging on the walls of corporate headquarters in Hardwick, as well as in the job trailer in Montpelier. Opening on Memorial Day, the distillery will happily announce its enthusiasm to join the community and embrace the river it has chosen to build its future upon.
These stories show that we do have the core of an appealing marketing narrative emerging right here in Montpelier. The city has a net zero energy commitment, the Sustainable Montpelier Coalition, to working with the city and the state in grappling with how to respond to our carbon intensive lifestyles.
But it you listen to the Green New Deal supporters, Vermont has a lot farther to go, and fast. The young are demanding more and it is resonating. They could be excited by innovations in new local on-demand transit systems that would allow them to be less car dependent while freeing up much valuable downtown land. A coalition is forming to help recapture the green space and water access to our river. We are setting the stage for the addition of young energy to make future dreams possible.
That’s the kind of stuff that could make central Vermont a really attractive place for the young and creative. Perhaps the whole vision of a sustainable small city can even be a local economic development tool. WANTED: Creative and energetic young people who will build the local housing, enterprises, the food works needed in the green future.
A big, bold vision of the resilient future will motivate today’s young more than a monetary bribe to work a laptop for a corporation from afar. If we want young people who will build stuff here, we need to be committed to a plan that will make real sustainable changes, not more business as usual. That’s a real challenge for our future.
