[P]UTNEY — Ask Rio Daims why she laid in the middle of Brattleboro’s Main Street last month to halt the televised Strolling of the Heifers as a climate change protest and she notes her status as one of nearly 30,000 Vermonters ages 14 to 17 who can work but not vote.
“We are the next generation of adults on this Earth — we are the ones that are going to be most affected,” she says. “If your house was burning down, if you were in an emergency, would you sit around and do nothing?”
Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman faced a different dilemma as he co-hosted the event live on Vermont PBS: Appease fellow progressives who’d support the action or parade organizers seeking to move forward?
A month later, the questions remained up for debate as Daims and Zuckerman mulled over answers for 40 students attending the annual Governor’s Institute on Current Issues and Youth Activism at Putney’s Landmark College.
“When is civil disobedience useful, and when is it going to turn people off?” institute co-director John Ungerleider asked. “How are you going to get your message across?”
Daims and Zuckerman, appearing separately, acknowledged the June 8 demonstration by nearly a dozen students sparked divided press headlines and social media comments.
“Many people were really angry about what we were doing,” Daims said of the “die-in” that stopped the march for 15 minutes.
Zuckerman, speaking on a video conference call, recalled a press inquiry on another matter.
“At first I answered like many politicians, which is I didn’t answer the question,” he said. “The media can ask very pointed questions. And if you answer them with just the answer to their question, you don’t actually get the broader picture.”
Students considered that when the lieutenant governor was asked about the Brattleboro demonstration, at which he both praised activism and pushed for resumption of the parade.
“Clearly with the folks that protested during the Strolling of the Heifers, climate change is a very real issue for Vermont in a lot of different ways,” he began his institute comments.
Zuckerman then addressed everything from agriculture to recreational tourism to economic struggles outside of Chittenden County before circling back to the heart of the question.
“Think about how do you feel if someone walks up to you and goes ‘you better do this’ and sticks their finger in your face,” he said. “Typically, you don’t feel very good about it.”
“Being patient is a huge piece of civil discourse, and just trying to hear people out,” he continued. “Ask them what they think about something before telling them what you think.”
The comments came during a 10-day summer institute — one of nearly a dozen taking place at campuses statewide — that featured state leaders, scholars and guest speakers addressing a wide range of issues, including the challenge of climate change.
“How do we take this and make it relevant to regular Vermonters?” Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint said of the latter subject. “That’s been our struggle in the Statehouse for years.”
Brattleboro Rep. Mollie Burke said she first ran for office to combat the problem, only to face the reality that transportation accounts for nearly half of the state’s greenhouse gas totals.
“It’s really, really hard to figure out how to cut our emissions,” Burke said.
Students, for their part, are finding it difficult simply to join the conversation.
“Every day we are given these subliminal messages that we don’t have the capability to do many things that adults do,” Daims told her peers. “We are told we are too young.”
The teenager explained how she has spearheaded a Brattleboro “youth vote” amendment to the municipal charter allowing 16- and 17-year-olds the opportunity to vote on local issues as representatives at town meeting.
“We can drive cars, we can get an abortion, we can get married, get emancipated, a lot of us have jobs and we pay income taxes, but we can’t even decide where that money is going,” she said. “This goes against what our country was built upon. The Revolutionary War was fought on the motto of no taxation without representation. Yet we’re taxing without representing youth today.”
Daims organized the climate change protest as one way to gain a voice.
“We got a lot of attention, which was our objective,” she said. “I believe that climate crisis is the most pressing issue that we face today. We don’t have time to sit around and wait for change to come to us. We have to initiate it ourselves.”
