This commentary is by Robert Spottswood, a family therapist in South Burlington specializing in work with young people with attachment issues and children who struggle to trust adults for care.
When in 2019 my spouse and I bought a house in South Burlington, we had the good fortune to get in on approaching deadlines for rebates and promotionals on solar panels and heat pumps. Yet our luck left a lingering concern — what will disappearing incentives mean for everyone else in the future?
The Vermont Climate Council is Vermont’s serious and belated effort to respond to the results of 300 years of burning fossil fuels. As Vermonters along with the rest of the world face slow acceleration toward the trainwreck oven-atmosphere of Venus, the Vermont Climate Council is a huge opportunity.
Something clicked when I watched the Nov. 2 Vermont Climate Council meeting and reached hour 3, minute 6. I heard a clear, articulate and astounding public comment. It was by Jennifer Byrne of the Vermont Law School and its Environmental Justice Law Clinic.
Until Byrne spoke, the Vermont Climate Council process appeared to me tilted toward, and overburdened with, fossil fuel businesses and their captured, regulatory friends. There seemed to be either a not-enough-time or nobody-will-support-this attitude — dangerous to the climate and the safety and well-being of people everywhere.
The emergency task at hand, of course, is the conversion to efficient electric heat-pump technology, powered by clean and renewable electrical generation. We don’t need more pipelines just to improve profits for gas companies. We need environmental justice to improve the lives of everyone in Vermont.
Then Jennifer Byrne reminded everyone at the meeting that the council has “completely excluded the most overburdened communities” in Vermont.
Byrne struck me as eloquent and calm as she named the council’s attempt to generate climate policy as usual without including traditionally marginalized Vermonters.
“‘Just Transitions’ didn’t just come out of nowhere. This came out of a legacy of history … where Black people, Indigenous people and other people of color have been intentionally excluded from participating in this level of decision-making about environmental issues.”
Byrne added, “Even if you (the Vermont Climate Council) had another year to come up with a plan, it wouldn’t help, because there’s no public participation plan, no community engagement plan…”
I recently learned that over 70 percent of white families in Vermont are homeowners while under 25 percent of Black families own their homes. So when heat pump “specials” and solar panel rebates are directed at “homeowners,” who is cut out of environmentally friendly heating and cooling? As important, if not more important, what would traditionally excluded folks like to say about this, and how can their input be invited, solicited and engaged in the very process of planning climate sustainability?
“If they (Vermont Legislature) are looking to fund something,” concluded Byrne, “fund the public participation process. Fund every town to get together at the town level, and be a part of the planning process.”
One answer I see right now in the state Legislature is Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale’s proposed environmental justice bill. S.148 has had input from many communities over many years of development, practically since Kesha was president of UVM’s student body, where she was a Udall Environmental Scholar.
S.148 highlights the need for input from people in mobile homes — the 8 percent of Vermonters who suffered 40 percent of the damage from Hurricane Irene, a climate wakeup storm.
S.148 highlights the need to invite the voices who cannot individually afford solar panels, and those living with “energy poverty” — going without heat to save money to buy gas to get to work and food to put on the table.
S.148 suggests language access — a need to translate policy-planning documents — both for compliance with the Civil Rights Act and to prevent disparities for Vermont communities whose input we all very much need moving forward.
Jennifer Byrne cited federal statute — Title VI — as a wakeup call to the Council and to us all, to not violate anti-discrimination law by creating climate policy with exclusionary processes. But we have many wonderful community-building reasons to want everyone to be included from the start. And we can begin by supporting passage of Vermont bill S,148.
To find the state legislator for your address, this Statehouse website has a simple fill-in-the-blank tool. You can also request information about your legislators at the Statehouse by phoning 800-322-5616.
