This commentary is by Lawrence “Laurie” Smith of South Burlington, who since moving to Vermont in 1978 has owned an architectural woodworking company, a snack food company, and a design-build construction company. He served on the Shelburne Development Review Board and is a member of the South Burlington Land Trust and Voices of the Environment.
Have you seen, or heard about, the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? If you have children or grandchildren, or care about habitability for all life on our planet, it is frightening.
It states unequivocally that we are in a now-or-never moment if we hope to avoid catastrophic changes in our climate. “Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible,” it says.
Today’s headline: “Scientists identify the missing ingredient for climate action: Political will.” No surprise! Most people I speak with are deeply concerned about what has the potential to morph from climate change to climate catastrophe, but feel helpless to do anything about it.
So often, I hear or feel personally that the problem is too big for me to be able to make a difference. We are waiting for our national and international politicians and policymakers to do the right thing. But it is clear that we can’t wait any longer.
The moral imperative is on all our shoulders. Our world governments are continuing to slow-walk the changes we need and it is up to each of us to take action and commit to speaking out and advocating for the needed transformations on our local level.
Yes, we need more housing, and so much more, but we must fundamentally change how we are going about it now if we have any chance of keeping climate change from becoming climate catastrophe.
Remember the space race, the wartime efforts of World War II, the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression? We need that kind of action now. Today, we all need to raise our voices, roll up our sleeves and take action. We must encourage, support and demand that our community leaders take bold action and commit to hold sustainability as the No. 1 priority in all future decisions.
How can we bring about the paradigm shift that is necessary to tackle this problem? Our leaders need a new, overarching metric for all decisions going forward: Reduce CO2 = Go, Increase CO2 = No.
Past initiatives have come from the top down, through national leaders’ initiatives. However, in our era of political polarization and gridlock, the best chance for change will come from the bottom up. Large-scale demonstrations will play a role but grassroots, hometown, direct citizen engagement is our best bet today and we desperately need people like you and me to show up at every local meeting and bring climate action to the forefront of every decision.
Please, get involved, speak out, and take action today. We need to act like life as we know it depends on it, because it does.
