This commentary is by Laura Waters, a resident of South Burlington.
We are watching our world burn, drown, and spiral out of control in unprecedented ways. What will shake us out of our complacency, cause us to accelerate our move away from fossil fuels, and motivate us to make the sacrifices and changes needed to protect our survival?
Why is Burlington continuing to allow developments that fly in the face of this existential crisis?
Without a radical transformation in our thinking about the looming climate catastrophe, how does the city plan to meet its 2030 goals?
Burlington continues to tout a “Net Zero Energy Roadmap, detailing the pathways necessary to reduce and eventually eliminate fossil fuel use in … ground transportation by 2030 to achieve one of the most ambitious local climate goals in the nation.” The city’s “roadmap” to net zero sets a main goal to decrease annual vehicle travel miles by 15 percent.
How is permitting a 1,500 person, 600-to-700-vehicle concert venue, accessed only by secondary streets without any adequate pedestrian, bicycling, or public transportation infrastructure, moving us toward these climate goals?
Burlington’s Climate Action Plan also sets a goal to increase carbon storage and sequestration with additional forest and tree coverage. How does clear-cutting over 12 acres of woodland in the city lead toward meeting this goal? How does constructing a modified, limited-access road with parallel streets and many dead ends fit into the goal of decreasing annual vehicle miles traveled by 15%?
We must focus on multimodal transportation options, not adding more concrete to allow cars to move rapidly through the city.
In 2019, the city of Burlington created a Climate Action Plan, a detailed and strategic framework for measuring, planning and reducing greenhouse gas emissions and related climate impacts. The plan states that transportation is the largest source of emissions generated, that reduction in annual vehicle miles traveled in Burlington could have the biggest impact on our emissions reduction target and created a goal to reduce community-wide vehicle miles traveled by 10% per capita by 2025.
At the same time, the city of Burlington passed the Climate Emergency Declaration stating that a climate emergency exists that threatens our community, state, region, nation and planet, posing a threat to human health and safety, biodiversity, and our common environment. The city issued “a call to action for all Burlingtonians to take steps to reduce and eventually eliminate fossil fuel use … reducing vehicle miles traveled through walking and biking and public mass transit.”
Do we have to see the entire world burn before phasing out fossil fuels, and creating efficient cycling and public transportation infrastructure?
Fossil fuel use is ending soon, one way or another — either via cataclysm or via sensible collective choice. Burlingtonians, do you have the strength and shared will to do what needs to be done to take the urgent action needed to avert climate collapse and protect ourselves from the worst effects of the oncoming environmental crisis?
Based on the city’s gung-ho approval of the Burton/Higher Ground concert venue and Champlain Parkway projects, I have my doubts.
