This commentary is by Kristian Connolly, a resident of Montpelier.
Respectfully, if any person reading this believes that any of the candidates on the ballot are truly going to make a difference for the environment and climate, then you are part of the problem and not part of the solution.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go close my windows on another hot summer day because, in my little residential neighborhood:
- The street sweeper is going by my home, spewing its visible and overwhelming fossil-fuel exhaust into the air, kicking up a dust (and more) storm, and operating at decibel levels probably only otherwise found at an airport, all with a gaslighting “Help Keep Montpelier Clean” decal affixed to the side.
- Down the street, a water main break has unleashed an army of idling dump trucks, diggers destroying (yet again) the earth, and some kind of doomsday machine that I gather is responsible for the water issue, again all spewing their exhaust and doing all kinds of short and long-term damage. Once they’re done, then come more diesel-breathing trucks and the asphalt to fix the problem — until next month, when it all happens again.
- Up the street, a large, slow-moving, foul-smelling truck filled with possibly asphalt, trailed by about four men walking at different paces — one of whom literally has a blow torch that is continually aimed and fired at cracks in the road — is making its way up the hill. The garbage trucks and FedEx and UPS delivery trucks are not pleased to have their progress slowed. Even more annoyed are the people in the cars who, while they live anywhere from within a couple blocks to 1.5 miles of downtown or the schools, insist that their cars (both gas and electric cause devastating pollution, and environmental and human damage) are the only way to get from Point A to Point B.
- On one side of my house, the neighbors have their hired hands attacking blades of grass with Mad-Max-style polluting machines that poison the air, and the earth, without remorse. They’ll return every 10-14 days, and they’ll do their best to trim around all of the plastic-and-metal, non-recyclable, destined-for-the-landfill lawn signs promoting the “environmental” candidates on the ballot — and also signs for what that house supposedly believes.
- On the other side of my house, the neighbors have many teams of people coming together to do their worst in the name of “renovation” and “more storage” as they use giant exhaust-breathing diggers and earth movers to destroy the landscape before huge smoke-belching trucks pour tons of destructive concrete (did you know that concrete is responsible for 8 to 10 percent of all carbon emissions? For comparison, the entire aviation industry is 2-3 percent), and then add layers upon layers of plastics, spray treatments, foam, paint, etc., to this new structure, ensuring it’ll never harmlessly disappear.
- The neighbors across the street have a team of men in what are essentially hazmat suits scraping old paint off their house (and onto the ground and into the air) so that they can put a fresh coat of colored toxic chemicals onto their dwelling (and onto the ground, into the earth and into the stormwater drains, in all likelihood). And in doing this, rather than use ladders, they’ll employ one of those diesel-fueled, exhaust-spewing lifts that will run for hours while they cover about 100 square feet at a clip.
- While all this is going on, the city will start placing no-parking signs on my street about an upcoming project to “fog seal” the pavement. I’m sure that’s totally fine. Of course, another reason I have to close my windows is that the heat coming off all the pavement makes things exponentially worse than they would be otherwise.
- Up behind our house, a couple-acre lot is being attacked by all manner of large, contamination-delivering, atmosphere-destroying trucks, blades, diggers, grinders and more so that the land can be stripped of all its vegetation and wildlife in preparation for a multi-unit housing structure. Next will be a seemingly endless barrage of concrete trucks and construction machines whose engines will almost certainly be running and polluting without a pause, even when the humans aren’t working.
- Other neighbors have some guys out wearing protective suits while spraying the lawn with a poison that requires signs to warn you about it. This lawn won’t be used for anything except as a chore to keep that grass trimmed. Before they had the lawn treated, they made sure to reblacktop the driveway first.
- In my side yard, I’ll do my best to try to place my small, fuel- and chemical-free garden away from all of this, knowing I won’t succeed, and knowing that even though I try to supplement what I can grow myself with clean eating from organic vegetable and grain farms, those farms are using a whole different, yet similarly devastating, class of fossil-fuel-burning, polluting machines to get that food planted, grown, harvested, and to me. And those are the “clean” farms without poisonous fertilizers, animal waste, etc.
Is this an exaggeration? Yes, but only slightly. All these things — and much more, including the winter version that exchanges some of the above for street plows, sidewalk plows, snowblowers, fossil-fuel burning furnaces, etc. — have happened, are happening, and will continue to happen all over this city, state, continent and planet many times over every day — and I haven’t even mentioned what happens in order to make and distribute all the products used in the above.
So long as everyone believes that anything other than an anti-growth, anti-capitalism, anti-plastic, anti-machine, and pro-human-and-nature-powered hyperlocal future can attempt to save the planet and every living organism and being that would like to live on it, nothing will change for the better.
Are any of the candidates “bold” enough to fit the above description? Or are they using all the right buzzwords to campaign on a platform of supposedly caring about climate change, the environment, the future health of the planet, and our present and future collective health, just to keep things moving “forward” and gain elected office and a measure of power and celebrity for that individual?
I guess that’s your call.