A subcommittee member led others through an exercise that put a fine point on the demographic makeup of the Climate Council’s Just Transitions subcommittee. It’s charged with protecting Vermont’s most vulnerable communities while Vermont transitions through climate-focused changes.
As legislators scrambled to meet crossover deadlines for policy bills at the Statehouse on Friday, youth climate activists spent the day calling on lawmakers to prioritize climate justice.
As lawmakers and land trusts pursue conservation goals, new trends in the state mean Vermonters are having “a really tough conversation about what our forests are, what they mean to us and what we want from them,” one forester said.
“Sugaring is a roller coaster from total discouragement to utter euphoria. Seems to go from one extreme to another,” said Lew Coty, co-owner of Nebraska Knoll Farm.
Vermonters have for a long time had the luxury of imposing much of our energy production pollution burdens on those who live in faraway places. Our complicity in this environmental injustice is yet another reason to embrace clean, local renewable alternatives.
It's past time to reconsider our relationship with our earthly home. We have a model to emulate — the historical relationship that Indigenous peoples had with their lands.
