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March Monthly News and Views -  updated 2/28/07; REV news added on March 9th.
This page is updated monthly.  Please send submissions by the third week in each month.  Next update scheduled for Mar. 30th.  Contributions on Peak Oil, Relocalization and Sustainability issues and efforts in Vermont welcome!  THANK YOU to all of our contributors.

Special Events
Featured this month on the VPON Community Pages
China in Transition:  Environmental Challenges in the Far East
This is what Democracy looks like!
2007 ADDISON COUNTY CONSERVATION CONGRESS: Fueling Our Community: Building Local, Sustainable Energy Solutions
April 14th National Global Warming Demonstration
The VPON Calendar

Under the Golden Dome:
Weekly Energy Related Legislative Activities
Lori Barg's testimony to VT Legislators, on Small Hydro
Let's Pass S.94 - A Bill to Expand Energy Efficiency and Job Opportunties
H.225 - The Omnibus Energy Bill
Tracking Legislation in Vermont
Contact Vermont State Legislators
Live Audio Streaming of VT Legislative Proceedings
Tracking National Legislation

Quote of the Month:  
Derrick Jensen:  "Because I'm in Love..."

Editorial:
We The People

Guest Editorial:
YOUR ESSAYS on Community Building and Local Democracy!
    Rob Williams:  Reviving Town Meeting:  An Interview with Susan Clark   
    Rick Scharf:  Who Will Decide?
    Colin McClung:  Town Meetings:  Doubting Thomas or Paine in the Ass?
    A Localvore's Path:  Stepping Stones to a Self-Determining Community
    Wayne Michaud:  An Idle-Free Activist is Born
    Wendy Patterson:  Chittenden South Democracy for America
    Laurie Crosby:  Making Connections
    Michael Watson:  When Everyone has Standing
   
Articles:
Climate
Vermont Legislative Activities pertaining to Climate Change
Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable (UN Report)
Oscars for Al Gore Global Warming Film
Gore Rocks on Global Warming with "Live Earth" Concert Plan
Culture
Citizen Action Day - The Home Edition
Catalogue of Films available for loan through UPPER VALLEY GROUP of the SIERRA CLUB
7 Days for the Earth (Mad River Valley)
Economy
Does Vermont have a role in solving China's problems?
How to create an efficient fossil-fuel-free economy
Energy
Citizen Powered Energy Handbook: Community Solutions to a Global Crisis
S. 94 could make Vermont a Leader in Energy Conservation once again
SERG Winter Updates:  tax credits, home performance services, and more.
Oil Industry Members discuss Alternatives
Federal Support for Solar --- Now's the Time to Act!!
REV Updates - added on March 9th
Food
Planetary Physicians:  Carbon Farmers of America - Right Here in Vermont!
Bees Threatened Once Again: Mystery Ailment Strikes Honeybees
Post Peak Bread Recipe!  (Localvores, take note!)
Health
Anti Viral Herbs and Natural Remedies - Things we can do for Ourselves!
Peak Oil Medicine Website
Transportation
Update from Idle-Free Vermont
Transportation Updates from Vermont Clean Cities Program
VTrans - Transportation Survey Results

As the Crow Flies:  Reports from Around the State
ACoRN
Bennington Sustainability Outpost
Cabot Peak Oil Network
First Branch Sustainability Project (Tunbridge)
Greater East Montpelier Peak Oil Group
Mad River Sustainability Group
Plan C - Chittenden County
Post Oil Solutions
Route 12 Loop Group
Sustainable Energy Resource Group

Gold Stars to...
Students at Browns Middle School, Jericho

Action!
VECAN Activist Toolkit, and Town Energy/Climate Action Guide
Support the Oil Depletion Protocol
Idle-Free Vermont Campaign
Idle-Not Flyers for Idling Cars
Organize a Peak Oil Book Display
Write a Letter to the Editor of Your Local Paper
Write a Letter to a Representative

Plan Ahead
A Going Local Colloquium: “The Challenges and Opportunities in Promoting Local Food and Local Food Systems”

 Resources - Click here to get there!
    New this Month on our VT Resources page  
    Clean Cities Newsletter
    Climate News Digest
    What's a Citizen to DO? Newsletter
    Welcome to Peak Oil CD
VPON Community Pages - Discussion area for Vermont citizens concerned about peak oil.
VPON Archives (February, 2006 - present)
VT Resources - Sustainability, Food, Farm & Garden, Energy, Local Economy, Community Building, and Transportation. 
National Links/Educational Resources - charts, DVDs, posters, and more.

Fair Use Notice
Information about copyrighted material appearing on this site
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 Special Events
The VPON Community Pages!
The VPON Community Pages have been created!  This new, interactive area of the website offers visitors a chance to read and, if so desired, engage in discussion of ideas and actions pertaining to peak oil, relocalization, and sustainability.  Registered users can post comments and create their own contents in the Discussion area; members of VPON Regional Groups are invited to create their own pages, and to store documents that may be of use to individuals and groups around the state - and beyond! - in addressing the consequences of Peak Oil. The VPON Community Pages have their own site administrator.  Information about how to contact the administrator and access posting privileges is provided here.  Please note that the VPON Community Pages are a separate area from the main VPON site:  they look and behave a little differently.  Reading the "Purpose" and "Usage Guidelines" will help you find your way around.

This Month's Featured Article on The VPON Community Pages:
Moshe Braner's Review of Monbiot's "Heat", parts 2 and 3 (also linked to here on Energy Bulletin)
The VPON Monthly editor highly recommends reading this critical consideration of George Monbiot's Heat:  How to Stop the Planet Burning, written with an eye toward what is possible in terms of reducing carbon emissions and responding to peak oil here in Vermont --- part 1 was uploaded in January; parts 2 and 3 have now been added to the Community Pages.  

What are Vermont's unique energy needs and challenges (housing, transportation, small-scale energy generation, etc.), and how can we address them? Carbon rations, gasoline taxes, stricter building standards, the importance of streamlined permitting, true net metering as well as conservation and renewables?  All are presented and discussed in part 2 as Braner unflinchingly explores the applicability of Monbiot's strategies to Vermont.

In part 3, Braner asks whether our way of life - not just in Vermont, but in the US as a whole - can really be extended into a low-carbon future:  "Is Monbiot even asking the right question? Is it only a matter of technologies for clean energy, plus some moderate lifestyle changes such as mass transit and delivery of groceries, or is a deeper overhaul of our values and economy needed? If so, is that achievable? Or is human nature, as written into our genes, incompatible with the needed actions?"  Braner expands the discussion to include economics, geopolitics and peak oil, and raises the question of whether climate change is an isolated, even if terribly daunting, issue, or a symptom of a larger problem yet.  All three sections can be accessed by following the links above; register, log-in and join the conversation.

Top-Level Folders
Discussions
Regional Groups
Events

Recent Articles Posted on the Community Pages
Review of Monbiot's "Heat", parts 2 and 3 by Moshe Braner
VT Legislative Updates by Thomas Weiss
Hyrids, Biofuels and Other False Idols by Henry Swayze
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(ed note:  The Community Pages are an open discussion area; contents presented are the sole responsibility of the individual authors, and do not necessarily reflect the ideas, beliefs, or actions of the VPON Network, its member groups, or the VPON website/newsletter editor. )


China in Transition: Environmental Challenges in the Far East
March 1st and 2nd
Vermont Law School
All events on Friday, March 2 are free and open to the public.  No registration is necessary unless CLE credits are sought.
As China grows in force both economically and politically, it becomes increasingly important to examine the pressing environmental questions that necessarily stem from rapid development. This Symposium is aimed at igniting dialogue and solutions around this topic of global concern. The Symposium is expected to bring scholars, advocates, government officials, attorneys and citizens to the Vermont Law School campus from all across the United States and China.  

Panel topics include:
    Energy: China's Current Status and Future Outlook
    Environmental Challenges Facing Rural Areas in the Process of Industrialization
    The International Silk Road: Engaging Domestic Efforts to Protect China's Environment
    Regulating China's Water Resources: Discussing Government, Business, & Community Perspectives, Concerns, & Responsibilities
Keynote speakers, symposium agenda, and other information can be found here.  
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THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!
Please join Rural Vermont and the Vermont Conservation Education Fund for a great workshop on how to get involved with policy making in Vermont. You'll learn all you need to know to be an effective advocate for issues that you care about. No experience necessary. All welcome! A great opportunity for home-schoolers, too!
--Learn how the Vermont legislature works
--Get the scoop on how to navigate the legislative process
--Learn the statehouse lingo
--Find out where things are at the statehouse
--Practice talking to legislators one-on-one and testifying at a public hearing
--Take home a helpful booklet filled with tips, tricks, and contact information for your local legislators

All workshops are 6 pm - 8:30 pm and will include light refreshments.
Suggested donation $5 - nobody turned away for lack of funds.
Please call Robb at 223-7222 to RSVP - not necessary, but helpful!

MARCH 14, 2007 - Grace Congregational Church, 8 Court Street - RUTLAND
MARCH 20, 2007 - Shelburne Town Offices, 5410 Shelburne Road - SHELBURNE
MARCH 26, 2007 - Northshire Bookstore, 4869 Main Street - MANCHESTER CENTER
APRIL 5, 2007 -  American Legion Hall  60 Railroad St - ISLAND POND   
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2007 ADDISON COUNTY CONSERVATION CONGRESS:
Fueling Our Community: Building Local, Sustainable Energy Solutions
Saturday, March 17, 2007: 9:00 a.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Mount Abraham Union High School, Bristol
Mark your calendars! Join Vermont Family Forests, local community and non-profit organizations, local businesses, and community members for a lively day of information-sharing about building local, sustainable energy solutions. Learn about local efforts to cultivate energy self-sufficiency and how we can build upon those successes. Keynote speaker Scudder Parker, who brings years of public service experience in energy efficiency and energy planning to our event, will provide the context for the day's discussions. Morning concurrent sessions will focus on optimizing local energy efficiency, with session topics including transportation alternatives, improving wood burning efficiency, maximizing energy efficiency in farm operations, and optimizing the energy efficiency of your home. Afternoon concurrent sessions will focus on cultivating local energy sources, from agriculture-based sources like methane digestion, grass pellets, and biodiesel to small-scale hydropower, wind, and solar. During both morning and afternoon sessions, participants can tour the new Mount Abraham Union High School Wood Gasification heating system. We'll have a full schedule of the day available shortly. Please join us for this exciting community event! For more information info@familyforests.org.
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April 14th National Global Warming Demonstration
Organized by Bill McKibben and Step It Up 2007
Dear Friends—
This is an invitation to help start a movement--to take one spring day and use it to reshape the future. Those of us who know that climate change is the greatest threat civilization now faces have science on our side; we have economists and policy specialists, courageous mayors and governors, engineers with cool new technology. But we don't have a movement—the largest rally yet held in the U.S. about global warming drew a thousand people. If we're going to make the kind of change we need in the short time left us, we need something that looks like the civil rights movement, and we need it now. Changing light bulbs just isn't enough.

So pitch in. A few of us are trying to organize a nationwide day of hundreds and hundreds of rallies on April 14. We hope to have gatherings in every state, and in many of America's most iconic places: on the levees in New Orleans, on top of the melting glaciers on Mt. Rainier, even underwater on the endangered coral reefs off Key West. We need rallies outside churches, along the tide lines in our coastal cities, in cornfields and forests and on statehouse steps. Every group will be saying the same thing: Step it up, Congress! Enact immediate cuts in carbon emissions, and pledge an 80% reduction by 2050. No half measures, no easy compromises-the time has come to take the real actions that can stabilize our climate. As people gather, we'll link pictures of the protests together electronically via the web-before the weekend is out, we'll have the largest protest the country has ever seen, not in numbers but in extent. From every corner of the nation we'll start to shake things up.

By its very nature, this action needs all kinds of people to help out. We can't make it happen-it has to assemble itself. Sign up to host an action (http://www.stepitup2007.org//article.php?id=38). We'll coordinate the responses, introducing you to others from your area, and give you everything you need to be a leader, from banners to press releases. You don't have to have ever done anything like this-you're not organizing a March on Washington, just a gathering of scores or hundreds in your town or neighborhood. We need creativity, good humor, commitment. If you are active in a campus group or a church or a local environmental group or a garden society or a bike club-or if you just saw Al Gore's movie and want to do something-then we need you now.

And by now, we mean now. The best science tells us we have ten years to fundamentally transform our economy and lead the world in the same direction or else, in the words of NASA's Jim Hansen, we will face a "totally different planet," one infinitely sadder and less flourishing. The recent elections have given us an opening, and polling shows most Americans know there's a problem. But the forces of inertia and business-as-usual are still in control, and only our voices, united and loud, joyful and determined, can change that reality.

Please join us.
Bill McKibben
Stepitup2007.org

P.S.—It would be a great help too if you could forward this plea to anyone you think might embrace it.
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Consult the VPON Calendar regularly for events in March and beyond; updated weekly.
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Under the Golden Dome

“The most important political office is that of the private citizen.”
                                                                            - Louis D. Brandeis  


Energy Related Legislative Activities
submitted by Vermont Citizen Thomas Weiss
Weiss' legislative updates feature announcements of hearings and activities as well as reports on energy and climate change hearings, initiatives and proposals in the Vermont Legislature.  Please go to this section of the VPON Community Pages for the most recent announcements and reports, as well as the report archives. You may want to bookmark that page; Weiss updates weekly. Thank you, Thomas.
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Lori Barg's testimony to VT Legislators, on Small Hydro
Vermont is full of unsung local heroes; often, we don't realize the good work they do.  Lori Barg of Community Hydro has been working to identify Vermont's hydroelectric resources, to educate citizens and legislators to this still under-tapped renewable energy resource in Vermont, and to promote a streamlined permitting process for these essential projects.  Her recent testimony reveals the "current state of affairs" for hydro in Vermont, discusses the obtacles (permitting - surprise!), and offers solutions.  We've stored the testimony here.
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Urge the Senate to Pass S.94 - A Bill to Expand Energy Efficiency and Job Opportunties
a request from Vermont Natural Resources Council
VNRC is part of a newly established ‘Building Efficiency Coalition,’ representing businesses, low-income groups, environmental organizations and individuals. Recently, the coalition came together at the Vermont State House to introduce and call for passage of S.94 — a bill that would help more Vermonters maximize efficiency in heating their homes and businesses. Read much more about this important legislation here and help us turn it into law. Call your senators today and voice your support for S.94! Click here  to find your legislators' contact information. Contact Governor Jim Douglas as well. Let him know you support S.94. Email Governor Douglas here or call his office at 802-828-3333.
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(ed note:  See Bob Walker's excellent discussion of this bill in this month's News and Views:  here.)


H.225 - The Omnibus Energy Bill
The "Omnibus Energy Bill" is being discussed now in the VT House; summary provided by Netaka White, Executive Director of the Vermont Biofuels Association.
H.225 - Among other initiatives, this bill proposes to require the state to increase the extent to which it purchases biofuels for state use for transportation or space heating purposes. 
 
It proposes to require the public service board to establish parameters for rate design that would establish increasing block rates for residential and commercial electricity usage, and then would require the board to assure that individual utilities develop inclining block residential rates consistent with the parameters.  As a result, residential and commercial customers that consume more electricity, with necessity exceptions, shall be charged rates that increase in blocks as their rates of consumption increase.  (ed note:  this was struck from the bill by Chair Robert Dostis.  See Thomas Weiss' Legislative Update for full report, here.)
 
It proposes to expand the net metering law to allow group metering within the same utility service area, to increase to 250 kW the maximum size of a generator that may be eligible for the program, and to increase the cap on how much net metering a distribution company must accommodate.  It proposes to establish a mini-248 review process for the temporary siting of anemometers. 
 
It proposes to establish a biofuels study commission with a directive to recommend an appropriate minimum biodiesel content requirement for diesel fuel and home heating fuel sold at retail in the state, to be effective on January 1, 2009; together with a plan for implementation of the recommendations. 
 
Finally, it proposes to appropriate funds to assist communities in assessing their renewable energy resources and their potential for development.
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(Weiss' Legislative Update - 2/28/07 - offers a detailed report on  the Feb. 23rd hearing by the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee on this bill.)


Keep Track of what's happening with legislation in Montpelier:  http://www.leg.state.vt.us/database/database2.cfm  
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Contact your Vermont State Legislator:  http://www.leg.state.vt.us/legdir/legdir2.htm
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Hear live audio streaming of Vt Legislative proceedings on Vermont Public Radio's "Listen to the Legislature" webpage:  http://www.vpr.net/legislature/  
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And, on the National front, you can follow the trail of activity at:  http://www.govtrack.us/  - GovTrack is a noncommercial project unaffiliated with the U.S. Government or any other group. You're welcome to reuse any material on their site. "Transparency in government is key for a healthy democracy. Transparency is achieved through spreading information about government, and making that information accessible to everyday citizens."
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Quote of the Month

"...because I'm in love. With salmon, with trees outside my window, with baby lampreys living in sandy streambottoms, with slender salamanders crawling through the duff.
And if you love, you act to defend your beloved. Of course results matter to you, but they don't determine whether or not you make the effort.
You don't simply hope your beloved survives and thrives. You do what it takes.
If my love doesn't cause me to protect those I love, it's not love."
                                                                                                                    - Derrick Jensen, commenting on why he still takes action in a world he has loudly proclaimed to be ecologically doomed.
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Editorial
We the People
by Annie Dunn Watson
Mike has come up from Rutland; he's an EMT and a member of the Peak Oil Network, and has just driven a patient to Fletcher Allen. With a little time to kill, he's decided to ferret me out at Burlington College. In the tiny room that serves as my office, we share our thoughts on Peak Oil and the various relocalization efforts underway in Vermont. We inevitably wonder, in the face of such a sense of urgency, just what actions will be enough.  

I find myself at a loss for any sort of answer. At every level of this discussion, concerned individuals differ on the best approaches; and how could it be otherwise? Given your scenario of choice or habit, we should either be preparing for the return of the stone age, or placing all of our hopes in the technology hand-basket (and we're going to go where with that?!) We're asked to either write humans off as a doomed and dooming species (it's in the genes to exploit the niche, damn-it!), or believe that we are the gods' gift to creation and will, undoubtedly, come through in the end (but, left to our own - or rather, our current - devices, I'm a bit skeptical as to whether the rest of creation is going to fare so well with us humans at the helm). The realities of global climate change, geopolitics, resource wars, environmental degradation, social injustice and economic instability add to the complexity of the situation: this is clearly not a case for either/or shouting matches across the table. It is an opportunity for thinking critically about the multitude of suggestions - and information - before us, and doing it from the same side of the table for a change.

We are facing issues that demand that we think from a more interconnected perspective than ever before. We need to learn to explore, tolerate, and perhaps even value differences - and this is not an easy thing to say, let alone do, in a hyper-individualistic society. Differences are perceived to block progress, yet they only threaten to do so when they become positions from which someone is disinclined to move...  Buried in those different ways of seeing may be some very valuable gems, perhaps necessary to crafting the best solution. We'll never know they're there if we don't hear about them.

In Vermont's tradition of Town Meetings, we have an arena in which to observe and experience that although differences spark debate, they seldom have to end the conversation. We need to preserve and cultivate this ability to speak to one another across our differences, to listen, and decide together how to act for the common good. We are facing a future likely to be fraught with disagreements; we will need, at the community level, many vehicles for addressing these.  

In Vermont, we are fortunate to have citizen-determined legislation, in the form of Town Meeting. Additionally, we have legislators who are accessible, and who remind us that when they hear from 8 of their constituents on an issue, they take it very seriously (now, just imagine if each one of us reading this newsletter were to act on ONE BILL this month, and every month from now on ... to send just one letter or make a call a month - it is that close, that accessible... and that important).  We ourselves can run for selectboards, planning commissions --- even state representative! And we should not take these privilages for granted.  Local democracy is so rare as to serve as a beacon to citizens who long for true democracy in many parts of the world today. Yes, we the people in Vermont, a beacon; imagine that.

In Town Meeting, we have an opportunity for people of all perspectives to come together, to go beyond either/or and work for what we hold, or should hold, in common:  our community.  Town Meetings cultivate civic health - neighborliness, trust, tolerance, and reciprocity:  "Five out of the six New England states - the only places where town meeting is fully practiced - rank in the top ten for civil society. And Vermont usually lands in the top three, often ranking number one. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming:  the way we govern ourselves, through our face-to-face town meetings, affects how we live together for the rest of the year" (All Those in Favor, Clark and Bryan, 2005).  Does this sound like a great opportunity to you?

In changing times, our ability to come together, engage the issues in a civil manner, and retain decision-making power at the local level become increasingly crucial. In this edition of the VPON Monthly News, some of our readers offer their thoughts on local democracy and community-building.  As I close this essay and encourage you to read theirs, I think about how important it is that we preserve the precious right we have to reach through our differences and make decisions together here at home. We may not be able to change the entire world, at least not today. But we may add our voices to those of our neighbors', come outside of our insular existences (even activists can become isolated by surrounding themselves with like-mindeds!) and extend ourselves into our communities once again.

Our lives depend on this. See you at Town Meeting.
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(see the interview with All Those in Favor author Susan Clark, following.)


 Guest Editorials  
Reviving Town Meeting:  An Interview with Susan Clark
Submitted by Rob Williams
(this interview originally appeared in Vermont Commons 2/06, and is shared here by permission of Rob Williams)
Vermont’s democratic system is a beacon, in a world that really needs beacons.

Q. You say that your (recent) book about Vermont town meeting is a “call to action.” What do you mean by this?

We need to act, because Vermonters are losing our collective voice. In recent years, Vermonters—both at the individual and at the town level—are letting go of our traditional, face-to-face town meetings. Increasingly, we’re moving to the Australian ballot system; or we’re shifting decisions to the state or national level; or we’re just not showing up at all when decisions get made. I first got the idea for All Those in Favor because my own town of Middlesex was contemplating moving to Australian ballot. I wanted one good source that laid out the arguments on this. My son was just a little baby at that point, so like a lot of parents of young families, I had no time for reading and I had the attention span of a gnat. But I knew it wasn’t just me—people who are working two jobs, people who are trying to keep body and soul together—a lot of Vermonters don’t feel we have time for democracy. I knew [UVM professor] Frank Bryan’s book Real Democracy was just coming out, and I thought some of his research could help activists, if it was accompanied by advice.

Why is town meeting important? Let’s put it in a few hundred words. What can we do right now to save it? Put it into ten tips. The impacts go beyond Vermont. Frank makes a remarkable, compelling case for the connection between how we govern ourselves locally, and what it can mean for the world—the link between town meeting and our prospects for survival as a species. Vermont’s democratic system is a beacon, in a world that really needs beacons. Our message really is one of hope.

Q. There is so much Vermont mythology that has grown up around the concept of “town meeting.” What are the realities of the “town meeting” situation in 21st century Vermont?

To answer this, we drew from the research Frank Bryan and his UVM political science students have done during the last thirty years. Readers who know Frank for his inspiring (and often hilarious) writing might be surprised to know what a data geek he is. His correlation coefficient scatterplot variable yada-yada will make your eyes cross. But he’s created this synthesis of hundreds and hundreds of Vermont town meetings that’s extraordinarily valuable. We should use his work as a blueprint. For instance, everyone knows that socio-economic factors have a huge effect at the voting booth—higher-income, better-educated people are more likely to vote.

But guess what? Something about town meeting is a great leveler. There is no link between a town’s attendance at or verbal participation in its town meeting, and any of its socio-economic indicators. We should be shouting this to the sky, because of course, class bias of any kind diminishes democracy. You might assume that people are afraid of diversity. But in fact there is no link between town meeting attendance and whether a town is filled with people from lots of different socio-economic backgrounds. And this is one of town meeting’s greatest gifts—it brings people from all walks of life together, face-to-face, and makes us identify and work toward our common goals. This combination makes a social scientists’ heart beat faster, because there is simply no better prescription for true, sustainable community building.

Q. What suggestions does your book offer for improving the culture of “town meetings” in 21st century Vermont?

We examine the Australian ballot. There are well-meaning people on both sides of this argument, and Vermonters should all decide for themselves where they come down. But we come out against it. It shuts off deliberation and cramps citizens’ power, reducing us to little more than rubber stamps. Australian ballot increases the quantity of voters, but not by much; meanwhile, the reduction in the quality of our democracy is enormous. We admit that town meeting works better in smaller towns, and we offer alternatives, such as the Representative Town Meeting (Brattleboro model) for larger communities. We urge businesses to give people time off to participate in town meeting. There are now bills in the legislature (S. 210 and S. 219) that would allow us to treat town meeting attendance as we do jury duty—time off from work without being penalized. Seems like the least we can do for our democracy, doesn’t it? Sit down and write your legislators about this! We make a case for “creative localism,” reminding our state leaders that local governments are the best place for citizens to engage, and more decision-making power should remain at the local level.

I interviewed dozens of Vermonters about what makes their town meetings sing, and we offer specific action steps you can take locally, today. For instance:

• Offer child care; you can improve participation measurably, especially among women.

• Highlight the most important decisions that will be made at town meeting this year-- don’t let them get hidden in the bowels of the budget.

• Include elements of celebration; acknowledge people’s work, and say thank you.

• Write a welcome letter to every person who was added to the voter checklist this year, explaining and personally inviting them to town meeting.

• Help your town make a great town report—design a nice cover, supply photos, or make a pie chart to show the data in a more understandable way—whatever skills you have that will help bring folks in.

• Buy our book, read it, and then give it to your local library or your selectboard. Heck, buy a bunch and start a study group! (I can be shameless about this because all proceeds go to support democracy education programs.) And if you start that study group, bring cookies; food at every meeting is another one of our tips.

• Attend your town meeting, and bring a friend.

Q. One of the last chapters in your book is called “The Other 364 Days.” Say more.

Think about the unique elements of town meeting–that local people have direct decision-making power; that we break down the formality of “public life” through things like the pot-luck supper. We can learn from these things, and carry those lessons with us throughout the year. So we recommend creativity in inviting democratic participation. Think beyond the 7:00 p.m. public hearing – how about field trips, living room discussions, work parties? Think beyond the traditional learning styles – not everyone learns by being talked at, so we should involve visuals, hands-on examples, and other ways of helping citizens explore tough concepts. We provide examples of creative publicity and outreach, and innovative ways to celebrate each community’s unique aspects. And it works both ways. Look at data on civic health—things like neighborliness, trust, tolerance, reciprocity. Five out of the six New England states—the only places where town meeting is fully practiced—rank in the top ten for civil society. And Vermont usually lands in the top three, often ranking number one. The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming: the way we govern ourselves, through our face-to-face town meetings, affects how we live together the rest of the year.

Q. As a student of Vermont's local political culture, how do you feel about Vermont independence?

I knew you’d ask me this! But I must confess, I’m not sure how to answer. I love America’s history—the people’s history. And I grieve when I see what is happening to our democratic system over time—it’s the same feeling as if a dear member of my family has been diagnosed with life-threatening cancer. Now the question is, do we leave? Or do we stay by the death-bed, despite the bleak prognosis, and hope against hope that we can nurture a recovery? People look to Vermont as a model of integrity, common sense, and honest civility—we lead, in a way that is out of proportion to our size. So, whether we leave America’s sick-bed or not, Vermont’s discussions about independence are healthy and health-giving. We celebrate our civic heritage. We are specific about what we know to be right and wrong.

We talk about possibility and hope. And we will see where it takes us.
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Rob Williams is an educator, activist, speaker and musician... and editor of Vermont Commons.  Find out more about Rob here.
Susan Clark is the author, along with Frank Bryan, of the book All Those In Favor: Rediscovering the Secrets of Town Meeting and Community (Ravenmark, 2005).  You can order the book here.   


Who Will Decide?
by Rick Scharf
Vermonters recognize the benefits of participatory democracy.  We believe not only that average citizens have the ability and knowledge to make important decisions but that we have the authority. However, we have allowed too many of the decisions that affect of our lives, livelihoods, community and environment to be made elsewhere and it is time to bring control home.

While the virtues of participatory democracy are many, the challenges to preserving it are substantial.  Among the biggest challenges that towns face in keeping their town meeting strong and viable is attendance.  Frank Bryan and Susan Clark identified the two factors most determinant of attendance at town meeting: the size of the town and the importance of the decisions to be made.   It becomes clear from their analysis that citizens will get involved on issues of importance when their opinion will matter.

Despite the merits of participatory democracy and our long held societal belief that we are the world’s strongest democracy, the decisions that have the greatest impact on us are currently made either by representative democracy or by entirely undemocratic means.

Representative democracy is only effective when the representative both knows and is known personally by each constituent.  Even a legislator here in Vermont, the smallest of representative governments, can’t claim to know the desires of more than a fraction of his or her constituents on more than a fraction of the issues. The duties of state government are too large and legislators will be the first to admit that they can not make informed decisions on all the bills that come across their desks. 
 
I need not convince many that decision making on the federal level is far from representative of the will of the majority.  Not only do these “representatives” in federal government fail to act in our interest, but when they enter into international trade treaties they actually cede their power to undemocratic bodies like the WTO.  In the interest of standardization, efficiency and free trade, the uniqueness of our local communities, environments and economies are ignored and local laws are deemed unfair to corporations.  Our authentic democratic efforts to build sustainable communities have actually become illegal.

In addition to centralization of decision making which places the halls of power literally far from home, the authority to decide has been handed over to “experts” appointed by the executive branch who are unaccountable to the electorate.  Regulatory bodies like the EPA are not the industry watchdogs that many assume them to be but were rather created at the insistence of industry.  The Interstate Commerce Commission, the first regulatory body established in 1886 was a way for the big players in the railroad industry to maintain the status quo.  It insured a legal means to stabilize prices and to place a government buffer between the major corporations and the citizens who would control them.  Any examination of the “revolving door”, by which members of regulatory agencies pass between government and industry, from regulator to regulated, makes it clear whose interests are being served.  It is to these bodies that we citizens hopelessly continue to petition despite vast evidence that we’re not being listened to.  Just as democracy has become illegal, pollution, monopoly and other social ills have become legal under regulatory law.

Though our nation’s founders failed to put power in the hands of the majority, they were fearful of the corporation.  They did not settle for regulating corporations, but instead placed the power to charter corporations, and thus define them, in the hands of state legislatures.  Charters were approved individually, for a limited time, and for a single purpose that benefited the public.  The people behind the corporations were not exempt from liability and corporate books were open to the public.  Corporations could not own other corporations and could not get involved in political activity.  Corporate charters could be, and were, revoked for any reason at all.

Since then however, corporations have become more powerful than government.  State legislators loosened their grip and courts deemed that instead of enjoying granted privileges, corporations had rights.  The infamous case of Southern Pacific Railroad v. Santa Clara County established the legal fiction known as “corporate personhood”.  When “corporate persons” exercise rights, real people lose them.  For example, the 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo equated money with speech.  With corporate money influencing elections, the voice of average citizens is clearly drowned out.

New England town meeting holds the greatest hope for citizens to build sustainable communities.  We find our inspiration in the Declaration of Independence, which reminds us, “That to secure these rights (Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness) Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”  WE THE PEOPLE are intended to be both the government and governed – not one day of the year but all year long, not on a narrow range of issues left to us by the state and federal governments, but on all issues of importance.

The citizens in Barnstead, NH provide an inspiring example of democracy.  They watched as state government, the regulatory system and the NH Supreme Court failed to protect the groundwater in Barrington and Nottingham from a corporate bottling operation.  Empowered citizens in Barnstead brought a local ordinance before their town meeting, which prevented the withdrawal of their groundwater for sale outside of their town.  It further abolished “corporate personhood” to prevent USA Springs or any other corporation from having the legal standing to challenge the ordinance.  It passed overwhelmingly. 

It has not yet been challenged.  But when it is, a corporation will need to argue that the town does not have the right to protect their common resource.  Democracy itself will be on trial and we all better hope it wins.  The time has come for Vermonters to flex our democratic muscles.  We must assert our authority to be self-governing by strengthening the institution of town meeting and demanding the right to decide locally on all issues that affect us locally.
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Rick Scharf is the Co-Founder of the Vermont Alliance for Locally Initiated Democracy (VALID) - "Our organization, VALID, is just getting off the ground and we're eager to bring as many people into conversations about strengthening local democracy with the hope that we have some initiatives for town meeting 08.  The work of CELDF that we are drawing from has dealt with issues of toxic sludge application on farm fields, incinerator siting, corporate farming and water withdrawal but the underlying themes can certainly be applied to energy usage."  Visit us at:  www.validdemocracy.org
 

Town Meetings: Doubting Thomas or Paine in the Ass?
by Colin McClung
Folks, I am new to Vermont; been a lot of places between here and there. I have never lived in a state, either literally or metaphorically, where people – involved, informed laypeople – possess such an affirmative opinion about their representatives. A little history: One of the reasons purported as to why many intrepid souls left the shores of England was because of taxation without representation. Granted the cynic in me understands the rich needed a new tax shelter but the Vermonter in me recognizes that the principle remains standing as a key quality for all individuals. England be damned, this is the New England!

Americans have three ways of protecting this right: Wealth and power, Organization and Communication, and Force. Transplanted Englanders, “New” Englanders in the most literal sense regardless of their placement in the New World, had reached the point of the third option. I think we can avoid this by understanding what wealth, power and force all share in common. It is the one aspect that is not implicit in organization and communication - access. Access relies on a consensual social contract, a minor triviality for those with guns and privilege. Furthermore, it must involve a well informed representation of the public and a democratic model, such as the town meeting, affords the people their greatest opportunity to exercise this principle.

In Vermont, one can go to Montpelier and have all access lunching with your state representatives. Compared to where I have lived this sounds like Wonderland. In Alaska I had to stand outside a TV studio for well over an hour, flanked coincidentally by a camera crew and the Green Party candidate for Governor, just to get inside shouting distance of then-Senator Frank Murkowski when he was running for Governor and running from us. I guess I missed the memo, “Monthly Working Class Lunch-In with imminent Gov. Frank Murkowski.” Access, you want access? Alaskan Rep. Don Young and President Pro Tempore Ted Stevens would have discussed access with me if I had a great bid on how to pave a road into Juneau and bent their constituent’s ears with some new fangled highly toxic all year frost-jack resistant asphalt creation. I suppose if I had heard from any of those representatives during my time in the state of Seward’s Folly their universal corral may have sounded like an expensive PR driven emergency evacuation round-up. I would have fallen over in my chair, curled into the fetal position and awaited the sounds of the Apocalypse. I suppose one must be mentally prepared for the second coming. 

The town meeting keeps us organized, well informed, actively participating and communicating; in other words, the tools available to folks without a standing army in their backyard or privilege. Vermont still possesses this precious piece of American history and it is an integral part of our future success. Well I, for one, after feeling its power have no interest in hearing my voice spoken of in anachronistic fondness as if our regional consciousness harkens back to a naïve, simpler time in America. The town meeting is not meant to be some empty room exhibit in a museum proudly illustrating the once proud civic engagement of this country. “New” England, you have revived the idealist in me. As the great sage George Carlin once said, “A cynic is nothing more than a frustrated idealist.” The sleeping giant is still awake in Vermont; let us refute this Lilliputian grog lest we nod off and awake to find ourselves tied to someone else’s American dream.
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Colin McCLung is a recent - but happy - transplant to Vermont who works toward and writes about  solutions, small or large, to ecological and social injustice issues in our day.  To respond to this article, contact him (put article title in subject line) at: colinmcclung (at) hotmail (dot) com


A Localvore's Path:  Stepping Stones to a Self-Determining Community
by Pat McGovern
The question about values shaping commitment is so huge it is hard to know where to begin.  We can usually pick out a few stepping stones that mark the path but it is hard to know what all the influences have been. I can remember talking with Kye Cochran, General Manager of the Upper Valley Food Co-op after the Co-op's Annual Meeting in 2005. Jack Lazor of Butterworks Farm had spoken at the meeting and he told of his early experience working at the sustainable farm at Sturbridge Village. I had visited Sturbridge Village many times as a kid and was always excited to see this recreation of self-reliance of the colonial time period - to watch the wool go from sheep to carding to spinning and then weaving; to see candles being made; primitive pots made from lumps of clay... beekeeping, soap making, the blacksmith shop, the grist mill... and the wonderful farm. The primacy and purposefulness of these activities, the self-reliance and interdependence of the community - I loved it! And Kye responded that she too had loved Sturbridge Village when she went there on a 4th grade field trip; it had been a memorable experience and had energized her as well.

So what to make of this early link of Sturbridge Village to Jack Lazor, the farmer upon whom I now depend for maple yogurt, dried beans, wheat berries, cornmeal and sunflower oil ? And to Kye who manages UVFC, where I buy Jack's products and is the best year-round source of local food in the Upper Valley? For the three of us, there seems to have been a natural attraction to the practical skills, simplicity, self-reliance and interdependence displayed at Sturbridge Village.

When I first heard about the 100-mile diet challenge of the San Francisco Locavores, I don't think I had any idea how many of my values would be addressed through the focus on local food.  I think I was intrigued by the challenge, and the reduction in fuel-intensive long-distance shipping was certainly an important environmental factor. I know that my immediate thought was "this is something I can do!" Day after day, breakfast lunch and dinner, I can vote with my food dollar; I can use my limited funds to do something positive, something in the face of despair at what is happening in our country on a national and international level. As I read more and processed the experience, it became evident how many other concerns were being addressed. When one buys from a local grower, one has a  better chance of knowing the story behind one's food: the impact on the environment, animal well-being, fair compensation for the farmer, treatment of farm workers, land use, use of hormones, antibiotics, GMOs, preservatives, irradiation, etc. The impact of our dumping of subsidized grains on other countries was another concern - in no way do I want to support those subsidized agribusinesses.

As time has gone by, I think I have become more aware of the damage done by the rising power of multi-national corporations; their vast sums of money have undermined out democracy and have intensified the gap between the haves and the have nots.  The focus on short term profits is destroying our environment, our communities, our health, and our quality of life. The idea of a company like Monsanto having control over our food supply is a strong motivator to take a different path. For me, the focus on a growing Localvore movement is one of the paths that leads away from corporate domination. Coming together with other local food advocates, organizing local events, sharing recipes, meeting over good food, learning together, growing and preserving some of our own food, shopping at farmers markets, talking with local growers, producers, grocers, restauranteurs  - this all feels healthy and empowering. We are becoming active "players" in our local food system, not just passive pawns in a global game where few win and there are many losers.

There is much to be done on a global level as well. .  the Localvore path is certainly not the only path . . . but it has been a healthy and hopeful direction for me.
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Pat McGovern is a founding member of the Upper Valley Localvores, and serves on its Steering Committee.  She is a driving force behind the development and success of the Localvore projects in Vermont and the Upper Valley. Pat was this year's recipient of the Jack Cook Award, presented by NOFA-VT annually  to honor a NOFA member who embodies the theme of their winter conference, which this year was "The Food Less Travelled." Congratulations, Pat!


An Idle-Free Activist is Born
by Wayne Michaud
I have been a citizen activist for most of my adult life. Litter pick ups. Supporting political candidates. Demonstrating. Writing newspaper letters to the editor. Until fairly recently however, I was less active and aware of the interrelated issues of air quality and carbon emissions. I slowly became concerned about how our "footprint" can negatively affect our lives, future generations and our planet. Then a couple of years ago, a member of Quaker meeting I attend began talking about Peak Oil, our constrained energy future, and the remedy for it: localization. In late 2005, he helped form the Addison County Relocalization Network (ACoRN). I became a member.

Around the same time, I observed a family van idling at a solid waste (recycling/disposal) center. It ran on for at least 10 minutes. I not only thought how polluting this was, but how wasteful--given the increased gas prices and the recent awareness of Peak Oil. This prompted me to write a letter to the editor and to report my observation to the solid waste company. They surprised and delighted me by taking the initiative toward becoming an "idle-free" company, by instituting a no-idle policy for their vehicles and posting no-idle signs at all their dropoff centers. I made me think of an impact one person could have.

In subsequent meetings at ACoRN, while localization was the main agenda (community owned wind power, food, biofuels, small hydro, energy cooperative) my interest in becoming an idling activist was embraced. I did research on idling and idle-free campaigns and learned that idling not only wastes fossil fuel, but causes respiratory illness, contributes to climate change and even damages engine components. This was compelling information that could convince people to change their habits. I became interested in running a grassroots idle-free campaign myself and Idle-Free VT was born. Although on paper it is a statewide campaign, it is meant to be an umbrella group for each county. Its goals are to raise awareness of unnecessary vehicle idling (idling when not in traffic) and to get a Vermont state all motor vehicle idle-reduction law enacted. To achieve these goals, a media campaign ensued with letters to the editor and op-eds in several newspapers. A statewide petition drive ran in the second half of 2006. It was gratifying to have people at local town greens or farmers markets visit my setup--a bridge table with literature--to discuss this issue and in many cases, sign a petition. A few volunteers in other counties helped in this effort and although the petition drive fell short of having a statewide impact, 550 signatures from eight counties were gathered and recently presented to legislative committees that idling bills have been assigned to.

As the legislative session got under way, Idle-Free VT got involved in legislative strategy and lobbying. Working with an email network, other idling activists, a health and environmental lobbyist, and legislators, plus helping to make idling an increased presence in the media, so far we have been able to push an idling bill (S.13 school bus idling) out of a committee to be passed in the Senate, making it very likely that some form of idling law will be enacted this year.

Along the way, there have been many little surprises. My neighbor down the road stated that the Idle-Free VT campaign made him aware to avoid excessive idling of his tractor. I have handed out idling info cards to drivers that would idle--in a respectful manner. I have even thanked a few folks who sat in their vehicles in cold weather eating their lunch and not idling. A representative of the Vermont State Police phoned me to get my opinion on an idling bill in the course of gathering information to determine whether they would back that bill. Several folks have become active on the idling issue in their local communities and spread the awareness around.

I strongly encourage people make time in their lives to become citizen activists. It may be political, it may be environmental, it may be about localization. If it would be an idle-free initiative, for example, one person could educate their local town or several towns in their county to become idle-free, and make a real difference. The impact one person can have can be pretty amazing.
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Wayne Michaud directs the Idle-Free VT campaign; you can visit Idle-Free at:  http://www.idlefreevt.org


Chittenden South Democracy For America
submitted by Wendy Patterson
Chittenden South Democracy for America is a grassroots organization of people from towns in southern Chittenden and northern Addison Counties, and we are mad as hell about the state of our union, SO we gather monthly and figure out constructive ways to direct our energy towards progressive change. And we have a lot of fun in the process.

Our activities are designed to identify and support socially progressive, fiscally responsible candidates who will make laws and policies that are in line with our values. We participate in the process of making those laws and policies real by tracking legislation, attending hearings and demonstrations, writing letters-to-the-editor, and partnering with like-minded organizations. This year we have identified a number of priority issues we will focus on at the local, state, and national level: integrity of the vote, sustainability/global warming, health care for all, economic fairness, learning about the candidates, and de-escalation in Iraq while supporting troops.
   
We have an online presence with our feet on the ground. As a grassroots group that is part of the nationwide Democracy for America, we have access to the excellent resources of DFA Training Academy, nationwide issue and candidate campaign efforts, and tools to help make our voices heard. Currently there are over 800 DFA groups across the county (and some ex-patriots have even formed them abroad!)

Finally, but not the least, we build community with occasional fun events like our recent Dance Party and Potluck Dinner Committee Meetings.

Wednesday, March 7th, speaker Marissa Caldwell will share information and discuss with us a movement to examine fair taxation and the balance between the rich and not so rich in Vermont.

Come join us the first Wednesday of every month. Latest details regarding location and agenda can be found on our website; or call 482-5888 and ask for Wendy.
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Wendy Patterson is an active member of Chittenden South Democracy for America.


Making Connections
by Laurie Crosby.
It’s the first meeting of my Community Development course. For the moment, the students and I put theory aside and engage the simple questions of:  What is one of your most indelible experiences of community? In what ways do you currently experience community?   What keeps us from having more experiences of community in our lives than we currently do? As students respond to these questions, it becomes clear that we are already beginning to engage the first steps in the process of building community: revealing ourselves in our humanness, finding both resonant similarities and interesting differences in our stories, demonstrating respect, building trust… essentially: making interpersonal connections.

Looking to Merriam-Webster for their perspective on the word connection, I discover the words coherence and continuity. Our connections can give us a sense of coherence: coherence within ourselves, with others, with our surroundings. In the midst of challenging times, our connections are often what hold us together as well as reassure us of continuity. It strikes me that both coherence and continuity are also essential elements of sustainability. Without the core experiences of sustained and integrated networks of communication and exchange, as well as mutual tolerance and cooperation, no ecosystem or community is going to last for long. Indeed, it is often in the midst of the crises that leave us vulnerable that the power of hidden connections becomes visible and demonstrates its latent ability to hold us together, individually and as a community.

The recent Valentine’s Day snowstorm offered an example of this. Not only did it scatter two- and three-foot drifts of snow throughout my neighborhood but also, wherever I turned, demonstrations of the cohering and sustaining force of connection. I’m sure my neighborhood was not an exception. In fact, my most indelible impression of the storm was the practical action of neighborliness which sprang up in its wake:  neighbors helping each other push cars out of snow banks two feet high, shovel out each other’s cars, steps, and driveways; neighbors with snow blowers clearing seemingly impassable walkways for several of their neighbors, refusing offers of money, no matter how insistent; people walking and skiing (rather than driving) in the streets and exchanging good-humored greetings and jokes, in passing, with those who were shoveling.

Simple exchanges like this are not just frivolous happenstance...they can become the determinative glue when a community is put to the test by fractious internal conflicts or when they must pull together to meet an external challenge to their self-determination and well being.  John Brown Childs, Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, speaks in his book, Transcommunality (2003), of cooperative efforts being mounted in many urban areas across the country to put an end to youth violence. These collaborative task groups are bringing together various urban ethnic groups, some of which have a history of animosity toward one another, for the common practical task of putting an end to the violence that is killing many of their youth. When Childs speaks of what enables these groups with a history of mutual stereotyping or hostility to begin to work effectively together, he speaks of the necessity of interpersonal relations:  

        Commonly developed experience… entails deepening interpersonal relations. Face-to-face contacts develop into long-term relationships
        from this shared activity. In turn, such relationships allow for expansion of shared activity. Interpersonal relations, within which the participants
        build an increasing sense of trust and predictability with each other, are the tough but flexible silken threads upon which these small groups form,
        and upon which larger groups will depend. (p. 63)

Whatever personal or collective objectives we hope to pursue, their realization will inevitably be tied to interpersonal relations and the “tough but flexible silken threads” of connection that we have woven with others through our casual and intentional face-to-face interactions with one another.

Likewise, a lack of attention and care to those interpersonal relations can derail even the most sincerely intended and skillfully developed projects.
In simple words: the realization and preservation of our personal, communal, and ecological integrity may well be rooted in our capacity to go beyond ourselves and demonstrate practical concern for one another in daily ways.

It begins simply, right from the starting place we are given in our own daily lives. The students in my class offer a few reflections:

To the question about what keeps them from experiencing more community in their lives, they almost uniformly answered:
(1) the scarcity of relaxed time, and
(2) a sense that more will be demanded of me than I have to give or want to give.

They instinctively recognize that forging sustainable community connections requires time  - time in which to listen, to visit, to be available to truly get to know another.  They know that developing community requires the time and energy to be able to help – which is often in short supply, given the way we’ve structured our lives these days.

They also intuited that forging sustainable community connections involves the ability to make choices, to set limits and say “no” without guilt, to discern and select where, and to what degree, we are drawn to make our investments.

Finally, they said that experiencing more community was predicated, in a very pragmatic way, on creating more opportunities for encountering people and having informal interactions on a daily basis.

Here are just a few of the ways they spontaneously began to make connections and support sustainable lifestyles:

- Several students began to walk or ride a bike, when possible, instead of drive, to increase their chances of encountering people in their neighborhood, as well as use fewer resources. And when they did meet people, they smiled and said hello. In many cases, this began to lead to conversations.

- A student who did not know her neighbors attended a neighborhood potluck and began to make connections that resulted in mutual help and a greater sense of neighborly relations. Such ideas as time banks and neighborhood e-mail forums like Burlington’s frontporchforum (http://frontporchforum.com), both grow from, and tap as a resource, these neighborly exchanges.

- One student invited the entire class to a potluck dinner at her house for the purpose of making scarecrows. The scarecrows were part of Rural Vermont’s public education campaign to pass a bill that would require corporations producing GMO seeds to assume liability for the negative consequences of their seeds, rather than individual farmers. In the process of making the scarecrows, we all had a lot of fun, got to know one another better, and contributed practical action to a local sustainability concern – something which several of us might not otherwise have done.

A final reflection: In the checkout line at the grocery store the other day, I pulled off a $3 contribution ticket to the local food shelf from the pad by the register. As I was gathering my things to leave, the cashier noticed that she had forgotten to ring the ticket in. There was a moment’s hesitation as we both weighed whether or not it was worth it to ring it in as a separate transaction. Into that moment’s hesitation stepped the man behind me in line: “I’ll take care of it,“ he said. You never know where a spontaneous, anonymous connection may show up.

Connections, and attention to connections, are not just an integral part of sustainable approaches; they are the essential, and at times invisible, force of coherence and continuity that is continually sustaining us.
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Laurie Crosby has been helping people make connections for twenty years in her communication and facilitation skills classes.
Childs, John Brown (2003).  Transcommunality: From the Politics of Conversion to the Ethics of Respect. Philadelphia: Temple University Press


When Everyone has Standing
by Michael Watson
 I've been thinking about sustainable development, and I've concluded that we have long since passed the point where any development is sustainable. The figure of two billion iron age persons is often cited in ecology circles as the maximum sustainable number of humans; many historical ecologists use much lower numbers, between one-half and one billion. Of course, even these small numbers produced extensive extinctions. At any rate, the greater the technological footprint, the smaller the number of sustainable persons. After we surpass about two billion humans, we begin to notice significant, then dramatic, and now catastrophic declines in many other species.

There is a simple and profound ecological concept, "carrying capacity". In brief, carrying capacity is a measure of the planet's ability to maintain living beings. Think of it this way: there is a limited amount of energy available to the system. That energy is distributed through networks that evolve over time.These networks include both living and non-living elements. If the energy is stored or used by one sector of a network, it is not available to other parts of the network. An example of this is the relationship of large predators to food sources. Under most circumstances, there are few large predators because large predators must utilize the energy resources of an extensive region to sustain themselves. That is, large predators rely on large networks for sustanance. We call the ratios of predator to resource fields or networks "ranges".

We humans are large predators. We have learned over time to harness enormous quantities of energy by simplifying biological networks and using technologies to move resources from one location to another, thus greatly enlarging our ranges and our populations. In the process, we have created the conditions for extinction of a large and rapidly growing list of other species, small scale cultures, and languages.

As much as we might wish otherwise, there is no technological fix for the impact of eight billion large human animals. Technologically, we are on the verge of capturing virtually the entire energy flow of the Earth's biosphere for our own uses. As a result we are witnessing what is arguably the largest mass extinction event in the Earth's history: of species, cultures, and languages, of knowledges other than our dominant own . If we sustain our current development there will be few other ways of being left. At the same time, we are increasingly suffering the consequences of re-engineering the system, most notably increasing poverty and global climate change.

Rather than rushing forward with new ideas about sustainable development, let's decide what we wish to sustain. Of course the challenges of overpopulation and resource utilization are enormous. We need a new vision of what sustainability (or whatever term we chose for describing a world that embraces what we hold dear) might be. There are engaging questions we might consider. For instance, do other species, poor people, and indigenous cultures and languages have standing? Are other ways of being crucial to our understanding of who we are or might be? And if the answers to these questions is "yes", what might we do sustain what we value?
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Michael Watson has long defended what he loves... he is a long-time educator, psychotherapist and artist, and lives and works in the Burlington area.

 
 Articles
Climate
Vermont Legislative Activities pertaining to Climate Change
Thomas Weiss' weekly reports on hearings and other activities at the Statehouse include frequent discussion of initiatives to address climate change.  This link will take you to Weiss' most recent update (at time of press).  Be sure to check that page weekly for these helpful announcements and summaries.
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CONFRONTING CLIMATE CHANGE:  AVOIDING THE UNMANAGEABLE AND MANAGING THE UNAVOIDABLE
courtesy of Climate Today Newsletter
The United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation) and Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, released today "Confronting Climate Change: Avoiding the Unmanageable and Managing the Unavoidable," the final report of the Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change and Sustainable Development. The report, prepared as input for the upcoming meeting of the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), outlines a roadmap for preventing unmanageable climate changes and adapting to the degree of change that can no longer be avoided. Two years in the making, the report was written by a panel of eminent scientists from around the world. Two starkly different futures diverge from this time forward," the report cautions. "Society's current path leads to increasingly serious climate-change impacts ... The other path ... will reduce dangerous emissions, create economic opportunity, help to reduce global poverty, reduce degradation and carbon emissions from ecosystems, and contribute to sustainability. Humanity must act collectively and urgently to change course through leadership at all levels of society. There is no more time for delay." A full copy of the report can be downloaded here.  Excerpts follow:

Even if human emissions could be instantaneously stopped, the world would not escape further climatic change. The slow equilibration of the oceans with changes in atmospheric composition means that a further 0.4°C to 0.5°C rise in global-average surface temperature will take place as a result of the current atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases and particles…

But the challenge of halting climate change is one to which civilization must rise. Given what is currently known and suspected about how the impacts of climate change are likely to grow as the global-average surface temperature increases, we conclude that the goal of society's mitigation efforts should be to hold the increase to 2°C if possible and in no event more than 2.5°C…

Develop technologies and adaptive-management and disaster-mitigation strategies for water resources, coastal infrastructure, human health, agriculture, and ecosystems/ biodiversity, which are expected to be challenged in virtually every region of the globe, and define a new category of  "environmental refugee" to better anticipate support requirements for those fleeing environmental disasters…

Most of the world's population growth is taking place in developing nations, which have relatively low per capita carbon emissions. This correlation between growing populations and low per capita emissions tends to obscure what will be, in the future, a linear relationship between population size and CO2 emissions…

Recommendations: Promote Education about Climate-Change Impacts and Solutions.
Creating the political will and public support for the full range of mitigation measures advocated here would be greatly facilitated by wider and deeper understanding, among policymakers and the public, of the evolving character and magnitude of the impacts of human-induced climate change and about the available remedies. Education is likewise essential to provide the basis for the many constructive actions that individuals can take, both within and beyond the policy frameworks created by governments, to reduce their own and their community's adverse impacts on climate and especially to pursue "win-win" approaches that simultaneously address climate change and other individual and societal goals.

Food production and, therefore, food and nutrition security, which are expected to be seriously disrupted in regions that are now near the warm boundary of commercial agriculture, especially in the tropics and subtropics, where many of the world's poorest people live…

Projections of climate change should be incorporated into all planning processes at national and regional levels. For example, a climate-change audit could be performed as a standard element of major decision-making schemes. The London Builders and Developers Fund for local and regional audits provide a model for organizing such audits. Another example is England's Three Regions Climate Change Group, which has developed a checklist and guidance document for new developments to adapt to climate change, with a particular focus on how buildings can be best designed for a changing climate…
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Over the past few months, we have frequently excerpted from this excellent newsletter here on the VPON Monthly page.  The editor of Climate Today does a superior job of staying abreast of climate issues and initiatives around the globe; please consider subscribing to this newsletter --- we can no longer do justice to the wealth of topics she is covering!!  To subscribe:  send an email with "subscribe" in the subject line to:  ClimateNewsNM@aol.com
 

Oscars for Al Gore Global Warming Film
courtesy of Climate Today Newsletter
An estimated one billion people were watching…

Former vice president Al Gore used the success of his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth" to expand his efforts to educate people about global warming - and to tell a few jokes. The film turned Gore's road show about climate change into a film that won Academy Awards for best documentary and best song. "My fellow Americans," Gore said Sunday. "People all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis. It's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started with the possible will to act. That's a renewable resource. Let's renew it." Backstage, Gore put speculation to rest, saying "I do not have plans to become a candidate for office again." Instead, Gore said he was dedicating all his efforts to pressuring governments to act on climate-crisis issues. The win was especially pleasing to Gore because it came during a year when the academy had taken steps to save energy and preserve the environment. Oscar ballots were made from partially recycled paper and organic produce was served at the Governor's Ball. The academy joined with the Natural Resources Defense Council to reduce energy usage and increase recycling. "For the first time in the history of the Oscars, this show has officially gone green," Leonardo DiCaprio said.  Full story.
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Al Gore and Friends launch campaign - "Live Earth" Concerts
"Live Earth" Concerts in All 7 Continents to Reach Global Audience of Over 2 Billion --- Full story here.
Los Angeles, CA - Detailing a historic effort to engage billions of people across the globe, Kevin Wall, Al Gore, Pharrell Williams, Cameron Diaz, and the MSN Network today launched Save Our Selves (SOS) - The Campaign for a Climate in Crisis. The announcement was made at the California Science Center.

SOS is designed to trigger a global movement to combat our climate crisis. It will reach people in every corner of the planet through television, film, radio, the Internet and Live Earth, a 24-hour concert on 7/7/07 across all 7 continents that will bring together more than 100 of the world's top musical acts. Live Earth alone will engage an audience of more than 2 billion people through concert attendance and broadcasts. MSN has partnered with SOS to use its reach to make the Live Earth concerts available across the globe. The Live Earth audience, and the proceeds from the concerts, will create the foundation for a new, multi-year global effort to combat the climate crisis led by The Alliance for Climate Protection and its Chair, Vice President Al Gore. SOS was founded by Kevin Wall, who won an Emmy as Worldwide Executive Producer of Live 8.
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Culture
Citizen Action Day - The Home Edition
from Vermont Natural Resources Council
On February 15, 2007, about 20 hearty souls braved the wild, winter weather to attend the 5th Annual Citizen Action Day at the Vermont State House. In small group and individual meetings, Vermonters called upon legislators to take action that will protect Vermont's magnificent natural resources, chart a clean energy future, and keep our communities vibrant. For those of you who were snowed under or plowed in, don't let this important opportunity to make your voice heard pass by. Take action from home today on the environmental and energy-focused bills currently under discussion in the Legislature. For more information and talking points on specific bills visit www.vtactionday.org or email jmiller@vnrc.org.
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Vermont Natural Resources Council * 9 Bailey Ave. * Montpelier, VT 05602  www.vnrc.org


Catalogue of Films available for loan through UPPER VALLEY GROUP of the SIERRA CLUB
Submitted by Denis Rydjeski 
The Upper Valley Sierra Club has recently updated its film library.  These films provide excellent opportunities for education and dialogue. We have stored the complete list of films with descriptions here.  Films on hand for loan include:
BEING CARIBOU     
BIRDSONG AND COFFEE
EARTH TO AMERICA  
FRENCH FRIES TO GO  
THE FUTURE OF FOOD 
THE GREAT WARMING     
HAPPY ENDING 
HURRICANES ON THE BRINK  
AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH  
IRAQ FOR SALE
KILOWATT OURS     
THE LONG VIEW: A PLAN TO SAVE OUR OCEAN FISH 
MONEY TALKS
OIL ON ICE     
THE POWER OF COMMUNITY 
REHABILITATION OF TORTURE SURVIVORS  
SIDE EFFECTS 
TOO HOT NOT TO HANDLE  
THE TORTURE QUESTION 
THE TRUE COST OF FOOD  
VERMONT WIND
WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE 
WIND OVER WATER 
SIERRA CLUB CHRONICLES

IMPORTANT TO NOTE:
•    All films are in DVD format.
•    Under no circumstances can we charge for admission to any of the film screenings. 
•    All films MUST be returned promptly so we can keep them rotating out to other screening locations.
•    It is essential that you view your films before screening to be familiar with the content, and make sure the DVD is in working order.
For questions contact Denis Rydjeski at (802) 885-4826 or DRR@Dartmouth.edu
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7 Days for the Earth in the Mad River Valley
April 14-22, 2007
...While global warming is certainly front and center as a threat to our well-being, the (Mad River) Valley is also imperiled environmentally, economically and socially by a host of issues ranging from peak oil and affordable housing to energy and food security.  Taken collectively this set of challenges threatens the very fabric of the Valley and puts our ability to thrive or even survive—our sustainability—at risk.

Efficiency Vermont, Friends of the Mad River, Green Mountain Global Forum, Mad River Chamber of Commerce, Mad River Housing Coalition, Mad River Localvores, Mad River Path, Mad River Sustainability Group, Rural Vermont, and Yestermorrow Design/Build School have entered into a discussion about organizing a series of events to educate, facilitate meaningful dialogues and identify workable local solutions. 

Underlying all of this are two questions.  The first is, what do we need to make the Valley our “Lifeboat” so we not only survive but thrive regardless of what happens elsewhere?  And the second is, how can we be leaders and engage in actions that serve as shining examples for others?  The "7 Days" event will explore and attempt to address these questions.

The organizers welcome volunteers to help carry out this week-long event; contact Bob Ferris at Yestermorrow Design/Build School (bob@yestermorrow.org) if you can lend a hand.
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Economy
Does Vermont have a role in addressing China's problems?
Excerpts from Thomas Weiss' report on the hearing on H.225, at the House Natural Resources and Energy, Friday, February 23rd.
Kevin Dorn, Secretary of Commerce and Community Development commented on what opportunities his agency is pursuing in relation to climate change and energy...

Dorn's opportunity for climate change is to have global engineering companies open branch offices in Vermont to get work in China.  China has enormous environmental problems and adds 17,000 MW of electricity annually, most of it coal-fired.  China is looking worldwide to resolve its environmental problems; so Dorn wants Vermont in on the action.  The hope is that the branch offices of the global engineering companies will link up with Vermont companies, such as Clean Earth Technologies, Vermont Composites, and Concepts NREC, to get their technologies and products into Chinese applications.  {Note: A quick check on the internet shows that Concepts NREC is worldwide and already has a presence in China.}

The committee asked Dorn what the agency can do to get work for Vermont companies in Vermont?  Dorn's answer is that the Chinese market is huge and we need to get in early.  The implication is that there is no opportunity in Vermont because Vermont's market is too small.  When pushed on it, Dorn would like our construction workforce in Vermont to be building affordable housing.

When asked what these Vermont branches of global engineering companies do to bring money to Vermont, the hope is to make links with Vermont companies to provide manufacturing jobs at Vermont companies such as Clean Earth Technologies.  He mentioned several times that URS just opened a branch office in Rutland.  {According to Engineering News-Record, a weekly engineering magazine, URS, with headquarters in San Francisco, is the largest engineering design company in the United States, with 2005 revenue of $3,300,000,000.  By comparison, the largest Vermont firm was Dufresne-Henry at no. 318 with 2005 revenue of $32,000,000, and since then Dufresne-Henry was bought out by Stantec with headquarters in Phoenix which was number 58.  No other Vermont firms are in the list of the top 500 design firms nationwide.}  When pressed again, Dorn said there is no guarantee that the technology and manufacturing won't be transferred to China.
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How to create an efficient fossil-fuel-free economy
Jon Rynn, Sanders Research Associates (archived 5 Feb 2007 on Energy Bulletin, here.)
Sooner or later, the global economy will have to survive without fossil fuels. Worldwide, societies will have to become much more efficient than they currently are in order to survive.

Does this mean that industrial society will collapse at the same time that oil field yields collapse? Not necessarily, because rather ironically, manufacturing is not particularly dependent on oil -- manufacturing is dependent on electricity.[3] Many of the writers who warn about the dependence of society on fossil fuels, such as James Howard Kunstler and Richard Heinberg, seem to think that the decline of oil will lead to the decline of manufacturing. Civilization as we know it would certainly disappear without manufacturing, but manufacturing would get along fine without oil.

The best way to be efficient about transportation is to require less of it, and the easiest way to be efficient about food is to require less of it to be transported. Even manufacturing would gain greatly in efficiency by needing less transport[6] Heinberg, and others thus call for a “localizing” of economies, but this often leads to a vague call for a return to a preindustrial lifestyle. Not only would a preindustrial economy lead to the starvation of billions of people, with most of the remaining billions in abject poverty, localizing an economy does not necessarily mean a preindustrial one. Quite the opposite. ..

Once we attain the “ecoregionalization” of food and manufacture, we need to regionalize energy production. ..

(References at link.)
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Energy
Renewable energy and energy efficiency can have the most immediate and longest lasting positive effect on energy availability, stable prices, and greenhouse gas emissions.
- from the Congressional letter to President Bush, December, 06

Citizen Powered Energy Handbook: Community Solutions to a Global Crisis
Addison County resident and long-time renewable energy educator/enthusiast Greg Pahl has announced the release of his long-awaited Citizen Powered Energy Handbook: Community Solutions to a Global Crisis (Chelsea Green Publishers).  It is available through CGP, or at Amazon and most other on-line booksellers, and should be in the stores shortly.

Why should you become acquainted with this book?  Pahl's book challenges the myth that communities cannot generate their own electricity by presenting evidence (and more) to the contrary, beginning with the fact that there are 2000 community-owned, renewables-based electrical utilities in the US.  Pahl shines light on these projects, and demonstrates that there is much to be gained by empowering communities to power themselves.  The book is combination educational tool and community call to action; Pahl invites us to relinquish the role of consumer and to take up again the privilages and responsibilities of citizenry, beginning with renewable energy generation at the local level.

From the review by Wind Power author Paul Gipe:
"What Pahl explores in his Citizen Powered Energy Handbook is important. It should be in the hands of every community activist across North America. He calls on us to bring out the best in North America by working together to face the immense energy challenges before us by building community-owned renewables. His book could be the catalyst long needed to move community ownership into the forefront of renewable energy development in North America." (see entire review)

Greg will be giving a series of book talks around the state in the next month or so. At these events, he'll be reading excerpts from the book that explain the concept of Community Supported Energy, followed by a question and answer session and discussion. The book will also be available at these events.
    Friday, March 2 - Book Cellar, Brattleboro, 5:30 p.m.
    Tuesday, March 6 - Ilsley Public Library, Middlebury, 7 p.m.
    Thursday, March 8 - Northshire Book Store, Manchester, 7 p.m.
    Tuesday, March 13 - Dartmouth Book Store, Hanover, NH, 7 p.m.
    Thursday, March 15 - Everyone's Books, Brattleboro, 7 p.m.
 
This will be a great opportunity for Vermonters to become informed about this important community empowerment (both literal and figurative) strategy that creates jobs and strengthens the local economy. If you know of others who live in the more distant locations listed in the above schedule who might be interested in coming to one of these events, feel free to let them know.
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Greg is happy to speak with anyone who is interested in Community Supported Energy.  You can reach Greg at: "Greg Pahl" <gpahl@sover.net>; Website: www.gregpahl.com


S. 94 could make Vermont a Leader in Energy Conservation once again.
from Bob Walker.
Seven years ago Vermont led the country in creating the first-in-the-nation electric efficiency utility, Efficiency Vermont.  Funded by a small efficiency charge on everyone's electric bills, Efficiency Vermont runs "demand side management" programs that have saved electricity for residents and businesses at half the cost of buying more energy on the open market.  Efficiency Vermont has
managed to level off the State's growth in electricity, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and keeping energy dollars in the State at the same time.  Efficiency Vermont has been such a success that states and provinces around North America and countries around the world are emulating it. 

Vermont now has the opportunity to be a leader in the field of energy conservation once again. Numerous energy, environmental and consumer advocacy organizations in the state have worked with legislators to craft S. 94, a bill introduced in the Senate Natural Resources Committee last week, sponsored by Senators Lyons, Shumlin and Cummings.  S. 94 would expand Efficiency Vermont, to focus on thermal efficiency - making buildings heat more efficiently - while increasing home health, comfort and safety at the same time. 

A recent study by the Vermont Department of Public Service (DPS) found that if the State were to invest $149 million in increased air sealing and insulation over next ten years, we would recoup nearly1/2 billion dollars ($486 million) in energy savings.  That is a better than 3 to 1 return on investment and it would be money well spent. 

The vast majority of the money we spend on heating fuels leaves the State with much of it going to foreign countries that do not like us.  Instead we could be spending money on energy audits and insulating our homes.  We could be training weatherization specialists and creating hundreds of badly needed and good-paying jobs throughout the State.  Investing in thermal efficiency would cut energy use, save taxpayers money, keep energy dollars in the State, create a more stable and secure fuel supply and create a workforce to help Vermont become more energy independent.  It is a winning program for the environment, jobs and the economy.

How do we fund this investment effort?  The most logical funding source is the source of the problem we are trying to address - non-renewable heating fuels. While it is not certain yet exactly what the program would cost - the bill's proponents are currently investigating this issue - it is clear from the DPS and other studies that the cost would be very little relative to the financial savings and other benefits we would realize. 

Meanwhile, the State's fuel dealers have launched a scare campaign, raising fears about the few pennies a gallon the program might cost, while not mentioning the benefits of reduced fuel usage that would offset any small cost of the program or offering any alternative ideas for funding the program.  It is interesting to hear the fuel dealers and some editorial writers up in arms about a program that might cost a couple of cents a gallon while we heard few complaints from them when their prices rose 30% to 40% per year a couple of years ago.  Might they be concerned that this program would result in lower fuel usage? 

It should be noted that Vermont has the second oldest housing stock in the country and it is those living in the older, less fuel-efficient homes, largely the low-income community, who will be the largest beneficiaries of the program. Conservative estimates show weatherization measures on low-income housing resulting in annual savings of $400 to $500.  Also the Vermont Low Income Advocacy Council and several of the State's community action agencies, which provide services to the low-income community, are supporters of this legislation. 

Heating fuels are a finite resource.  As supplies diminish, they are going to become more and more expensive.  We can continue our wasteful ways of throwing our heating dollars out the window, or we can close the window and the thermal curtains.

S. 94 is the single most important piece of energy legislation being considered in the Vermont State Senate this session.  It has the potential for drastically reducing fuel usage and greenhouse gas emissions.  I strongly encourage you to learn more about the bill and contact your legislators, the chairs of the committees the bill passes through, the sponsors of the bill and your local papers, voicing your support for it. You can read the bill's wording online here; the Legislative Home Page  provides links to track its progress and to contact information for all the legislators 

Our Vermont's legislators have made a commitment to fight climate change and reduce energy use.  Now they need to hear that you support this innovative new program that will once again put Vermont at the cutting edge of sound energy policy.

Bob Walker
Sustainable Energy Resource Group
SERG - "Where Efficiency Makes $ense"
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SERG Winter Updates:  tax credits, home performance services, and more.
from Bob Walker.
Winter's cold has finally come, and along with it an apparent awakening to the reality of global warming in homes, state capitals and even the White House.  While hundreds of the worlds leading scientists released their latest report confirming that humans are contributing to the buildup of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere, legislators in Montpelier and Concord listened to experts testify