I read with interest John Flowers’ article on Sen. Chris Bray’s legislative initiative S.51 “Consolidated Clean Energy Planning and Economic Opportunity Act.” This all goes back to the Vermont legislature’s stated desire to move away from fossil fuel dependence in order to address global warming, the rationale being that a move to renewable energy would somehow mitigate catastrophic climate change. The problem is none of the favored technological fixes do that.
Neither a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions nor a political move to renewable energy meaningfully reduces the risk of catastrophic climate change unless those technologies and policies actually capture carbon. Providing permissive offsets to polluters such as Green Mountain Power and many so-called renewable big solar and big wind projects does little or nothing to reduce the geotectonic conditions producing catastrophic climate change.
In fact the mirage of progress in this direction is a great disservice to those economic sectors, technologies and practices that materially do make a difference. Sen. Bray is aware of at least some of this.
Testimony presented to the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee on S.43, a bill sponsored by Sen. Bray promoting Regenerative Agriculture, gets to the heart of the matter; capturing and building carbon on land through best agricultural management practices in field and forest. Without it, all the above is well meaning, perhaps well intended, but misses the point by a country mile.
Thomas Vanacore
Bridport