Letter to the editor: Return to appreciating, understanding ‘commons’

Aristotle recognized three broad types of interests and things: common, private, and public. We are at a time when we need to remind ourselves of what he said and why it was important.

While not every Vermonter is in a position to own forestland, all Vermonters benefit from keeping our forests as forests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uafh5Z7CZLc&t=1s MONKTON — David Brynn, executive director of Vermont Family Forests, recently gave the Addison Independent a guided tour of a section of Little Hogback Community Forest that is particularly inundated with L … (read more)

Any economic system consists of many interacting parts. They can be boiled down to three key elements: capital, land, and labor. We all know examples of each. Different political constructs put varying weights on the three elements. Capitalists think it i … (read more)

Vermont’s forest-based economy generates roughly $3.8 billion annually. This figure varies from year to year. A little less than half of that revenue is associated with the timber and maple industry. More than half is generated by forest-based recreation. … (read more)

An article entitled “The Coming Collapse,” which appeared in the left-leaning CommonDreams.org explains why Bernie is getting zero press coverage. More importantly, it helps to explain the craziness we are witnessing across the planet. The article is a fr … (read more)

I recently attended a Wild Forest gathering at the SHO Farm in Huntington. On the way to the meeting I heard on NPR the latest news on the climate crisis we are in. The outlook is bleak but there is still hope that we can reduce the suffering that is unfo … (read more)

The article titled “In a Warming World, New Thinking Imperils Vermont’s Wood-Fueled Energy Market” in the Oct. 9 edition of Seven Days did an excellent job of portraying two contrasting visions of Vermont’s two primary human relationships with forests. On … (read more)

A message by a commoner inspired by Charles Koch and Donald Trump: We the people hold the water, the air, and the wildlife. They are our natural commons. The responsibility for their care falls on us. When there is a failure to account for an ecological c … (read more)