While conservation and efficiency are important components of an overall strategy to get to our GHG reduction goal, we can’t get to an 80% reduction by conservation and efficiency alone.
I fear that, in some important ways, we Vermonters have our heads in the sand about climate change and its likely impacts.
Mostly I agree with Chris Olsen on efforts to battle climate change, but I must explain the CEAC report.
If you Google “What can I do about climate change,” you will get millions of hits, with plentiful lists and sets of recommendations. The focus most often is on individual rather than collective action.
I want to focus on just one aspect of the bill: the assignment of clean heat credits to various measures that are proposed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from heating buildings.
I don’t know if it’s just us Americans, or if it is a universal human trait, but we seem to prefer medical treatment over prevention.
All three of our school districts in Addison County, and the Hannaford Career Center, have many substantial buildings that need heat (and air conditioning) and are currently major consumers of fossil fuels.
Do you remember when Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” came out? I saw it in a crowded movie theater almost 20 years ago. Recently I wondered how our local climate data in Vermont look now compared to then. Quick answer: things have gotten worse.
With a little advance planning, it is quite feasible to do the things you want to do in Vermont by public transit, and thus decrease your carbon footprint substantially compared to driving a fossil-fueled vehicle by yourself.
What can we learn from public health campaigns that will help us make progress on climate-change prevention?
It is not perfect but should be passed by the Senate pretty much as already approved in the House.
All methods of producing and distributing energy have costs, or downsides. We need to be clear-eyed about what these are, and to incorporate costs that are hard to quantify in dollar terms into our public discourse about our energy future.
This past summer, the Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County (CEAC) completed over 40 interviews with diverse community members.
This week’s writers are Richard Hopkins and Steve Maier, board members of the nonprofit Climate Economy Action Center of Addison County.What can we do to address the coming climate crisis while at the same time grow our local community and its economic an … (read more)
