A cross between a poetry slam, a 21st century barn-raising, and the Superbowl of amateur hog-wrestling, Vermontivate! is an inter-town competition designed by a group of Vermonters to bring fun and creativity to the serious and important work of energy conservation.
Players will spend five weeks racking up points for everything from viral videos about exquisite energy hacks and confessions of compost failures to writing energy poetry for their town paper or hosting a candle-lit raw food potluck and knitting bee.
Are you a newbie who doesn’t know a kilowatt from a candy store? Earn points for your curiosity and good intentions!
Are you an overcommitted, solar-powered, green energy expert
who doesn’t think they’ve got time for this? Garner attention and kudos (and gobs of points) (and maybe some disciples) for the great work you’re already doing!
The winning town will walk away with our Grand Prize, a giant, town-wide ice cream party from Ben&Jerry’s!
Curious? Cynical? Feeling oddly hopeful about our collective future? Good! Now just head on over to Vermontivate! and sign up for the happiest game of your life!
Fun Note: The first 20 players to sign up and complete a full Jumpline (you’ll see when you get there) will get a free coupon from Ben&Jerry’s! You’re welcome to keep it, but if you gift it to someone else (with whom you don’t share a fridge) you’ll get 200 bonus points!
P.S. If you don’t live in Vermont, you can still play on behalf of a Vermont town! After all, Vermont is really just a state of mind…
As the photos and videos continue streaming in from Vermont’s Connect the Dots Climate Impact Day, it is clear our media volunteers raised the bar to a new level. 350.org has a tradition of beautiful photography that 350Vermont stirves to uphold. However, during this event the spirit of One Movement extended to volunteers from the visual arts community who joined together to raise the visual story of the day to new heights. If you haven’t done so yet see the 350VT Flikr stream and video below and then stay tuned for more videos to come.
Here’s a special shout out to the media volunteers below:
Peter Nielsen, Rob Williams and the whole HigherMind Mediaworks crew for doing so much to bring this event together. Tim Joy of Projection Films for the amazing helicam and aerial photography. Cal Hopwood and Jon Mendel for the video and sound and editing work. Arthur Hynes, for video work. Cami Davis and Peter Nielsen for organizing the river art and directing the stunning group shots on Flemer Field. David Garten, Stephanie Perkins, Seth Butler, David Young, Gary Beckwith and everyone else who contributed photos of the day. Carly Schwer for the Transportation photos, Gregory Dennis for the covered Bridge photos. Asah Rowles and Noah Nielsen for the touching Irene / dot photos. Amanda Burnham, Carly Schwer and Diane Szczesuil for graphic design and image compilation. Joe Solomon for taking photos and video on the fly, and for curating our Flicker stream. Thanks to all for helping to craft and tell this visual story of this beautiful day.
This is it, Vermont. Tomorrow, May 5, people all across the state will stand with our global community to connect the dots on climate impacts.
Here in the Green Mountains, we’ll gather in Waitsfield to share our stories, make art, plant trees and then close this epic day with a huge rally and an iconic group photo. We won’t solve the climate crisis in one day, but together we can help the world understand the urgency of the challenge.
The rally starts at 3:30 and will include Bill McKibben, Governor Shumlin, Bernie Sanders, and other local leaders.
We’re hoping to see many of you in Waitsfield tomorrow, but if you can’t make it or if this event isn’t right for you, find other Climate Impacts Day events here.
Let’s show the world we’re ready to do the serious work ahead. Let’s connect the dots to the new Vermont.
Full Waitsfield Schedule Below
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Kid-friendly activities, music, and food vendors from Mad River Localvores. Plus free ice cream from Ben and Jerry’s scoop truck!
9:00Public art and tree planting along the Mad River. Meet at Quench Artspace on Bridge Street (map).
1:00 – 3:30 Stories from the front lines of climate change in Vermont. A mixture of conference, fair, and town meeting will bring to life the rich mixture of voices from our statewide community.
3:30 Rally with Governor Shumlin, Bernie Sanders, and local leaders.
4:00 Bill McKibben will connect the dots to the international climate movement and stage the largest aerial photo ever taken for climate action in Vermont.
Please park at Waitsfield Telecom, Waitsfield Elementary School, or Kenyon’s Field (parking shuttle provided by Aldo the GreaseVan, which runs on locally sourced waste vegetable oil and is provided courtesy of the Tunbridge Grease Collective).
Carpooling and locally organized transportation info can be found here.
Community Activists Protest Tar Sands Pipeline Reversal
What: Burlington, VT- On May 5th Burlington community members and students will carry a 30 foot long pipeline prop through downtown to protest the proposed reversal of the Portland-Montreal Pipe Line (PMPL) which would result in heavy tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada being pumped through this sixty year old pipeline. There will be a few short speeches at City Hall.
Who: This protest is being organized by the Northeast Environmental Defense (NEED), an environmental protection organization that started at the University of Vermont this year. Students and community members will be participating.
Where: The protesters will gather at the Unitarian Universalist Society on Pearl Street at 10:45 and from there will march down Church St. The march will stop at City Hall where some members of the community will deliver short speeches about the pipeline and the threat it would pose to Vermont. Following the stop at city hall, the march will continue through City Hall Park and end there.
When: May 5th, 2012 beginning at 11:00 a.m., gathering at 10:30/10:45.
Visuals: A thirty-foot long fake pipeline with the message “No Tar Sands In VT” painted down one side and “Stop Trailbreaker” down the other. Some participants will also cover themselves in fake oil to represent the potential damage that a oil spill have on our community.
Vermonters get ready to Connect the Dots on May 5th, — at a kick off event with Bill McKibben at the site of the Bartonsville Bridge, one of VT’s loveliest and oldest covered bridges, which was washed away by Hurricane Irene. Photo by Gregory Dennis.
Below is an op-ed article by 350 Vermont volunteer, Joe Solomon, a version of which first showed up in the Burlington Free Press on Sunday, April 29th, 2012.
Imagine a hell-bent alien race that somehow managed to travel far across the cosmos, but by the time they arrived in Earth’s upper atmosphere–all their main weapons were worn out or out of fuel. Imagine if the only weapon their spaceships had left was to make it rain. To squeeze rain out of the atmosphere like you would a wet rag and make it pour, deluge, and flood. As in torrential and unprecedented, designed-to-drown rain. And imagine if one of these alien race’s first spaceships happened to hover over Vermont, and just let loose. You might see something like Irene.
Like with Irene, you might see mobile home parks get washed away, farm fields get covered in river muck and ruined, critical bridges overwhelmed and sent down what were once tame little creeks. And like with Irene, you’d see us send in the National Guard and the police and the firemen and the nurses and whoever else was able and willing to help with recovery.
But at the same time as you’d be hunched over, digging VT out of the destruction, you’d be looking up. As you dug out the muck, you’d peer up at the sky with a mixture of fear and likely great anger. You’d see the spaceships hovering, readying for their probable next deluge, and chances are you’d dream of stopping them. You’d enlist in whatever campaigns were starting up to fight back. Maybe you’d don a t-shirt that read “Vermont Strong” but just as well, you’d wear one that read “Vermont Justice.” And you’d go out and find some.
And this completes this too-long metaphor: Vermont didn’t just face Mother Nature’s random mood swings this past Summer, she faced the wrath of the fossil fuel industry. She felt the impacts of what might as well be considered psychopathic aliens (who, as it turns out, also have heat blasters).
After all, for over 50 years we can see the charts and graphs that show the rising carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere, and hold them up right next to the rising stock prices of the oil and coal companies. They tend to go up, and up, and up, together. This makes sense: Exxon’s very business model is based on the assumption they can burn up all the oil they can drill and release unlimited CO2 for free. And all that extra CO2, we now know–causes the planet to get steadily warmer and far more violent.
It was recently announced that in 2010, CO2 emissions broke all records, with 30.6 billion metric tons of CO2 released into the atmosphere. That same year wrapped up with Exxon Mobil breaking all records for money-making, with $30.5 billion dollars in earnings. And the next year brought home the searing cumulative effects of this half century pattern: our country saw the worst succession of weather disasters it’s ever laid witness to.
Vermont went under, we know. But coast to coast: there were 14 disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damages each–from the Mississippi turning into an untamable rising sea for small heartland towns and farmers, to Texas turning into a near statewide torch factory, to the worst drought in the history of the American Southwest (yes: worse than the Dust Bowl of the 1930s).
Outside America: VT’s flooding was preceded by the fiercest flooding ever in Queensland, Brazil, and Pakistan’s history, and followed by the same in Thailand and Central America. And Texas’ flames were preceded by Russia’s worst ever bog fires and some of Australia’s worst ever bush fires. Not to mention the Horn of Africa’s unbelievable drought-induced famine.
Yet as NASA scientists mark off breaking new CO2 levels, and the Weather Channel features more and more “We’ve never seen it as bad as this!” disasters, and Wall Street traders register ever more outrageous profits for oil, gas, and coal companies, we haven’t really connected the dots. Not yet. Why is that?
In part: because connecting the dots means asking people to do impossible things. Exactly how do you convince a working Vermont mother to stop a massive coal plant in West Virginia? How do you motivate a VT dairy farmer struggling to make ends meet to put an end to the gas fracking epidemic across the Marcellus Shale? We don’t have easy answers here. So, maybe it’s better to just tell people to give up on their dryer or to compost. Or spread something on Facebook. Hang up your bath towel, and have hope.
But in part: it’s because we haven’t really tried.
We’ve spent decades pointing the finger at ourselves because that was easy enough. And that’s worked out all right: more people are ditching the fossil grid and getting solar than at any other point in history. But not owning a slave during a time of slavery doesn’t make you an abolitionist. You’ve also got to change the system.
And that’s the challenge we face now. It’s time we point our fingers a little more outwards. It’s time we connect the dots–to the big things that need changing. More precisely, to the renegade oil, coal, and gas companies that are running roughshod on our atmosphere.
So, on May 5th, 350.org volunteers from every corner of the planet will be hosting a global day of action to “Connect the Dots” between extreme weather, climate change, and fossil fuels. If we’re going to save our planet, the logic goes, first we’ve got to call out who we need to save it from.
Like in years past, VT will be leading the way. The local chapter of 350.org, 350 Vermont, will be hosting a landmark action in Waitsfeld with Bill McKibben, Governor Shumlin, and Senator Bernie Sanders. Our little state is now a posterchild for what it looks like to be slammed by climate change — and the world will be watching for how we make use of our new morally charged voice.
Waitsfield and the larger Mad River Valley were hit especially hard by Irene, so it seems fitting to host our big-tent event there. Hundreds of Vermonters from across the state will find their way to Flemer Field in Waitsfield from 1-5pm this Saturday May 5th. Expect a festive atmosphere full of good music, local food, performance art, a trademark aerial photo, and an overall enlivening time.
We’re not going to save the world on 5/5 — but we’ll be looking up. We’ll be dreaming of justice. We’ll be connecting the dots. And we’ll be plotting our next moves.
Connect the Dots / Climate Impact Day is coming up fast. As part of preparing for this epic event Bill Mckibben will be joining Vermont residents, legislators and Town officials in Bartonsville on Saturday, April 28 at noon for a photo shoot and press conference at the site of the covered bridge washed away during Hurricane Irene.
“When Hurricane Irene came and dumped all that rain on Vermont, it was by far the largest natural disaster we’ve ever had,” he said. “Bridges that had been there for 200 years, those covered bridges taking everything that nature had to throw at them, washed away down the river.”
All are invited to attend on April 28th as we begin the final preparations for Vermont’s Connect the Dots event in Waitsfield the following week.
INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE IMPACT DAY TO BE HELD IN WAITSFIELD, VERMONT
Bill McKibben and 350.org will Rally in Flemer Field on May 5
WAITSFIELD, VT— Citizens from all over Vermont will gather in Waitsfield on May 5 to “Connect the Dots” between extreme weather and climate change. In Waitsfield and at smaller events around the state on May 5, organizers will use this event to focus attention on the recent devastation of Hurricane Irene as well as other local impacts of our increasingly severe weather.
The Waitsfield gathering, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Flemer Field just off Route 100 in the Mad River Valley, is part of 350.org’s fourth global Day of Action.
Called “Connect the Dots,” it’s designed to raise awareness about our planet’s climate crisis. CNN called 350.org’s first Day of Action in 2009 the “the most widespread day of political action in history.”
Vermont has always led major events for 350.org’s days of action, and this will be the first one with 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in attendance.
“As we see in so many hard-hit places around the world, our tiny state plays almost no part in causing global climate change, yet it is now experiencing escalating weather impacts. Now, it is time for Vermont to help ‘connect the dots’ for the world to see,” said Bill McKibben in explaining why he is leading the rally on May 5 in Waitsfield.
“For some time Vermont has inspired the world with innovative energy solutions, but after last year’s floods, it’s seen the real impacts of our global addiction to fossil fuels,” said David Stember, organizer for 350VT. “Because Vermont is willing to acknowledge and squarely face climate change, the country increasingly looks to us for hope that we can get out of this mess—not just with shovels and remarkable recovery efforts, but also by being a bold movement leader.”
At 1 p.m., all are welcome to meet for Vermont’s featured event on Flemer Field in Waitsfield Village for a series of town hall style forums. The afternoon will include local music and food, performance art, and family-friendly activities.
At 4 p.m. there will be an aerial group photo followed by a rally with 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben and local political leaders, as well as stories from Vermonters who have experienced the frontlines of our changing world.
A recent video released by 350.org (www.climatedots.org/ThingsHappen) explains that humans are changing the global climate all across the world, but because it is a big world, we do not always make the connections we should. When Thailand has the worst flooding in its history only a month after Central America has the worst flooding in its history, the same year the Mississippi River has the worst flooding in its history—it’s connected.
“This day won’t just be about environmentalists,” said Waitsfield business owner Peter Nielsen. “Businesses owners will stand with mobile park residents, skiers will join maple sugarers, farmers will join artists, and our friends and neighbors who have been directly impacted by our changing climate will tell their stories and share their vision for a better future.”
Nielsen, who recently opened Quench Artspace on Bridge Street, is working with Cameron Davis of the UVM Art Department to develop a public art project, which will be executed along the Mad River the morning of May 5. Participants will meet at Quench at 8:30 a.m. and will work on the project until noon. Additionally, Quench will serve as a media lab that day, offering support to participants creating media at the event and distributing it via the Internet.
May 5 is also Green Up Day in Vermont. To kick off the day of action, hundreds of Vermonters from across the state will gather in the Mad River Valley and surrounding communities to help clean up from the still-lingering impacts of Irene. Volunteers wishing to work in Waitsfield Village will meet in the parking lot behind the Bridge Street Marketplace at 8:30 a.m.
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NOTE TO MEDIA — On Saturday, April 28 at noon, with Bill McKibben in attendance, there will be a photo opportunity for press and public at the metal bridge in Bartonsville, Vermont— built to replace the covered bridge that washed away during Hurricane Irene (www.youtube.com/watch?v=0srKMZN5tTc).
Statement of Paul Burns, Executive Director of VPIRG on Passage of H.464, the Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing in Vermont
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The 27-1 vote of the Vermont Senate in favor of a ban on fracking for gas in the state is an important statement about the legislature’s commitment to clean energy, and its intention to protect public health and natural resources from the dangers of this practice.
This vote brings Vermont one step closer to becoming the first state in the nation to ban the dirty and dangerous practice of fracking. This is exactly the kind of leadership that is needed on this issue.
Fracking is wreaking havoc in nearby states. This bill sends a clear message to the oil and gas industry that we value clean water too much to allow fracking in Vermont.
The Vermont Legislature is closer than ever to passing the first ban on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the country. This Wednesday, the Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee will vote on whether to turn H.464 into a ban on fracking in VT. Your senators need to hear from you before the vote! Please call to tell them we need an outright ban on fracking in our state! If Vermont passes a ban on this dangerous natural gas extraction process, we could encourage other states to do the same.
Your Vermont senators need to hear from you, especially those on the Committee:
Joe Benning – Caledonia County
Randy Brock – Franklin County
Dick McCormack – Windsor County
Ginny Lyons – Chittenden County
Mark MacDonald – Orange County
Please call the Sergeant at Arms’ office in the Statehouse (802-828-2228) and leave your senator a message. If you’re not certain who your senator is, look them up here: http://bit.ly/mysenator.
The message you leave for your senator could be something like this:
“Natural gas fracking is bad for the health of Vermonters and bad for our environment. I oppose fracking and believe it’s absolutely essential that we never allow fracking in our state. I ask you to pass H.464 as a permanent ban on fracking in Vermont.”
In addition, 350VT’s Anne Dillon has written a wonderful piece with more specific information on the impacts of fracking. You can help educate your community by writing a similar piece (feel free to borrow content from the letter below) and sending it to your local paper. The Senate as a whole may vote on the bill as soon as this week, so please submit your opinions soon!
Democracy in Vermont is alive and well, and your senators are very responsive to the opinions of their constituents. Let’s show how the united voices of Vermonters can be more powerful than the well-paid lobbyists of the fossil fuel industry!
With gratitude,
Team 350 Vermont
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Dear Friends:
The Vermont Legislature is closer than ever to passing the first ban on hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the country. This dangerous natural gas extraction process is polluting air and drinking water all across America, and releasing significant amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane into the atmosphere in so doing. Scientists have found that methane is much more toxic to the environment than carbon dioxide and is over twenty times moreeffective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat in the atmosphere over a 100-year period.
As most people know, fracking is a process of natural gas extraction from shale deposits beneath the earth, wherein large amounts of water, combined with chemicals and sand, are pumped under high pressure into a drilled gas well. The pressure this creates splits the shale along existing fault lines, allowing the natural gas to flow freely into the well.
Hydrofracturing was first used in Kansas in 1947 and shortly thereafter Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Company was given the exclusive right to use the fracturing method. Initially, oil and other more viscous materials were pumped into wells to complete a fracturing job. In 1953, water became a fracturing fluid, and various chemicals have been added over the years to increase the fluid’s effectiveness.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce had this to say about these chemicals: “More than 650 of the products used in fracking contain chemicals that are known or possible human carcinogens regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or listed as hazardous air pollutants.” Additionally, 65– 90% of these fracking chemicals stay underground indefinitely.
New evidence from seismologists indicates that fracking enhances the probability of earthquakes[i], not good news in any case but especially given that Vermont Yankee is still operating even though its state license expired in March.
Gas companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron spent $726 million lobbying the federal government from 2001–2011. As a result, fracking is now exempt from major federal statues, including
Safe Drinking Water Act
Clean Water Act
Clear Air Act
CERCLA
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
Toxics Release Inventory
National Environmental Policy Act
The U.S. government is playing dice with our health, because our elected officials cannot “just say no” to the money that the oil and gas industry is throwing at them to look the other way. This calls to mind Mussolini’s quote “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
Natural gas deposits exist mainly in the northwestern corner of Vermont and south along Lake Champlain. These deposits are an extension of Canada’s large Utica shale formation. With weak federal oversight, regulation falls to state officials.
Given this, the Vermont Senate’s Committee on Natural Resources and Energy is currently taking testimony on a bill, H.464, which would place a permanent ban on fracking in Vermont.
This is something we all can and should support! This bill will be voted on very soon.
If you care about the environment, please call your state senators and ask them to support this bill. (If you’re not sure who they are, look them up here: http://bit.ly/mysenator.) Let’s show how the united voices of Vermonters can be more powerful than the well-paid lobbyists of the fossil fuel industry! Let’s ban fracking in Vermont and set a standard for the rest of the nation to follow.
Sincerely yours,
Calling all Vermonters to help plan the 350.org Connect the Dots day on May 5th in the Mad River Valley.
350.org’s global actions have always been hugely inspiring days that show the world the scale and energy behind the growing movement to solve the climate crisis. From the buzz building around Connect the Dots Climate Impacts Day, May 5th will be another rousing call to action heard round the world.
Here in Vermont, a growing statewide network of activists, organizers and supporters we call 350Vermont is preparing to Connect The Dots to the very real recent and ongoing impacts of climate change in the green mountain state.
From initial conversations with people around the state the idea emerged to use this event to mark the time when Vermonters shifted into the new reality that the climate here has forever changed. Whether from floods, freak heat waves, shorter skiing, snowmobiling and sugaring seasons, or any of the related natural and economic impacts we are seeing, the climate we knew and counted on for generations in Vermont is now past history. Our focus now must be on ending the use of fossil fuels to limit future climate change, and on shaping Vermont’s way of life to meet our vision for the future.
To craft this collective depiction of the new Vermont we inhabit today we will invite anyone and everyone who has experienced the very real present impacts of climate change: flood ravaged cities and towns; business and communities; schools, churches or clubs; farmers or sugarers, woodsman or naturalist; students or occupiers–to bring their story to the Vermont Connect the Dots Day in Waitsfield.
Coincidentally, this global day of action is also Green Up Day here in Vermont. So the expectation is that many will spend the early part of the day helping the clean up in their local community.
The vision for the first part of the afternoon Connect the Dots event is a mixture of conference, fair, teach-in and town hall revival–all centered around a virtual map of Vermont and eliciting the rich mixture of voices that make up our diverse statewide community.
Following the afternoon convergence there will be a rally to hear from speakers such as Bill McKibben, Bernie Sanders, and Governor Shumlin, as well as a variety of speakers from the frontline groups listed above.
Becuase time is short to organize this event, in typical 350.org fashion we will make it happen together. The next step is to take this general idea for the day and work together to turn it into an actual plan. If you’re ready to join this conversation, please RSVP to organizers@350vt.org to join a phone conference at one of the times listed below:
