Vermont needs stronger climate action

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that average land and ocean surface temperatures in 2023 were the hottest ever recorded, 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit above 20th-century averages, that heat trapped in the upper ocean hit record highs and that Antarctic sea ice was the lowest in recorded history. This record warming results in extreme weather and is very expensive. In 2023, there were 28 climate disaster events in the U.S. with losses exceeding $1 billion each.

In Vermont, the Scott administration estimates it will cost at least $100 million to repair flood damaged state government buildings, while state Sen. Alison Clarkson notes the costs of 2023 flooding to public and private infrastructure, property, and business was over $500 million.

As we approach Town Meeting and vote on budgets, there are at least 60 Vermont municipalities facing deficits because millions of dollars in cleanup bills they paid last year haven’t yet been reimbursed by federal and state governments.

I am grateful that as Vermont legislators start the 2024 session, many of the bills introduced focus on flood recovery and climate change mitigation and resilience. One bill calls for $85 million in assistance for flood-damaged municipalities, businesses and homeowners.

To help avoid more weather-related disasters and costly cleanups in Vermont, we need to urgently and dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels that further heat the planet. Another bill for consideration is revising Vermont’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES). The RES will help reduce the use of fossil fuels by requiring Vermont utilities to procure a percentage of their total retail electric sales from renewable energy. But the RES needs to be strengthened so that more of Vermont’s electricity is produced through solar and wind locally — 30% generated here in Vermont and 30% in New England by 2032.

In addition, the use of unbundled renewable energy credits, which generally do not serve to increase the development of local renewable energy, should be phased out. More in-state renewable generation will help grow Vermont’s green energy economy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Dee Gish

Sharon

Talk to lawmakers
about the Farm Bill

The federal Farm Bill influences every step in the food chain in the United States, from seed to plate — and right now, we have a chance to work to transform our food and farming landscape and its impact on people and the environment. For decades, anti-environment interests in Congress have subsidized harmful agricultural practices that threaten communities, wildlife, and natural resources, including the very soil that grows our food.

Congress has an opportunity to bring our nation’s degraded soil back to life. By defending the Inflation Reduction Act investments in our environment, incentivizing regenerative farming practices like cover cropping, expanding support for organic agriculture and reducing food waste, we can build healthier soil while also fighting climate change.

Please tell your member of Congress to support a Farm Bill that:

■ Includes the COVER Act, which is a bill that rewards farmers for planting cover crops to build soil health and fight climate change

■ Defends the historic Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which funds programs that help farmers plant cover crops

■ Expands support for organic agriculture, including assistance for farmers and ranchers to transition to organic

■ Reduces food waste across the food supply chain, with the goal of cutting U.S. food waste in half by 2030

The Farm Bill is our chance to bring our soil back to life by investing in farming practices and policies that work better for all. Let’s make it the best it can be.

Steve Gehlert

West Newbury, Vt.

Beware of anti-semitism

I don’t pretend to know whether there’s a God, or, if so, whether the Jews are His chosen people, but the uniformly bad consequences suffered by societies that have yielded to the siren song of anti-semitism could certainly be construed as suggestive of such a state of affairs.

I do know that anti-semitism, be it bare-faced or masked with euphemism, betrays an ignorance staggering in its proportions, and that to level charges of colonialism, racism, nazism or genocide at the Israelis, of all people, is to engage in cruelty of an utterly inhuman stripe.

Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor and author of “Man’s Search for Meaning,” correctly asserted that — identitarians take note — there are only two significant categories of human beings: the decent and the indecent. To which I would add that those who harbor no doubt as to their fitness for inclusion in the first category are invariably fit only for the second one.

Anthony Stimson

Lebanon