 Too often, the media focuses exclusively on the violent and tumultuous crises occurring daily around the world. And with clickbait exploiting negative social events for the sake of increased ratings and revenue, there are few incentives for media outlets to focus on the good that is happening in the world every day. Even media channels dedicated to peace-building sustainable development remain focused on the ills of corruption, war, and conflict rather than the efforts of peace builders within those conflicts. But peace talks too, and with this show, the voice of peace will be amplified. Mr. Rogers is often quoted in saying that, when crisis strikes, look for the helpers. This show intends to do just that. Every day, right here in Vermont, there are thousands of engaged citizens actively building peace. We plan to amplify their efforts, and we seek to develop a platform where peace builders all over the state can connect with each other across social boundaries and industry sectors to collaborate for the benefit of our collective community. Ladies and gentlemen, this is peace talks. And today we are meeting with Will Dodge. He has served as the chair of the Essex Energy Committee for the last seven years and is the deputy managing partner of the DRM law firm. Welcome Will. It's a pleasure to have you. Great to be here, Daniel. Thank you so much for inviting me. Of course. Hello to everyone out there. Hello to everyone out there. Yes. Well, let's just jump right into it. I'm excited to have you here. I know that you've got a lot to share, so tell us about yourself and what you're working on right now. Well, so let's see. So, I've lived in Burlington or in Essex now for 13 years and have been in the Burlington area for about 23 years. I was born in Rutland, but I grew up in Montreal and always found an affinity for this place as I was passing through to visit my then-girlfriend, now wife of almost 30 years on the way to Williams College. Wow. And I had a cousin who went to UVM. So, I've always loved this community. I feel like it is, you know, just far enough and close enough to both the U.S. and Canada, but that it's a very special kind of in-between like place. And, you know, one of the things that brought me to this area, I think, as I was, I decided I wanted to go to law school long time ago. I was actually studying at the University of Texas, but I was thinking about this place because of its connection to Montreal and I've got a lot of friends and family in both places, Vermont and Canada. And one of the things that always intrigued me about Vermont is how does a state like this that's so devoted to the environment deal with things like energy and telecommunications and new technology and those kind of parts of development that are both intriguing to me and that I like. But I also recognize that there's a lot of communities that, you know, where it's not always easy to get those things permitted and make them work. So, I started out before I became the, got involved with any type of community involvement. I was really kind of working a lot on my legal career, but that meant I did at DRM have the benefit of doing a lot of different projects in energy and telecommunications and the environment and learning kind of the overall fabric of Vermont, who are some of the important players and, you know, I think that kind of brings, in my mind, I was not thinking about my community very much other than I loved Essex, I loved in Burlington, we lived there for about eight years and we moved to Essex just because it seemed like a wonderful community with some great families and a lot of friends. But for my first six years there, I really didn't interact very much with the time. You were more focused on just taking care of business at work and get your law firm off of it. Yeah, raising kids, doing all the things that I think all of us have in a busy life. Exactly. Yeah. So, what was the turn? Where was like the moment that you said, you know what, I need to do more? Yeah. It was, it's a good question and the way that I think of it is a couple of things. For one, you know, to be honest, I was like a lot of people kind of watching Election Night 2016, saw that Trump won and was upset about that, but also felt, I think maybe a lot of Vermonters do, a little bit powerless in that and saying like, look, this is something beyond our control, it's definitely going to have an effect on the law and on energy. I was, I think at that point in 2016, I'd been a proud volt owner for about 10 years. That's about as much as I'd done for maybe about six years. But it made me realize like, look, it's not enough to just kind of sit around and absorb the news and do your job. You get to a point when you're, especially I think when your kids are a little older that you got to engage with your community. So I said, well, what should I do? Where can I actually be of value? And I went to a couple of local, in fact, V-PURG organized a couple of events where I met a guy named David Scopin at one of those events. Okay. Yeah, David's great. David's great. David is on the Essex Energy Committee with us. But at the time, neither of us were involved with it and didn't really know about it. But I started looking around for volunteer positions and I saw that there was this thing called the Energy Committee and I didn't really know what the, exactly what the Energy Committee did. I looked up the statue to see what it says and I looked up some information, put in my name and the next thing you know, I got a letter saying, you know, well, you are on the Essex Energy Committee. You kind of said, great. Voluntelled into service. Well, the funny part of the story is that, you know, I got on to the committee and I was excited and I figured, oh, I'll just go in once a month and kind of participate and see what I can do and spread some knowledge and so forth. But no one contacted me and I said, well, what's going on? Where are the meetings? Where are the agendas? Yeah. And the select board informed me, well, there really is none. Like, you're it. Would you like to chair? Would you like to chair this board that has no other members now? Right. Thankfully, I was very fortunate that Irene Renner, who's now, you know, a senator, she was on the select board at the time and she was like the ex-officio member. And so she gave me some guidance, but she's like, yeah, if you want to do anything, you got to chair it. You got to do it. You got to go in there and build it up. Build it up from scratch. So the first thing that I did was I started to, you know, to put out some feelers in community and I forget exactly how it happened, but I connected back with David Scopin. Yeah, with David. Okay. And his wife, Natalie Braun, both of them are very active in 350 VT and have just been, you know, our super passionate activists on the environment. Wow. They wanted to, they wanted to join and we found a couple of other people and before they're too long, maybe about two, three months, we had a full committee and what was neat about that, Daniel, was that, you know, we had a general idea, like we all read the charter. And what is the charter? Well, the charter? Offhand. Of course. So I think our energy committee charter is similar to a lot of other charters in that it is, as written, it's focused on the municipal government. Right. Very local. What can you do to help the municipal government with our electricity bills? Rather than the whole town as a, as a, exactly. But as we started to, and so, you know, which is all fine and certainly it's part of our mission and we want to make it work because every time you, you know, find some benefit to reduce the municipality's costs or find a source of revenue for them, like for instance, you know, with solar, you're both, let's say, helping the bottom line, but you're also improving the environment. Yeah, at the same time. Yeah. And so, like, that's, I've learned a lot about that being on the committee and I've really appreciated your focus and emphasis on, like, energy efficiency and weatherization, you know, prior to coming to Essex, I was very focused on renewable energy development and thinking, like, this is where, like, the big work needs to happen. Me too. That's what I, but... But it's, it's not that way, right? Can you speak to that? Like, how, like, because when I read that mission, I was like, wow, we're really that focused on energy efficiency and weatherization. Renewables is a part of it, but, you know, speak to that. I want to kind of hear more of that. Well, so, I think that, I think that what happened is that all of us kind of think the same way that, you know, that, at least before you start to learn about it, geez, doesn't it just make sense to generate more power? To just build a bunch of renewables. Exactly, and use renewables, but once you start to learn about it, and you know, I think we're, we're very lucky in Vermont that we've had the, the, the Global Warming Solutions Act and the Climate Council, and especially VECAN, the Vermont Energy and Climate Action Network, to provide guidance to all the energy committees. Which actually is happening this weekend, right? Yes, yes, they put on events all the time. It'll be in Middlebury College this weekend is the, the VECAN Summit, which is the Vermont Energy, what's it? VECAN, yeah, Energy Climate Action Network, yes. Climate Action Network. It's, it's a really great, I'm excited to go. Well, that is a plug in. Well, there you go, but yeah, sure, no. No intention, but I think it's great. It is. No puns with the plugging in of the energy there. So VECAN, what VECAN explained through their work and through, and I think that GWSA matches this up, is that when we're really looking at the broader problem of climate change, okay, you got really 40, at least 40% of it, maybe more like 45% of it, it's all about transportation. And there's another 40s, let's say 45%, that's really all about weatherization, just about the inefficiency, thermal exactly, but really what that amounts to is stopping the thermal energy that we're using from just going through the awning, through the door, through the windows, or just, right? And then what you've got left is, is renewable energy. If we're really gonna solve the, or at least start to solve the climate change. So yeah, like I love that kind of, that, that breakdown of that, and I want to kind of maybe spend a little more time with the, with the energy efficiency, something that I've been learning while out there is like, you know, on the one side, heating in Vermont is primarily, you know, done through gas or biofuels, right? But, you know, if we're talking about efficiency, you know, it's a long term transition away from those fuel sources for heating until like maybe geothermal, you know, networks really become more of a standard within our towns and cities. That's a lot of infrastructure development. That's, you know, long term strategy there, but short term, right here, right now, what we can do to reduce the need for those fuels is better energy efficiency. Exactly, and a lot of that comes down to heat pumps really. I mean, it's so interesting because when I, probably at the beginning of the tens, like 2010, 2013, heat pumps were, you know, another terrible pun, but like a pipe dream, in other words, that no one actually thought that they were going to work. And so, for instance, you know, I think a lot of energy and time was put into the expanding gas pipelines, right, by Vermont Gas. But now, Vermont Gas, you know, if you go onto their website, they'll say, we'll help you install a heat pump. And if that isn't a major transition, right? And I think, I'd like to think, I think we can show that part of that, a small part, but a significant part in the end, comes from the advocacy of folks like VCAN and working with the energy committees, you help disseminate that type of message in your community, just like what you're doing, what we're all doing here and even talking about this. Well, no, and I think it's come a long way since you started in Essex seven years ago with just you and you kind of met with David and David Scopin and Natalie Braun. And all of a sudden, now we've got this kind of small family getting started. And how did you help the town of Essex bring in this kind of awareness? What was the big kind of turning point there in terms of like really helping to move more towards this clean, energy-efficient, renewables kind of development? Well I would, so it's a great question. I would say that one of the things that maybe I was a little bit lucky with is that at the precise time that I'm trying to reconstitute this dormant or non-existent energy committee, the legislature had passed Act 72 of 2016. I'm forgetting exactly the right number, but it was an Act that focused, I think it's Act 176 that focused on development of energy plans that are enhanced energy plans, as they're called, that basically what those do is they focus on helping communities identify where are their renewable energy or their potential for renewable energy resources, how much of them need to be developed in order to ultimately meet the Paris commitment? Again, that's focusing more on renewables. Right, the Paris Accords, as well as, and sort of similar types of statistics for how many cars do we need to convert over to hybrid or electrics, right? And what other measures, and also with thermal, how many homes do we need to weatherize? And so that's obviously just to say it out loud, like the enormity of that undertaking for something like ethics, right? But even for a smaller community, it's hard if you don't have that expertise, where do you go to get that expertise? Yeah, to crunch those numbers and really understand the data and how to formulate a strategic plan to really dole that out over the next 10, 20, 30, 40 years, right? Exactly, where's even the starting point? And so the answer was really the regional planning commissions. So here in Chittenden County, Melanie Needle and Regina Mahoney, a bunch of those people. Working with Melanie lately, she's great. Yeah, exactly, she's wonderful. So she spearheaded an effort to first develop a regional energy plan, and to do that, they really needed the involvement of people from every community, and obviously the logical place to draw from is the energy committees. So in doing that, that brought many of us together from Bolton and Huntington and all these communities to work on what we intended to see regionally, and then that in turn helped us to then forge enough of the connections and get enough ideas that we could then work with that same staff and our own community development office in Essex to develop an Essex energy plan. And that plan then needs to all go and get approved by the Department of Public Service and the Public Utility Commission. Yeah, which I'm learning about. Can you maybe speak, what is the Public Utility Commission and how does that get all the way down to the local level? I'm asking the hard questions now. Yeah, boy, I tell ya. So the Public Utility Commission, as it was originally intended, was to regulate all actual public utilities, which is primarily focused on electric, whether it be electric distribution, electric transmission, gas. Electricity through the wires, or, you know. High tension, low tension, yes, and certainly gas. They don't regulate things like number two fuel oil, which is what, let's face it, a lot of our monitors still get, you know, that's their primary source of heat. Sure, number two fuel, yeah. They also regulate telecommunications, primarily the wire line, but also they do cell siding, which is what I do a lot of, right, for wireless. But a thing that distinguishes Vermont from a lot of other states is that the PUC along the way also took responsibility for regulating the energy efficiency utility, which is efficiency Vermont, and which became energy efficiency utilities plural. So that includes Burlington Electric Department. So it's really an alliance of utility energy efficiency based organizations that are trying to drive this forward. Exactly, and the PUC, the Public Utility Commission, has a combination of, you know, what we call quasi-judicial, or basically they decide on specific cases, whether it be a rate making case, or whether it's going to be to build a pipeline, but then they also do some policy making and some legislative things like, okay, how are we going to deal with the demand for electricity from cars, right? Charging stations and things like that. So they do touch upon really every community in Vermont. They really tap into all of this. Based in Montpelier, across the street from the Supreme Court, looks very innocuous, but boy, they can have a big impact on what actually happens. And where that really lands strongly is with these enhanced energy plans. And so you were able to, you know, not just like build up this energy committee and give it a sense of purpose, but in doing so you helped facilitate the development of an enhanced energy plan for the town of Essex by tapping into these resources, these community, you know, advocates. Absolutely. That we're able to kind of coordinate and come together. Like what, you know, to me, that really speaks of leadership in a really powerful way, you know, what helped you kind of learn to lead through the ways, through those methods? Yeah, it's a good question. So I think, you know, part of it is that it's obviously, it's quite something when somebody tells you there is no committee, you know, it's up to you to figure it out. It's up to you. Right, you have to just kind of say, okay, well, what do I have to work with? Well, I think some people might have been like, if there's no committee, I'm not your guy. I'm not here, right? Yeah, but you chose a different path. Well, I mean, if you're going, you know, I had sort of made the deal with myself that if, you know, you're gonna, if you're gonna do anything to try to counter forces that seem to be taking us backward, at least in terms of, you know, the Trump administration dropping out of the Paris Accord and, you know, no real traction in fighting what is one of our most important things to be dealing with, right, which is climate change. Well, then it's not enough to just say, well, I'll go find some other committee. You know, especially when the framework is right there. Sometimes it's time, it falls on us to step forward and grab those reins and- Exactly, exactly. And I guess, you know, I took, I took a little inspiration, frankly, from some different examples, you know, both far from being close to me. So, you know, I was a huge Obama fan. I won't deny that. But I think the specific thing that I liked so much about his example is someone who, you know, for a period of their life was very devoted to their career and sort of advancing and really making their way in the world, but took a turn toward community activism and community organizing, right? Specifically of- At the grassroots level. At the grassroots level of building something that's, you know, now, his is much more profound, right? Working in Chicago. Sure, sure. But it's still as a principle, a guiding principle, I think it's important to be looking at, you know, if you're starting with little bits and pieces, well, don't just take that for granted. Try to make them work before you throw up the white flag. Well, and in terms of, you know, in terms of community organizing and what you're talking about with how Barack Obama inspired you through that path. You know, I think I've shared this poem on this show before, but I do like to share it. It's a little haiku, just five, seven, five, you know, one drop ripples, but a thousand drops birth new life. Absolutely. Together we reign, right? You know, and so it's like, you know, it's that togetherness that allows for transformation to happen. And what I've really been, you know, I've been on the Essex Energy Committee for about six months now, I would say maybe a little over six months. And I've been really inspired by your leadership will and your capacity to bring that collective participation to the committee that we're in. And, you know, learning about your story and how you built it up from scratch, like you say, you know, that is what we're talking about here. It's a type of transformation of leadership. Well, yeah, no, I appreciate that. I think the other thing that I thought about a lot is that I've been very lucky in my legal career to be, you know, trying to involve in a lot of projects that require you to build some bridges and to think creatively about how to make the best out of, you know, what sometimes is a terrible situation. Up situation, yeah. I was very, we didn't talk about this yesterday, but I was very fortunate in the early zeros to work on a compromise for stormwater legislation at the time that, you know, it spurred out of litigation, but it started to go into the legislative arena. And I saw, I was trying to draw my connections from the people that I knew, but also ended up working with a lot of other, like wonderful, wonderful people. And it ultimately, you know, sprang to life in a piece of legislation that helped regulate stormwater in a brand new way. Wow, yeah. And so that, so I think, yes, that's, it is definitely peacemaking. And so I drew a little bit from that lesson in thinking when we were all together doing the, you know, the regional energy plan, we sort of finished it and then we weren't together. And I said, and I think other people have the same thought, why don't we get together to try to do, you know, if we're gonna be talking about weatherization every fall, right, it's a ritual that I think everybody, Greenup. Well, not Greenup is in the spring, but in the fall, it's always button up, right? It's kind of the major push, if you will, statewide to do weatherization. We organized an event with Jericho and Westford and a bunch of other energy committees to have kind of a regional showcase at the Essex Experience, where you go to see the T. Rex Theater, et cetera. It had been converted over. That's a particularly inspiring place for us because Peter Edelman, who owns the, what used to be called the Essex Outlet Malls and it's now called the Essex Experience. Yeah, he's really transformed that space, too. He has, and one small, you know, part of that is, I think if you look around, you'll see it's one of the only kind of commercial shopping mall areas that has solar panels all over the roof. Right, yeah. Peter and I talked about that and I said, boy, I think it's one of these things that if you consider that, there's gonna be a lot of, not just tenants who think like maybe that's the place I wanna be, maybe my bills will be a little cheaper, but it'll certainly be cleaner, but also that I think it's an inspiration to everyone to see a space like that, especially when the talk is that big, getting, you know, being solarized. Being solarized and using cleaner sources of energy. Exactly. This is, you know, you and I talked a little bit, have talked a little bit about natural capital, right? And, you know, the use of renewable energy is one form of natural capital, but the idea behind that is, you know, capital development is something that grows, right? And quite often through conventional wisdom, what we think of when we think of the natural environment is exploitation until depletion, right? That's the old model. That's kind of what has been happening for a few centuries now, unfortunately, right? You know, and so what we're seeing with solar and with these new developments in weatherization and efficiency and trying to change the way we engage with our environment, it's much more of a generative process now. Exactly. It's about developing that space. How can we expand our natural environment? How can we expand those natural resources in a way that serves us, but can be sustainable over the long term? That's right. You know, when we did the energy plan for Essex, and I think there's a lot of other communities will have experienced this too, one of the things that we kind of realized is, well, one of the best potential resources that we all have are parking lots because they are the perfect place to solarize, right? Because usually they're cleared of, you know, there's no trees and or anything nearby. So why not? Why not? Exactly. And so I think our energy plan, like many others, will focus on some of those areas and say, boy, this would be a perfect place to put a solar canopy. And from my perspective, those solar canopies are great on multiple levels. Not only are they, you know, generating electricity, but they create shade. They create shade. And honestly, if you're walking from your car on a rainy day or a really snowy slushy day, it's really nice that you still will cover. Yeah, you got some cover there. And you have to imagine, too, that we're going to get to the point and not too long, right? With the rate of adoption of electric cars. Electric vehicles. That those canopies also could potentially be, you know, combined with charging stations. Electric vehicle charging stations. To make it a lot easier. And we're lucky in Vermont that we have so many pioneers kind of work thinking about, like Suncommon, I feel like was a real pioneer about that. They've been great. We've reached out to them and have organized events with them within Essex. Yeah. Or just co-sponsored it, like some of their sun run events. And so I think that, you know, just back to the point about Essex experience, that is a perfect place where we had this resource that didn't feel like a resource until you started to look at it. And think like, how else can we use this? Yeah. How can we use our natural environment or the environment we have, in this case, a blacktop, which doesn't feel natural at all, but how can we convert that into a space that is something new, that does rely on natural resources in a way that generates more than where we were before? Right. Yeah. So we were to use your haiku. I mean, we were one raindrop in that whole process of transforming that place, but it's wonderful to see that it is transforming and it's proof that, you know, every little bit of pushing that you can do, you know, for your community is gonna have an impact. Yeah. You know, it doesn't all, like for instance, just to take you another example, when we did the Essex Energy Plan, we looked pretty seriously at, wow, do we actually have hydro resources? Could we do a micro-hydro? Micro-hydro power kind of process. A lot of people in the community or in, you know, Greater Burlington have been to Indian Brook, right? To walk their dogs. And when you come into Indian Brook, there's that nice, there's that beautiful little, you know, tiny dam there. And we looked pretty seriously at, well, could we make it work? And we benefited actually from the expertise of some of the folks in South Burlington who had done their own micro-hydro project. Right. They'd actually, at least, it looks like theirs is actually working, but they had a much bigger vertical drop. So we got lots of information from them. We ultimately ruled it out as a resource. But in doing so, we discovered a couple of other things about, you know, about Indian Brook and about micro-hydro that surely we're going to be able to use and share in the future. Yeah, no. And so that's, it's incredible to see that kind of creative energy. You know, I think we touched on this, like, if we were looking at energy, you know, 25 years ago or 30 years ago, in comparison to, like, the conversation we're having right now about energy, you know, I mean, 25 years ago, energy was not a subject that people wanted to talk about. It was not, it was old. It was, you know, based on an industry that's been around for over a century now. Right. And really just it wasn't doing anything to benefit the planet other than, you know, creating an economy that ran the world. Yeah, there are great benefits that have come out of the fossil fuel industry, but not in a way that is in alignment with nature and not in a way that I think most of us really want to participate, right? Yeah, that's sustainable. You know, I was thinking a inspiration from long ago to me. In other words, like, why did I ever get interested in any of this kind of area? You know, it's fun to go back and think about that. Well, for me, there was one of those Usborne books when I was, have you ever had those? Or like, I think now it's DK. They're very similar to DK where they're explaining things about the world we live in, especially when you're 11 or 12 years old. And I have an enduring memory from one of those books that was about, you know, what is going to happen in the future? What are cities gonna look like in the future? And it was a juxtaposed picture. And on one side, you have what the world will look like if we do nothing about the environment. And in it, it looked very much like Blade Runner, right? You had kind of darkened skies, heaps of trash, you know, raining and everything looks like it's covered with soot, people walking in gas masks along the street. Yeah, that's a dark future. That was a dark future. And right next to it, on the very next page, and this is, to me, the more inspiring part, was the very same location. People are walking without any gas masks. It's sunny, but you could also see that all the vehicles were electric, that there was green space in the median between the electric train and the electric cars. There was a person on the bicycle, right? Going along, using a dedicated bike path. And to me, that juxtaposition of the image has always kind of summed it up, like boy, we could pick one direction or we could pick the other. Yeah, well, and if we don't pick soon enough, you know, Mother Nature may pick for us. That's a great point, that's a great point. This is something that you just inspired in me, thinking back to my childhood and where my roots came from in terms of just environmental awareness, was the giving tree. Oh, yes, great. Like for just like a children's book, and you know, that story really stuck with me. I think it stuck with a lot of people. It made me think a lot about like, wow, if the tree just keeps on giving, and you know, what's left at the end. Nothing left, yeah. I love it. I love where all of this has come from, such a rich history, such an incredible journey to elevate that, the energy committee like you have. What are you doing right now with the Essex Energy Committee? What's the next steps for you? Yeah, so there's a couple of things that I'd really like to see us accomplish. One of the things that, and you know, Daniel, you've been instrumental in a lot of it, but what we'd like to do is to take that concept of a regional event and take it one step further and try to do a button up during the Champlain Valley Fair during at the CVE. And what we're trying to do is get members from every energy committee in the whole region to participate and do a combination of, you know, promoting weatherization, promoting electric vehicles, to really try to use that sort of incredible energy in the sense of like the amount, the number of human energy, the number of visitors, the number of people in the community that come to that event, we'd really like to see if we can make that work. The other thing that from my perspective is really missing, you know, aside from missing people when I started the energy or when I came to start to work on the energy committee, the other thing that was really missing was funding, right, money. Money is a necessary component of all this, right? It is fuel in a sense. I mean, human energy is too, and we've got that. Well, money is stored energy. Yeah, there you go, exactly. It's there for when you need it and then you deploy it at the right time at the right place. So we are trying to work with our treasurer and with town staff and also getting some help from the regional planners again to set up a revolving loan fund so that when we get a project going, whether it be a new renewable energy facility or even things like some savings, you know, we have a buildings manager. We did not have a buildings manager when we started. It was one of our real accomplishments to make sure that there's a full-time position for somebody who's literally, you know, trying to weatherize all of the municipal buildings. Right, really serving that original mandate. Exactly, exactly. What we'd like to do is put that money back into a fund that can then be used for other energy projects. And this is not an original idea. It's really something that Montpelier, as far as I'm concerned, the Montpelier Energy Committee, they were the leader, but others, South Burlington, many others are starting to do this. And so it's something that we want to achieve because that could also really make a difference. And it's all the more interesting in that, at least now as a result of the separation between Essex Town and the city of Essex Junction, the town of Essex is going to be looking for new space to build a new building. And it would be great if we could make sure that that building is, if it's not net-zero, it should be net-zero. It should be net-zero. It should be solarized. It should be. It should be a symbol of what the future of our community is about to look like, right? Exactly. It should be that picture. Exactly. It should be the picture from the book you're talking about. What was it again? The Osborn, Cities of the Future. The Osborn, Cities of the Future. That should be, when municipalities have an opportunity to build new infrastructure, that's an opportunity to capture where that municipality is going. Absolutely. I think, I will say that I think South Burlington did a truly excellent job of that in that, you know, that market street that's emerging now, when you look at those buildings in comparison to the old buildings, not only are they aesthetically nicer, but you can see that there's sort of an economy of scale there, everything right together, connected by bicycle paths. They were really thinking about the human scale and they were thinking about the environmental. Yes. As well. Yeah, South Burlington has done a great job at that. They have. I'm confident that Essex can do the same, but it doesn't happen if you don't put a little creativity and a little elbow grease. You have to provide the right nutrients. That's right, exactly. Yes, comp, yeah. Well, to that point, this is where I always like to end the show and that is, how are you building peace in your community right now? It's a great question. I feel like we've been talking about it a lot, but I really want to just bring it home now. You mentioned being a peacemaker as a lawyer, but I think you've transitioned into a peace builder. Well, so let's just say that we've talked about that, but I do think it's such a great question. And the way that I think of it or what we were talking about yesterday is a lot of people have terrible impressions of lawyers and that could be for totally justified reasons, that there are only time in their life that they get into a real legal quandary and they have an awful experience. They have an awful experience with lawyers and that's unfortunate. Kind of sets the stage, yeah. It sets the stage, but I think that if I and my terrific colleagues at DRM, when we do our jobs right, we are old and that's true whether we're actually representing a client or we're just being active in our community, which is one of the values of the firm. And I think values as a Vermonter, I think when we're doing our job right, we are creating peace. We are reducing or eliminating conflict or we are finding a way to ultimately achieve an equilibrium that advances things forward. And nowhere is that truer when it comes to thinking about how much we value just this thriving community that we have here in Essex and in greater Burlington. Really using those skills and expertise in a way that harnesses future potential that takes, because I mean when you start talking about the PUC and regional planning commissions and municipal enhanced energy plans and all of the stuff in between, that takes a lot of expertise. And talking about like infrastructure projects and understanding zoning and regulations and having all of that as a part of this conversation, it almost takes a lawyer to figure out how to carve a path in that direction. Well, that's true, but I tell you, I don't feel that our energy committee would have the success it does without people like, you know, like you who are thinking outside the box, you're thinking about the piece, you're thinking about how to bring all of these forms of capital together to actually make it work. We have, you know, Natalie Braun and David Skopin who are consummate activists and they're the people that will go up to you on the street with the pamphlet, with the form and explain it to you and not be afraid and not be abrasive or offensive but be bold enough to say this is something that you should be thinking about that we all need to be thinking about. And we've had the benefit, we had Michael Fink who works at Efficiency Vermont. He joined us, you know, a few years ago and he's, even though he's left, he made a great contribution in the sense that he helped us to think about the, he managed to sort of do a rough calculation with the help of an SX, I was a great student of SX's GHG footprint, right, which is wonderful. So bringing, you know, multiple people together, I think different talents and different perspectives is absolutely necessary if you're to get peace, right? Right, yeah, well, and so this is something that I would, so I have training in peace building and conflict transformation. That's kind of my space of expertise. And so when you were talking about lawyers as peacemakers, I really was like, you know, that makes so much sense to me because if you think about the spectrum of things that happen, you know, peacemaking is when you assign that peace treaty. You know, the legislation you were talking about changing the water systems and the water rights. Right, regulation of storm water, yeah, exactly. That's what I'm talking about, regulation of storm water. That's like a peace treaty, you know? And peacekeepers, they're like the folks that are like, okay, you guys are fighting, so you go over there, and you go over there, and we're gonna make sure. Keep everyone apart. Keep everyone apart, that's a peacekeeper. Yes. But peace builders, they arrive before a conflict starts to develop, they are there when the treaty is signed and they stay long after in order to implement on that treaty. That's right. And so like what I have seen with your story on with the Essex Energy Committee is like, you showed up when nobody was there, right? And you have seen that arc as the energy committee has really stepped forward. And that's what I mean, like you know, so there's that peacemaker part, and I think that legal expertise is so significant because we do need peacemakers. We need folks that can strike that bargain, that can make that space and codify it and ratify it and build coalitions, right? We need people like that. But we also need peace builders. Yes. We need folks that are in the communities that are doing the work that you've been doing for the past seven years to really advance this mission. You know? Oh, absolutely. And you know, I think to me, the biggest lesson is that you should never be afraid to step out of your comfort zone and go into something just because maybe, you know. Maybe it's not what you expected. Maybe it's not what you expected. But it's worth doing. And especially, you know, I think, and you've been around the country and I've been around the country and around the world. And I think one of the things that we really need to cherish here is that people do really care about this community and how it works and whether it's, you know, has an environmental ethos that permeates everything. Not every place is like that. And so we gotta take advantage of that. You know, doing so is... It's a wealth that we have to preserve. It is. It's a complicated and a complex wealth, right? All the stuff about the BUC and McChifrey and all of that. But it's really important that we do it. And I'm very glad that you stepped up and came out of your comfort zone, right? Came to a brand new place. Well, you know, my story was similar. I was actually, my expertise is really more in economic development. And I've had my hand in some energy projects in the past and I care about sustainable development, environmental conservation. And there happened to be a seat available on the Energy Committee and not on the Economic Development Committee. So I said, okay, this is the path that I'm taking. Right? So I think that... I think you took the right path. I think so. I think so. And with that, I think we all need to step into that uncomfortable space and really think about how we're going to move forward to create that vision of a community we can all appreciate and enjoy being a part of, right? Absolutely. Great, great. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again. I really appreciate everyone that's stuck with us all the way to the end. This show, Peace Talks, was brought to you by Community Wealth Development. And what we're trying to do here is bring peace builders together to create collective impact for our communities moving forward. Next episode is going to be the finale of season one and we'll have Will Dodge back with us along with all of our previous guests for the last five episodes so that we can have a conversation together about how these very different folks, how can we build community wealth together? And so that will be the conversation that we step into next time. And thank you so much and have a wonderful June Pride weekend. Weekend, exactly, thank you. Thank you, Daniel, thanks. Cheers. Take care. That's it, bye-bye.