 Check, check, check, check, check one, two, check one, two. Hey everybody, thank you for coming. We'll start in about 10 minutes or so. There are a couple of great tables over there, some literature, get on some email lists. We were delayed because of the thunderstorm, so we'll start in about 10 minutes. Thanks for coming. My name's Jack Hansen. I live here in Burlington. I'm the executive director of Run on Climate. We're a non-profit focused on local level action on climate, so we're excited to be here pushing the city of Burlington to take stronger action to address the climate crisis. Hi, I'm Ashley Adams. I live in Burlington, and I'm here to spread the word about the so-called district heat project. What some of me and my friends like to call the steam pipe, which is a pipe that would run from the McNeil generating plant up to one customer, the hospital, and it would result in more trees needing to be burned at McNeil, and it would lock in a plant that needs to be shut down for decades to come. So I'm eager to spread the word and happy to be here, and we'll be going in and talking during public comment and sharing with the city council how what they need to do to really align themselves with their declaration of a climate emergency back in 2019. They've had four years to really put some action behind their words, and I've yet to see it, and I have confidence that they can do it, so I'm really hopeful. Hello, Burlington. Thank you for coming out today. It is not thunderstorming right now, which is awesome. Welcome. Yeah, a little woo for that. Indeed. My name's Dan. I'm an organizer, a teacher, a dad. We're here at the Wake Up, Step Up climate rally to tell them to wake up and step up and hurry up, among other things. So we've got about a dozen speakers or so. The program will run somewhere 35 to 40 minutes. I think we'll end around 10 after seven. Public forum inside is at 7.30, so we'll have some time to tear down, and then we'll all go inside together. To kick this off, I'd like to welcome Beverly Little Thunder up to the microphone, who will acknowledge the land that we are currently on and get us started here today. Okay, I'm close to eat the microphone. What I said is I greet you all with a warm heart. My name is Beverly Little Thunder, and I come from Standing Rock, North Dakota, and I've lived here in Vermont for the last 18 years. I remember as I stand here, the ancestors that once lived on this land. There were once indigenous people that lived here, and the ancestors are still buried here. And some of those people are still alive today. Some of those descendants still live. They still are on this earth and still lay claim to this land. They've been chased out of Vermont for various reasons, some economic, some just out of fear, but they are still here. They still care about this land. They still care about what's happening here. And you should too. All of you should because you live here. Your children are gonna live here, your grandchildren are gonna come here, and even the air that we're breathing now is full of pollutants. People talk about having organic food, growing organically. How organic can it be if the rain that falls on them brings all the pollutants down upon those? It is time for us to really take a look at what's happening in our city, in our town, in our state. Burning wood in Burlington is not good for our health. Biomass is just the word that has been put out there to try to convince us that it's different than fossil fuels. And it is just as dangerous to us. And we cannot, this small group cannot change everything in this country, but we can make change here in Burlington. We can make change in our communities, by talking to one another, by talking and letting people know what is actually happening. So I hope that you really, really listen to some of these speakers today, and that you take it to heart, and you take action now, because as an Indigenous woman, I have been talking about the climate for the last 75 years, and no one has been listening. It is time for us to wake up, open our ears, and take action. It's a scary thing sometimes, when people are going to, have pushback, but you can all do it. I know, because you're here. Kill on me, Aguila. Thank you, Beverly. And if you haven't yet, make sure to get some tacos from People's Kitchen, Donate, you can Venmo them. They're feeding the revolution. Next up, we've got Earl Aguila, who will speak on behalf of the Sunrise Movement. Earl, come on up. Okay, can y'all hear me? Okay, hi, my name is Earl Aguila. I'm a senior in high school, and I'm the hub coordinator for Sunrise Chintin County. Sunrise Movement is a network of young people fighting for a Green New Deal. So, I got involved with Climate Action, and sort of chapter of Sunrise Movement here, because I want to stop the effects of climate change in the Philippines, where my family lives, and where I come from, my home country. Every single year, the typhoons there get stronger, and the flooding gets worse, and homes and villages are destroyed, sweeping houses away, and creating devastating landslides. But this same kind of destruction came home last week, as floods devastated and destroyed towns across the state. The disasters I feared back in the Philippines came right into my backyard. After the flooding and the wildfire smoke, it seems more and more like these once in a lifetime climate disasters become more and more frequent. This is not the world I want to inherit. This is a wake-up call for us. Climate change is here, and it is now. So, from now on, I want my mission to make sure that I have a livable future on this planet. Not my grandchildren, not my children, but me. My friends, my family, my neighbors deserve a livable future. We all deserve a livable future. So, I urge every single one of you to make our voices heard, and urge that, take Climate Action, and it's awesome that you guys are all here, and yeah, thank you guys so much for being here. That's just my, yeah. Thank you, give it up for Earl for coming up to the mic, speaking on behalf of Sunrise. I'm gonna share a little bit next. If you're walking by or you're just seeing what's up, please stay, this is a rally on climate, but just wanted to set the stage a little bit more about where we are regarding the climate emergency. Some of the stuff that's been happening in the last week, last two weeks as climate chaos unfolds. Also want to honor all the groups that sponsor this rally, so we've got Stop Vermont, Biomass, Safe Landing, BTV, Sunrise, Chittenden, Skywatch, Standing Trees, to cancel the F-35, Substack, Extinction Rebellion, Vermont, 350, Vermont, Third Act, Vermont, Upper Valley Affinity Group, Flight Free, Vermont, and Vermonters for People-Oriented Places. Woo! We got 12 groups. And again, People's Kitchen. Make sure you get your tacos. We're here because our planet is on fire, and they are not doing enough. They declared a climate emergency in September of 2019, and lately we've been hearing a lot of words and not a lot of action. And what matters is immediate policy that is in line with what is actually happening. And that is why we are here. The great flood of 2023 just slammed into Vermont, killing two people, destroying crops and homes and businesses, and causing catastrophic destruction across the state and region. We're here because the smoke from the climate fires in Canada is entering our lungs and entering our bloodstreams. We're here because our lake is sick. It's sick from flooding. It's sick from a broken wastewater pipe from the flood. Pesticides, heavy metals, sediment, garbage, and sewage are flowing into the lake. We're here because there's constant cyanobacteria blooms in the lake. We're here because there are constant heat advisories forcing us indoors. And all of this is getting worse, and we haven't seen anything yet. We're here because of the collective trauma of seeing our climates and ecological systems collapsing in front of our very eyes. We're here to express solidarity with one another, saying that this is actually happening. We're not living in a silo and that the climate crisis is here. It's impacting our physical health. It's impacting our mental health, our spiritual health, and our emotional health. We're here because the climate crisis disproportionately impacts our black and brown neighbors, our unhoused neighbors, working class and poor folks, farm workers, the elderly, children, folks with disabilities, our indigenous siblings, and our LGBTQ plus neighbors. Why else are we here? Here are 11 things that have happened in the last 10 days. The Persian Gulf International Airport in Iran had a heat index, real feel with heat and humidity of 152 degrees Fahrenheit, which is incompatible with human life. Number two, Rome, Italy broke its all-time heat record, clocking in at 109.2 degrees Fahrenheit, beating its old record by almost 4 degrees. The temperature in Sanbao, China hit 126 degrees Fahrenheit. That's not the heat index. That is the actual temperature. That is the hottest temperature ever recorded north of 40 degrees Fahrenheit. That is the same latitude as Philadelphia. Death Valley just had the hottest midnight on record at 120 degrees. After midnight, it was 120 degrees in Death Valley, first time ever. The sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic are off the charts. By far the highest they've ever been. The Antarctic is collapsing the least amount of ice by far at this time of year. Number seven, people are literally burning their skins off in Arizona. Burn units at the hospitals in Arizona are filling up from victims who are touching surfaces that are hotter than 180 degrees Fahrenheit. Number eight, Phoenix will become the first major American city to average over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for an entire month. It also didn't drop below 90 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 days running even at night. Heat killed a man in Death Valley, California, and the paramedic helicopter couldn't respond because the helicopter couldn't attain enough lift because the air was too hot. The ocean is boiling off of the coast of Florida and in the Caribbean. The ocean temperature in Florida Bay climbed above 98 degrees Fahrenheit. Four days ago, Coral Restoration Foundation visited a coral reef that they've been restoring for 10 years and they said, quote, we have lost almost all of the corals and it's not even the hottest part of the summer yet. And finally, the sixth mass extinction event is worse than we thought of the 150,300 species tracked by the IUCN, 28% are facing extinction. There are a lot more things to list and that is really hard to hear but those are some of the things that we are dealing with and that's hard to confront but that is the truth and none of this is surprising because this is how physics works. Every gram of carbon that goes into the atmosphere makes it hotter and all of this stuff happens and we tell the people in power to wake up, step up and hurry up. Every year, we pump over 54 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere and we have 250 billion tons left before we cross 1.5 degrees Celsius which is where we will see catastrophic and irreversible tipping points. That's five years from now, that's in 2028, that is in five years, we're gonna hit 1.5 at the current rate. The UN said in October, there is quote, no credible pathway to 1.5 degrees Celsius in place. No credible pathway. Under 1.5, we'll see a cascading series of tipping points and the best thing we can do right now is to end the fossil fuel industry and to stop burning things. That is the best thing we can do. So who's gonna save us and why are we targeting Burlington? Cause the UN's not gonna save us. In November, the president of the next climate summit, his name is Sultan Al-Jabbar, he is a fossil fuel oligarch. He is in charge of the United Arab Emirates state oil company called AdNok. He is in charge of the conference in November. So it's us, us who are here in the streets, that's who's gonna save us and there's a lever of power right here that we can push on, that we have to push on. That's all I've got for now. I'm gonna pass it to my friend, Dan Batten. Thank you. Dan Batten is the founder of Extinction Rebellion Vermont and is a member of Standing Trees, Save Public Forest and the Vermont branch of the industrial workers of the world. Give a big hand to Dan. Wow, how am I supposed to follow that? I don't have enough energy left in me to do that, but we'll see what I can do. Thank you all for being here. Tonight, we will go to the city council meeting and we'll sit there patiently and respectfully and we'll take over two minutes or whatever to say our piece about the situation. This is all good and necessary and even though it's sometimes hard to see, it does inch the ball down the field a bit. But let's not fool ourselves, friends. Fighting climate chaos within the limitations of this system plays to the advantage of people who are actively trying to kill you. This isn't a hypothetical. There are people out there actively working to destroy you, every person you care about and everything you have ever loved. Are you just gonna sit by and let this happen? I'm gonna follow up that question with another one. How much power do you think you have? For many of us who have the luxury of coming to this event, I hazard to guess that you have a great deal of power, power that comes from the privilege of simply being able to attend a rally and a city council meeting on a weekday evening. We each have a choice in how we use our power. We can choose to use our power to directly challenge the perpetrators of the climate emergency or we can choose to minimize that power or channel it into inconsequential actions like recycling or attending rallies and then going home. I advocate for using our power in a way that isn't often exercised here in Vermont. That is, by using nonviolent direct action, NVDA, also known as civil disobedience and also known as protesting in ways that might get you arrested. Examples of NVDA, including Gandhi, the civil rights movement and ACT UP, tell us a powerful story of regular, normally law abiding citizens breaking the rules and laws and forcing change on a system that refused to change. They made clear that business as usual was intolerable and they did it nonviolently. What is needed now are sustained campaigns that are impossible for politicians and corporations to ignore. NVDA is the tool that disrupts business as usual and forces political and business leaders to listen to demands they would rather ignore. We make it impossible for them to ignore our demands by coming back in different ways until they listen. NVDA is also about withdrawing consent from this system that plays to the advantage of people who are actively trying to kill you. Systems only work if people consent to them. If we all agreed to not play by the inane rules of the system, it would lose its power. By withdrawing our consent, we are trying to force the system to change. What the climate movement desperately needs right now are people willing to stand up and fight for what's right, to break out of their complacency and truly deal with the situation. People willing to break out of their comfort zone and take a stand. People willing to sacrifice their time and sometimes some of their freedom to make a difference. Before I close, I wanna drop a hard truth on you. The fact of the matter is we are losing this fight. We see the signs in world climate news and just around the corner where thousands of people are dealing with the great flood of 2023. We see it in the marketing bullshit of the buttoned up and confident corporate leaders of Burlington Electric Company, Vermont Gas and the Burlington Airport. The demands from fossil fuel companies never sleep. Even when all the rally attendees have gone home, the letters to the editor have been written and all the phone calls have stopped. The road seems endless, the odds are all stacked against us. So we are much stronger than we think we are. We are many and we have talent and imagination and a virtually untapped but infinite source of courage and resolve. We can slow down the machinery of death that threatens us all. But to make that happen, we need more people to embrace nonviolent direct action in both arrestable and non-arrestable roles. The movement needs everyone like climate speakers and welcoming greeters, marshals who provide logistical and emotional support, planners and organizers, art makers, musicians and performers, anyone with a flag or a sign or a willingness to make your voice heard. And yes, folks who are willing to be arrested. What are you going to say when your children or grandchildren or just any person younger than you look you in the eye and ask you what you did when there was still a chance to prevent runaway warming? I wanna be able to look at them in the eyes and tell them I did everything in my power to challenge this system of death. This is your only chance. My only chance, our only chance to make a difference. There are people here today who have taken part in many direct action events, several of whom have been arrested several many times. I've got this extinction rebellion hat on and I have done most of my climate work with XR but there are several NVDA organizations you can get involved with. Just get involved with one of them. It doesn't matter which one. If you're interested, please see me. I've got business cards and contact information you can and other people here that you can talk to. Thank you. Coming up for Dan Batten. Woo! Dan's right there. If you are interested in getting arrested or supporting direct action, please find Dan or Midori. Write down your name and your email address. You're not committed to anything but if you are interested in doing that please write your name down and we'll follow up with you. Our next speaker is gonna be Connor Wertz who's speaking on behalf of 350 Vermont. Give it up for Connor. Thanks so much, Dan. Okay, so there are 12 city counselors inside in executive session right now. That's a dozen and there are dozens of us outside advocating for real climate action now and just on a hunch, I wanna see if we can make enough noise that they can hear us outside, okay? So on the count of three, let's make some noise. One, two, three. Woo! That was pretty good. That was pretty good. All right. That's right. So that's right, man. Thank you. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you to do something. It might be actually a little uncomfortable but hang in there. You got this. Find somebody you didn't come here today with and make eye contact with them. Make that eye contact. Give them a little smile and a wave. Now, why are you two here together right now? Is it because of the floods of last week? Is it because of the smoke warnings that have descended on us for what seems like the entire summer? Are you two here because you have kids or want kids and are worried about what will happen to them? Or are you just here because you've known about this fucking problem for five years or 10 years and 20 years and have watched as those in power have done nothing to address the real climate solutions that we need? If you are here for tacos, if you are here because you have fear or anxiety or frustration, you are not alone. Okay, now go find somebody else and make eye contact with them. It's another person that's scary. Why did you two come here today? Did you hear a call and answer? Did somebody ask you to come and you said yes? Did you come because you believe there might be something more for us? If you are here because you have hope, if you are here because you have purpose, if you are here because you desire a better world that you know is possible, you are also not alone. Okay, now you can look around at everybody. If you came here as an individual, you are not alone now. If you came here with a group, your group is not alone here now. There are 12 of us here who have endorsed this. We are here together because we know our city can do more, our state can do more, and yet we have to be the ones to apply pressure and make that happen. We are here because for every one of us here, there are a thousand Vermonters who know that enough is enough and that the time is now. And we are here today in common purpose, not just to speak truth to power, but to build power, power that can move the city council body inside. Now, the real work of building that power, it starts here today, it started with coming to this rally, but it also starts tomorrow. It starts when you plan your next course of action, when you put that next meeting on your calendar, when you make that comment or make a plan to talk to your city councilor. This event did not come out of thin air. There were amazing organizers who helped put this together, but we also really need your help. We don't have what it takes right now to win and we need you to show up. So sign up, there's like a lot of signups over here on this table. You can speak to me or anybody else who is coming up here to speak. Thank you for showing up today and I will see you tomorrow. Give it up for Connor Warts. Let's hear it for the drums of justice. Next up, we're gonna hear from Colin Larson who's gonna speak on behalf of Vermonters for People Oriented Places or VPOP. Give it up for Colin. Good evening. Thank you for giving up your Monday evenings to come here for this event. The only way that we confront the climate emergency is together as a community. So I was nominated to speak on behalf of Vermonters for People Oriented Places, we're a grassroots organization advocating for healthier, cleaner, safer urban development through the pursuit of walkable neighborhoods, affordable housing and quality public transit. All right, how's that? Transportation as a sector is the single largest contributor to carbon emissions in the state of Vermont. We as a state and a nation are obsessed and beholden to the personal automobile and we all suffer as a result. For most Vermonters, driving is a constant daily requirement. We build single family homes distant and isolated from jobs, markets, parks and each other. We build roads to connect these far off locations and provide inferior and unsafe paths for the walker or biker, let alone the wheelchair user to travel upon. We devote more time, energy and attention into ensuring that every car has a parking spot than we do in ensuring every human being has a home. Through the policies and priorities of zoning and planning, we have imposed a lifestyle upon the state that is wholly incompatible with the values of sustainability and equity. It forces car ownership on the majority of Vermonters whether they can afford it or not. It restricts the majority of the housing supply to the most expensive form to build and maintain the single family home. We find the roots of our current housing crisis in the choices made by our leaders to restrict dense multi-family homes and it is upon the unhoused. Those who have been priced out by these policies that the most devastating effects of climate change fall most heavily. Those without safe shelter cannot escape the soot choked air. They cannot escape the raging floods or the oppressive heat and the more people that are displaced by extreme weather, the more vulnerable our communities become to future emergencies. But there is a way forward. We can redesign our towns and cities to encourage active transportation through walking, biking and rolling. We can build more homes now without expanding the physical boundaries of human development into our vulnerable, wildland areas. It requires will from our leaders and the demand from all of us. Tonight, the city council will be considering a zoning ordinance in Burlington, South End. This ordinance would allow homes to be built where there are currently half empty parking lots. It presents an opportunity for the style of development that this city, this state, this country desperately needs. It has taken a long time, far too long for this ordinance to come before the council for a vote. It's not perfect. Few legislative solutions are but time is of the essence. Every day that goes by is another when more and more unhoused Vermonters suffer. More and more CO2 pours into our atmosphere from the tailpipes of cars. We cannot afford delay. So I'm asking the council to pass this ordinance tonight. I hope you will too. Thank you. Give it up for Colin Larson. That was awesome. That's on behalf of V-POP Vermonters for people oriented places. We were supposed to have a bike ride today. We had to cancel because of thunderstorms. But we're here. Next up is Ali Hamadani. Welcome him. Big hand for Ali. Ali is gonna speak on behalf of a group called Flight Free Vermont. Give it up for Ali. Hey everyone. I'm Ali. I'm here as Dan said for Flight Free Vermont. It's a group who gets people to pledge to decrease their flying or cut back on flying altogether for the climate crisis. I actually personally love to fly. I love to travel. Every part of getting on an airplane is fun for me. But in good conscience I can't continue knowing that as a country we are contributing more to pollution and to carbon emissions than the rest of the planet. And basically paying the least cost for it as people have already mentioned tonight. There are devastating areas of the planet for decades who have been feeling the effects of the climate crisis that we're kind of really starting to this past summer here in Vermont and the Northeast. So basically I don't think that we need to Sorry. Oh. So I don't think we need to expand the airport. I don't think we need to have private airplanes have the privilege of coming and going and contributing more to the pollution that they already have been. What we do need is more investment in other kinds of transit trains. It's a great way to see the country. This is a beautiful country. And if we had more frequent faster trains that would be less pollution. More fun way to travel. There's a table here that you can sign up or get more information on Flight Free Vermont. Not sure what else to say, but I might pass it on. Back to you Dan. Give it up for Ali in Flight Free Vermont. I also quit flying in 2019. Ali doesn't fly. Jack over there doesn't fly. Laura doesn't fly. There are a bunch of us. Ashley doesn't fly because it's not fair and we've chosen to stay grounded on purpose. Next up we have a special journalist guest. I'll let that person take it away. Thanks everyone. This is Scoop Scribbler, investigative reporter from Tragic News. Speaking of airplanes, I've got a special guest for you. We're lucky to have an opportunity today to hear from someone who claims to be a climate champion. Everyone, please welcome Nick Longo, Director of Aviation at Burlington Airport. Hi everyone, my name is Nick Longo. I'm the Director of Aviation at Burlington International Airport. I heard there was gonna be a climate rally here and so I wanted to talk about all the sustainability initiatives that we're putting in place at the airport. So looking forward to hearing some questions. All right, well, Scoop is me. I'm Scoop. You're Nick. Okay, that means it's my turn to talk. All right, now Nick, give us the Scoop on the airport. What are you doing to make it better? I'm glad you asked that. Let me give you some background information first and to acknowledge a few things. First, airplanes are amazing. Minute for minute, it is basically the fastest way to fry the planet. And flying is incredibly unjust. Just 1% of people are responsible for 50% of all emissions from air traffic and 80% of people or 6.4 billion humans have never been on an airplane because it's too expensive. It really is the pinnacle of climate injustice. A lot of people also say that aviation is such a tiny fraction of emissions so why should we focus on it? And I'll bet they didn't know that aviation is set to triple by 2050 so I'm glad I wanted to share that with the crowd today. Well, that is crazy. Okay, can you give us a bit of history on the airport? What have you done in the past couple of years to take climate action? A lot of initiatives. In the winter of 2122, I wanted to expand the airport by 11 acres into the working class chamber in neighborhood of South Burlington to gobble up as much land as possible to assault Chittenden County with noise pollution, expose them to lead from leaded jet fuel, make children learn worse in school, disturb people's sleep, cause PTSD and damage everyone's cardiovascular health. Not to mention the planet-frying greenhouse gases themselves, but alas, organizers organized against me and defeated me and my henchmen. Well, Nick, all of those impacts don't sound like very good things. Why are you telling us all this? Scoop, I haven't even told you the best part yet and that is it's not even included in the Burlington Net Zero Energy Roadmap. It's not included in Burlington's emissions, and Burlington owns and operates the airport. It's not included in South Burlington's emissions where the airport is located. It's not counted by the state of Vermont. So it's as if these emissions don't even exist, Scoop. Wow, Nick. So what are the emissions at the airport? Well, my team and I delivered a sustainability report in March 2023 after those dang activists forced my hand. We found that the airport pumps 118,000 tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year and 99% of that pollution is, duh, from the airplanes themselves. We also had four months to write the report, but mere hours before the Duke meeting, when it was due, we changed the public-facing dock from 119,000 tons to 118,000 tons to greenwash just a little bit more. You greenwashed the report? What does that even mean? Well, let me count the ways and there are three. The first is that we don't count the last 3,000 vertical feet of the flight, just assuming that the receiving airport is gonna count it. They don't, so that's not counted. We also used 2019 data for commercial traffic, which makes sense, cause that was before the pandemic, but we also used 2019 data for the F-35s when they only flew a little bit at the end of the year. So it basically didn't count the F-35s and we didn't count the non-CO2 heating effects of aviation, which is basically a three times multiplier because when you burn jet fuel in the atmosphere, a lot of things happen to heat the planet, including creating those long, skinny white clouds called contrails, so that's basically a three times multiplier that we didn't count and is also not in the report. Well, after all that, I'm not sure I'm ready to hear it now, but I was gonna ask you about your current sustainability initiatives. Scoop, we are on it, Scoop, let me tell you. Firstly, we like to talk about the embodied carbon, which is very low in the airport building expansion itself. Get this, more square footage, larger airplanes, but the embodied carbon of the building is kind of low. We also love beta and electric aircraft. We love beta, we talk about electric planes all of the time. They are the planes of the future and when I say future, I mean the very distant future because the science does not exist because batteries are too heavy. If you are very rich and you want to fly in a one or two-seater airplane, great, good for you. You're taking climate action, but not really, because you're still using electricity to generate your batteries, but if you wanted to use batteries to power a Boeing 737, which is one of the most common aircrafts, you would need the amount of batteries that weigh seven times more than the aircraft itself. So it is not a climate solution, but we love to talk about it a lot. Finally, the best for last, I know scoop, you've heard of clean coal, you've heard of renewable natural gas, but have you heard of sustainable aviation fuels? Get this, they are biofuels, they are plants that you burn in jet engines and we love to talk about them too. Less than 0.01% of jet fuel is currently biofuels and the aviation industry has missed its targets over and over and over and over again. Even if this were a real climate solution, and it's not because you have to clear cut tropical forests, grow palm oil or soybeans, bring it to the United States, refine it and then have a little tiny bit. There's only one facility in the United States on the West Coast. Our airport has dispensed exactly, wait for it, zero gallons of biofuels. Zero gallons and at the recent airport commission meeting, my buddy Tim Shea of Heritage Aviation, which is a company that services private jets and helps rich people fry the planet and wait for it, Certified Bee Corporation, he said that, quote, we have been working very hard and have been in negotiations with our fuel supplier to make sustainable aviation fuel a top priority. It's a top project right now. The only facility that produces it is on the West Coast. We have been promised that as quick as they can get something to us that will be here. Shea continued saying that we have several private aircraft owners that would gladly pay for biofuels. So make no mistake, once that first gallon gets here, we're gonna put it into a private jet so some rich person can claim they give a shit about the climate. Well, you've obviously been busy. That's why I didn't wanna ask the question, but you are really a sustainability hero. You were just reconfirmed unanimously by the Burlington City Council to continue in your position for another year. Is that correct? Oh yeah, Maro and Karen and everybody else have my back. Unanimous vote, one more year of Nick. But when it comes to airplanes, it's, you know, they're all climate champions, but when you talk about airplanes in there, it's like airplanes are pulled across the sky by reindeers and unicorns and they don't actually burn fossil fuels. Wow, that's hilarious. Speaking of unicorns, I've been hearing a lot about private jets lately. What can you tell me about them? Oh yeah, those suckers fly in and out of the airport every single day. Not only are there private jets, but you can charter jets, private jets, out of Burlington from organizations like NetJets. There are also rich people flying clubs like the Westchester Flying Club, so you can have some suburban New Yorker fly up here for the weekend and fly back home if they want, just for shits and giggles. There's also the Vermont Flight Academy. You know those buzzy bullshit planes that fly over all the time every weekend? Some of those planes are people earning their private pilot's license, and some of those flights are called discovery flights where just for the low price of $179, you can fly around for an hour for fun and pretend to be a pilot. Well, that is definitely wild, Nick. But there's this group calling for degrowth at the airport. What about the economy? Honestly, these guys have been getting on my nerves. All I have to say is that our economic system is great because we want to expand and have growth forever on a planet that has finite limits, and that doesn't make any sense. There are a lot of other economic systems that are great. We could talk about degrowth, or we could talk about doughnut economics, or a circular economy, or degrowth, or eco-socialism, or any other indigenous ways of knowing and living that have been around for tens of thousands of years, but we just want to have perpetual growth which extracts wealth from human bodies and from the natural world and funnels it up to the 1% and it's ruining the entire planet. But don't tell the activists that I actually believe that. That's some heavy material there, Nick, but as a responsible member of the media, I'll be sure to cut that out in our post-production. I have another question. What about families who want to see each other? Now airplanes are the great connectors of the world and this is actually a tricky subject. But in my heart, and again, don't tell the activists, but in my heart, I believe that airplanes have actually pushed us farther apart. Human beings have been around on Earth for about 200,000 years and flying has been around for rich people for about 70 years. And so I believe in degrowth and scoop again, take that out in post. Thank you. One more question, scoop. This is definitely one of these strangest climate champion interviews ever, but please tell me about these F-35 fighter bombers. Yeah, I assume you've heard them somewhere up there. What's the climate impact of those things? Oh yeah, they burn 22 gallons of jet fuel every minute. Every minute, literally imagine 22 gallons right here, one minute, all of those are ignited into carbon dioxide. So yeah, they're terrible. There are a couple more people who are gonna talk about this, but scoop, thank you so much and I appreciate the interview. Thank you, Nick. Give it up for Dan Batten. I don't know if that would fly, but we gave it a shot. We're gonna hear from a couple more speakers on the F-35s. I'm one of the campaigners with a group called Safe Landing BTV. We're a hard-hitting campaign demanding two things, no expansion and immediate degrowth at the airport. It's happened one time at Skiffle Airport in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. They've reduced flights because of the climate emergency by 8%. And our goal at Burlington Airport is to be the first airport in the country to do that. So if you wanna get involved, come sign up at the table over here. And with that, I'm gonna pass it over to Jimmy, who's gonna speak for about one minute on the F-35s. Jimmy runs Skywatch and the canceled the F-35 sub-stack and after that we're gonna go over to Pike. Give it up for Jimmy. Thank you, Dan, that was a fantastic play. So dangerous CO2 greenhouse gas is invading our air and turning our planet into a boiling hot house. But the F-35 with all its fantastic or not so fantastic military power cannot stop this invasion. It is the chief perpetrator. Each F-35 burns 22 gallons a minute, as Dan said. It gets 0.5 passenger miles per gallon. That's compared to a commercial airliner that can get up to 120 passenger miles per gallon. The F-35 is killing people and planet. It is realistically a murderous criminal enterprise, especially when it's training in a city where it's not just emissions, but also 115 decibel noise blasting our children. The people of Burlington and the people of Winooski both voted to cancel the F-35 at town meetings. By foisting the F-35 against the will of the people, certain leaders unwittingly gave Burlington an awesome responsibility that it can actually use. And this city council has the power to do it. So I'm going to tell you something about the power of our local government here in Burlington. And it's all provided under the FAA regulations. As airport owner, Burlington is empowered to set reasonable standards to protect safety. Have we heard about safety today? Climate safety? Setting a reasonable passenger mile per gallon standard, like 50 passenger miles per gallon. We'll sharply cut Burlington airport's aviation emissions. And this is a power the city government has. And it can do it today. Setting a standard will ban the F-35, completely prohibited. And the city has the power to do that. And it will also ban many of the gas guzzling private aircraft too. But it won't touch the fuel efficient passenger airliners that we all, well many of us have traveled on. Okay, I just have two sentences. So Burlington will set an example if it passes such a standard for municipal airports around the whole country to use their power to protect public health and safety, people, wildlife and planet. So we demand that Burlington establish a reasonable passenger mile per gallon standard for all aircraft using the city airport to protect the public and save the planet now. Thank you. Give it up for Jimmy Lee's. We've got three more speakers. Next up is Pike who's gonna talk about a specific resolution that is on the agenda tonight. Give it up for Pike Porter. Turkey, Portugal, India, Algeria, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Iran, Finland, Taiwan, Denmark, Qatar, Argentina, Ireland, Venezuela, Thailand, Colombia, New Zealand, Kuwait, Malaysia, Iraq, Israel, South Africa, Peru, Poland, Hong Kong and about 200 other countries have smaller annual budgets than the US Air Force which in 2023 has a budget of 194 billion dollars. The city of Burlington and its beneficence has leased 280 acres of land to the Air Force for $1 since 1974. That's not a dollar a year, that's $1 or about two cents a year. These 280 acres could host a 35 megawatt community solar project. It could bring five to $15 million in lease revenue a year in the open market. Instead, these acres house the F-35 fighter jets. Because of these jets, over 200 parcels on 44 acres of improved land with power, city water and sewer in the Chamberlain neighborhood of South Burlington sit unused. City Place in downtown Burlington is building 400 units on a one quarter acre of land. If there was real political will, these 44 acres of uninhabited land in South Burlington could end the Chittenden County housing crisis. Extrapolating from the figures that I found in the F-35 environmental impact statement and calculating with those figures, the numbers suggest that the F-35s produce more than 270,000 tons of CO2 equivalent pollution annually. These jets are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the state. Regardless of the amount, we know that all jets produce obscene amounts of CO2. Tonight, the city council is looking at a resolution that asks the city, the state, and the V-Tang to help reduce emissions at the National Guard base. I ask you all to sign up for public comments tonight and support this resolution. If you can, please stay, show your support for the city councilors that have already signed on to it. The heart of the resolution just simply asks to begin a conversation and to begin to make a plan to reduce emissions at the V-Tang base. Thank you. Give it up for Plague Florida. We've got two more speakers. Public forum starts in 10 minutes. So next up, give it up for Nick for Sampieri. Nick will talk about biomass. Thank you. I'm gonna keep it brief because we're running out of time. You heard about how the city doesn't count greenhouse gas emissions from aircraft. I'm gonna tell you about some other greenhouse gas emissions that they don't count. The emissions from the largest stationary source of greenhouse gas in the entire state of Vermont, the McNeil power plant. It's a power plant in Burlington's intervale that burns wood. Burning wood generates more carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced than burning any fossil fuel, including coal. We, I ask you to join our campaign in seeing that this plant be shut down. The city not only refuses to consider mothballing the plant but its plans call for expanding the plant. And the city claims that expanding the plant is part of their effort for addressing climate change. This is an outrage. And Ashley will now tell you about the expansion plan. And we also ask you to join us in fighting that. Give it up for Nick. Last speaker is Ashley Adams. Big round of applause for Ashley. Quick, if we wanna get in there for public comment as quickly as possible. Burlington Electric and Vermont Gas have a scheme that would do exactly the opposite of shutting down the plant. They plan to dump upwards of $40 million into a steam pipe from McNeil to provide heat for one customer, the hospital. They like to call it district heat because it makes it sound climate friendly. It would require more trees to be burned at McNeil and it would saddle us with that environmental disaster that is McNeil for many decades while biomass plants are closing across the region because they are highly polluting and no longer considered a renewable source of energy. We are insisting that Mayor Weinberger and the Burlington City Council do their fiduciary duty and say no to district heat. Don't waste precious dollars and lock us into decades of operating that destructive McNeil plant that needs to shut down now. Thank you. The district heat project, this project is an affront to the council's own climate emergency. City council is anticipated to vote on district heat this summer or fall. So it's a great opportunity to get involved in meaningful local climate action that you can really influence. Please join us. We have a table right over here. You can sign up and get involved in any way you're comfortable with. We will help you speak at a city council meeting. We will help you understand the issue and provide all sorts of information. Please help us stop the district heat boondoggle. Thank you so much. Let's go sign up and speak. Give it up for Ashley. Big round of applause. Thank you everybody for coming. It's 7.25. Big shout out to our sponsors. If you're not on either of these email lists, you wanna get some literature from these groups, please go check them out. If you haven't got tacos from People's Kitchen, go get a taco, fuel up. This might be a long meeting tonight. If you can donate to People's Kitchen, please give them money. The way Public Forum works, if you've never done this before, is you go inside, you go to the left. There's a sheet of paper you can sign up. You have up to two minutes to speak. If you've never done this before, you can do it. Say whatever comes from your heart. Speak up on behalf of the climate emergency on any specific issue or just in general. After Public Forum, there's something called climate emergency reports. That happens every single city council meeting. I assume Murrow and some of the counselors will speak about what's going on out here. I urge you to remember that politicians like to say a lot of words and the only thing that matters is immediate policy. So that is the climate emergency reports. The Southend Innovation District, like Colin said, that's later on in the deliberative agenda. The F-35 resolution is later on in the deliberative agenda. I urge you, if you want and can, to stay through the end of those two. I am gonna stay till the end of the meeting and see the whole meeting through. And again, please just remember, keep pressuring this body. They declared a climate emergency in September 2019 and they are not acting like it. So thank you for coming.