 are the multi-stakeholder group from the Green New Deal for Vermont. This is an effort that's being initiated actually by Wendy and I in coordination with MIT Presencing Institute's societal transformation plan. So we've been meeting. We had a meeting a month ago, and this is our second meeting. So we'd like to welcome you to our second meeting. We'll be meeting at least two more times in April and May, likely not in the State House, but we're hoping to have venues that two of the colleges that are involved, New beyond the Middlebury, will be there, partially because the State House rules in April and May are difficult to book if you're not legislators. So today we changed our agenda to allow our students who are involved in the student climate strike to make proposals for things that they think we can do to address the issues that the Green New Deal addresses, which include climate change, runaway inequality, racism, and power. So we're going to be open for that. I do know that the students who are coming from Middlebury College are going to be a little bit late. So we're going to wait for them to get here before we introduce that resolution. But we're open to other things that people want to discuss or consider. With that, I've asked Carol Irons, who is an elder of ours. She's an Abinaki elder. And I want to acknowledge that what we're doing is taking place on ancestral Abinaki territory. And we're trying to hold that in our hearts as we move forward with this effort. So I've asked her to offer some words of welcome this morning. First, we get thanks for spirit and wounds through all things. Morning, evening, and once more. And we get thanks to all the life forms on the web of life, including the two legates. And yes, I appreciate the recognition that this is Abinaki country. And all of those who usually are not given voice in these proceedings, I really ask with all my heart that you keep them first and foremost in your thoughts and your plans and your proposals, your ideas. They can live very well without us. We cannot live without them. That kind of humility, recognizing that we are just one thread in the web of life. I request that that guide are thinking because this is a societal transformation project and you can't transform the shape and direction of society if you don't recognize that humble part that we are. I get thanks for the people organizing this. I get thanks for all of you who came out and drove, set aside your day to participate in this effort. Ask that we step back from our own agendas enough to be able to hear each other in a good way. Listening with our inner ear and trying to see other's perspectives with our strong eye, which is here. Getting beyond our own perspective and widening it to a very different transformational shape. So we welcome all of you. We give you thanks for your presence. Let us proceed. Thank you, Carol, and welcome again. Please move forward. We have seats at the table, there's seats up front, especially if you're here from a student organization. We want you in the front, you guys, come on. So as I mentioned, we're gonna be proceeding using the town meeting format, which typically uses something akin to Robert's rules of order. But before we do that, since we're still a small group, I would like to go around and have everybody introduce themselves. Say your name, where you're from, if it's a town in Vermont, if you're here representing an organization officially, that would be good to know as well. So, why don't we start with Wendy Webber? Hi, I'm Wendy Webber from Algrove, and I represent the societal transformation that the president needs to do. Hi, I'm Lulief Jermontal, I'm a student at Schumerbury College, and a representative of St. Reinsville, a very good group from other groups that I'm with today, and we're really honored to be here. We're at college at St. Reinsville, at Burry, and thank you very much. I'm from Bob Kennedy, I'm from Westmore. My name's Olivia, I'm also from Middlebury, and I'm really excited to be here. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Parker, I'm the public engagement coordinator for Sustainable Monetary Coalition, we're working on multi-occupancy electric vehicles in the power plant of Montalier, and continue open space along the new scheme. I manage crossing off those streets of Vermont, and besides interest in a green new deal, I'd like to talk with anybody who's interested in figuring out the medical culture that seems to be our high-rate art soul. I'm Catherine Welter, I live in Dallas, and I need to go there. Next one, I'm the resident of Montalier, we're working with the Center for Modern Climate Action. I'm Barbara Botech from Montalier, Vermont, and I'm from Vermont Energy Education Program. I'm the owner of the voile, I'm a P.D. residence, and I'm a joint instructor in the Moxie Collosus. I'm Laura Murphy from Barrie Town. In the back. Jessica, I'm from Montalier, so it's not quite the same place. My name is Bailey Revin, and I am a master's student at Montalier Hospital in Sloughborough Town. Jesse Walmack, I study Sustainable Ag at Vermont Hospital. This is my garden, I'm part of a newly formed group in Montalier, and my first bold energy committee will be trying to advise the town and help them make some good decisions preparing for a change in energy. Great, thanks. How about Rebecca? Rebecca, hands good to you. Jerome? I'm Jerome, I'm covering today's events for Orco Media. Senator Sanders, I work mostly on agriculture issues. Haley Perrow, who covers energy and environmental issues for the senator wasn't able to come, so glad to be here today to listen to you all. Thanks. Tom Mary with Senator Leahy's office. I cover ag, environment, and energy issues for the senator from his Burlington office. I'm John Tracy, Senator Leahy's state director, and we appreciate the invitation. We're here to listen and learn. Thank you. I'm Laura Christmas, and I'm from Cal High School. I'm Ethan Sonowar from Russell. Carol Williams, you're still. I'm Alec Blescher, I'm an environmental policy major at Middle Bay College, and along with those folks, I represent the Sunday Night Environmental Group, the best Middle Bay, Sunrise Middle Bay, a bunch of connected organizations. Great. Thanks, everybody. Oops. For those of you who don't know me, my name's Gwendolyn Halsman, and I'm here with Vermonters for a new economy. So, with that, let's begin our meeting. I had a gavel, I found it into order. I think the first order of business would be to approve the minutes of the last meeting, which someone who was at the last meeting would need to move to do it. Motion to approve the minutes. Great, thank you. Alec made the motion, is there a second? Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. All right, the minutes are approved of the meeting in February. Now with that, are there any proposals for us? One of the things we asked our members to think about in advance of today's meeting was things that the Vermont legislature could do to advance the Green New Deal for Vermont. I think we'll have a motion from one of you guys, isn't there one? Yeah, I think it will. Well, one thing we've been researching and would like to discuss is a resolution to endorse the federal Green New Deal on a state level. This would be a resolution, ideally, joint house and Senate. And, what else? Oh, it would be modeled after past legislation or resolutions such as the one that was against the federal, the resolution against Trump shutting down the federal government that was a couple months ago, maybe a month ago, I don't even know. And then we have a second part if you wanna discuss that. So let me just clarify for the people that are here, because all of you are gonna vote on this. We're in a town meeting and we're in it together and we're gonna vote. The motion, if I'm not mistaken, was for the Vermont state legislature to endorse the federal Green New Deal resolution that was introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey. Is that the same one you're talking about? Yes. Great. And it would be modeled after, it would be following in the history of other resolutions that have passed the legislature to support something happening at the federal level. Is that right? Has everybody understand that so far? And there's a second part to that motion. So we were thinking that this is one way that the state legislature, thanks, sorry. So we're thinking that this is one way that the state legislature could take action in Vermont to support the action that's arise and many, many other environmental justice for these groups are taking across the country. So something we could do here to say Vermont's are on board, our state representatives are on board. And then if everyone wished we could also include in this resolution something about working towards a state level Green New Deal. Or that could be separate. It's really whatever can one would be envisioning but sort of supporting federal action and also working on a Nevada state level. Okay, okay, thank you. So the motion as I understand it is to endorse the federal resolution for Green New Deal. Now if you didn't take one of the copies of this resolution as you came in the door, there are over here on the table. I just suggest that you get it because once we have a second I've asked people to help us read through it. So that we all hear it and enter it into our record what we are asking the state legislators to endorse. So the first part of the resolution is to endorse the federal resolution on the state level and the second part of the motion is to encourage the state to do a Green New Deal for the state of Vermont. Is there a second for that motion? Second the motion? Emily seconds the motion. So the motion was made and seconded. Now we'll open the floor for discussion. But before we discuss it, what we're going to do is just read it. I've asked Ethan, Sonoborn who's also a high school student to start reading through the first part and Blue can read once he stops which is just on the first part of page three and we'll just go to the end of each page and keep going around the room until we're done. It's not that long. So you want to start Ethan? Sure. Resolution recognizing the duty of the federal government to create a Green New Deal. Whereas the October 2018 report titled Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the November 2018 Fourth National Climate Assessment Report found that one human activity could be the dominant cause of observed climate changes in the past century. Two, a changing climate is causing sea levels to rise and increase in wildfires, severe storms, droughts and other extreme weather events that threaten human life. Healthy communities and critical infrastructure. Three, global warming at or above two degrees Celsius beyond pre-industrialized levels will cause A, mass migration from the region most affected by climate change. B, more than $500 billion in lost annual economic output in the United States by the year 2100. C, wildfires that by 2050 will annually burn twice as much forest area in the western United States than was typically burned by wildfires in the years preceding 2019. D, a loss of more than 99% of all coral reefs on earth. E, more than 350 million more people to be exposed globally to deadly heat stress by 2050. And F, a risk of damage to $1 trillion of public infrastructure and coastal real estate in the United States. And global temperatures must be kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrialized levels to avoid the most severe impact on changing climate which will require A, global reduction to greenhouse gas emissions from human sources of 40 to 60% from 2010 levels by 2030 and B, net zero global emissions by 2050. Okay, blue, just continue to the bottom of that page. Whereas because the United States has historically been responsible for a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas emissions having emitted 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions through 2014 and has a high technological capacity, the United States must be leading role in reducing emissions through economic transformation. Whereas the United States is currently experiencing several related crises with one expectancy declining with basis such as clean air, clean water, healthy food and adequate healthcare, housing, transportation and education are inaccessible to a significant portion of the United States population to a four decade trend of wage stagnation, deindustrialization and anti-laver policies that has led to A, hourly wages and overall stagnation made in the sense of the 1970s despite increased worker productivity. The third worst level B, the third worst level of socioeconomic mobility in the developed world because before the great recession C, erosion and earning and bargaining powers of workers in the United States and D, inadequate resources for the public sector workers to confront challenges of climate change at local state and federal levels three. The greatest income inequality since the 1920s with A, the top 1% of earners for 91% of gains in the first few years of economic recovery after the great recession B, a large racial wealth divide amounting to a difference of more than 20 times more wealth between the average white family and the average black family and C, a gender earning gap. The results in women earning approximately 80% less as much as men at the median. Thank you, good job. How about over back there to John Tracy? Can you pick up where blue left off? I was following, where'd you leave off? At the end of the C, raise for it. This way, maybe four and then just stop. I was gonna read off a bigger print here. Would you like a microphone? I'll be fine. Whereas climate change, pollution and environmental destruction of the exact same systemic, racial, regional, social, environmental and economic injustices referred to in this pre-eminent systemic justices by disproportionately affecting indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, de-industrialized communities, the epoch of rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities and youth referred to in this pre-eminent as frontline and vulnerable communities. Whereas climate change constitutes a direct threat to the national security of the United States by impacting the economic, environmental and social stability of countries and communities around the world, by impacting as a threat multiplier, whereas the federal government let mobilizations through World War II and the New Deal are in the greatest, middle class of the United States has ever seen, but many members of the frontline and vulnerable communities were excluded from many of the economic and societal benefits of these mobilizations. And whereas the House of Representatives recognizes that a new national, social, industrial and economic mobilization on the scale not seen since World War II and the New Deal era is an historic opportunity, one, to create millions of good, high-wage jobs in the United States, two, to provide unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security for all people in the United States, and three, to counteract systemic injustice on the floor, be it when we go into the resolve. Resolve, well, maybe Tom can pick up some. Resolve, that is the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the duty of the federal government to create a Green New Deal, to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers, be to create millions of good, high-wage jobs and to ensure prosperity and economic security for all people in the United States, see to invest in the infrastructure and industry of the industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century. D, to secure for all people in the United States for generations to come, clean water and air, climate and community resilience, healthy food access to nature and a sustainable environment, and to promote E, to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future and repairing the historic oppressions of indigenous people, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused people, people with disabilities and youth referred to in this resolution as frontline vulnerable communities. Hey, you wanna move on? Emily? Erica? Erica, sorry, no words described. Sure. The goals described in sub-paragraphs A through E, sub-paragraph one referred to in the resolution as the Green New Deal Goals, should be accomplished through a 10-year national mobilization referred to in this resolution as the Green New Deal Mobilization that will require the following goals and project. A, building resiliency against climate change related disasters such as extreme weather, including by leveraging funding and providing investments for community-defined projects and strategies. B, repairing and upgrading the infrastructure in the United States, including by limiting pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible by guaranteeing universal access to clean water by reducing the risks posed by climate impacts and by ensuring that any infrastructure bill considered by the Congress addresses climate change and just a side note, we're considering an infrastructure bill at the moment. Meeting 100% of the power demand in the United States through clean renewable and zero emission energy sources, including by dramatically expanding and upgrading renewable power sources and by deploying new capacity, which I keep going. Why don't we continue with Barbara? Good. Building and upgrading? Building or upgrading to energy efficient, distributed and smart power grids and ensuring affordable access to electricity. E, upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximum energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort and durability, including through electrification. F, spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing in the United States and removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry as much as technologically feasible, including by expanding acceptable renewable energy manufacturing and investing in existing manufacturing industry. G, working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible, including one by supporting family farming, two by investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health and three by building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food. Okay, H, I'll continue. Overhauling transportation systems in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as technologically feasible, as much as technologically feasible, including through investment in one zero-emission variable infrastructure in manufacturing, two clean, affordable and accessible public transit and three high-speed rail. Five, mitigating and managing the long-term adverse health, economic and other aspects of pollution and climate change, including by providing funding for community-defined projects and strategies. J, removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and reducing pollution by restoring natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions that increase the soil carbon storage such as land preservation and forestation. K, restoring and protecting threatened, endangered and fragile ecosystems through locally-appropriated and science-based projects that enhance biodiversity and support climate resilience. L, cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites, ensuring economic development and sustainability on those sites. M, identifying other emissions and pollution sources and creating solutions to remove them. And M, promoting international exchange of technology, expertise, products, funding and services with the aim of making the United States the international leader on climate action and help other countries achieve a Green New Deal. Hey, one, two, three, a Green New Deal must... Three, a Green New Deal must be developed through transparent and inclusive consultation, collaboration and partnership with frontline and vulnerable communities, labor unions, worker cooperatives, civil society groups, academia and businesses. And four, to achieve the Green New Deal goals and mobilization, a Green New Deal will require the following goals. Hey, providing and leveraging and awaiting insurers that the public receives appropriate ownership states and returns on investment, adequate capital, including through community grants, public banks, other public finance and technical expertise, supporting policies and other forms of assistance to communities and organizations, federal, state and local government agencies and businesses working on Green New Deal mobilization. The ensuring that the federal government takes into account the complete environmental and social costs of the impacts of emissions through one, existing laws, two, policies and programs, and three, ensuring the frontline, and vulnerable communities shall not be adversely affected. Okay, Captain, we want to start with you. See, providing and supporting training to the kind of public education, to the entire education of all people in the United States, with a focus on the frontline and all the local communities so that all people in the United States may be totally equal in this situation in Green New Deal mobilization. You want to go, Matt? Sorry, Pete? D, making public investments in the research and development of new clean and renewable energy technologies and industries. E, directing investments for economic development, deepen and diversify industry and business in local and regional economies, and build wealth and community ownership while prioritizing high-quality job creation and economic, social and environmental benefits in frontline and vulnerable communities, and deindustrialized communities that may otherwise struggle to transition away from greenhouse gas, greenhouse gas intensive industries. And then back again. F, ensuring the use of democratic and participatory processes that are inclusive of and led by frontline and vulnerable communities and workers to plan, implement, and administer the Green New Deal mobilization at the local level. G, ensuring that the Green New Deal mobilization creates high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, high-risk local workers offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage benefit parity for workers affected by the transition. H, guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations and retirement security to all people of the United States. I, strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free of cohesion, intimidation, and harassment. J, over here. Would you like to read J? No? My arm under a blossom. How about? I'll listen. Sure. Strengthening and enforcing labor, workplace health, and safety, anti-discrimination and wage, and our standards across all employers, industries, and sectors. K, enacting and enforcing trade rules, procurement standards, and border adjustments with strong labor and environmental protections. To stop or want, so on. And to stop and transfer jobs, to stop the transfer of jobs and pollution overseas, and to grow domestic manufacturing in the United States. L, ensuring that public lands, waters, and oceans are protected, and that eminent domain is not abused. M, obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories. Honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and the land rights of indigenous peoples. N, ensuring a commercial environment where every business person is free from unfair competition and domination by domestic or international monopolies. And O, providing all peoples in the United States with high quality, one night quality health care, two, affordable safety, adequate housing, three, economic security, four, clean water, clean air, healthy, and affordable food access to needs. Thank you to all the readers. I know it seems a little tedious to read through a page by page, but for my part, I know that when they pass phone book signs, pieces of legislation in Washington, like the Patriot Act, without a lot of the representatives having even read it, doing this at least in short, it's all of us that we know what this resolution is talking about. So with that, let's open discussion. Does anybody have a discussion on the motion? Brian? Yeah, so I am representative Brian Gina from Burlington. I want to start by saying thanks for coming today. I'm going to be in and out of the meeting because this is the crossover day, so it's the day that we have to get fills out of our committees, or they go on hold for a while. But what I wanted to throw out there is while you discuss this resolution, just let you know a little bit about what the process is here with resolutions, because that might inform how you choose to handle your resolution. So in the Vermont legislature, resolutions are two pages. And I don't know how long that was, but it was long enough that I heard it, went upstairs, voted on stuff, and came back and you were just pinching it. Well, the motion, Brian, is just to endorse this. So we read this so we know what we want. Right, but I'm just letting people know that our resolutions are two pages. So if you want to pass a resolution to ask us to pass a resolution, you might just keep the mind that we have two pages to make the point, and I would ask you to give us what you want in that resolution. It would be helpful. I want to empower you to do that, and I'm happy to work with other people to bring forward any resolution that you request. The other thing I'd like to just say is that resolutions are kind of hollow. We can make a statement about how we want to do something. Right now, there's many climate change-related bills sitting in committees, and there's been a failure to take action on those bills. So perhaps something you would consider in your resolution is asking that we actually take action on things that exist that are being overlooked right now. So just another thought I wanted to throw out there. I'm going to stick around and listen for a minute, and then I have to go back to committee. But I want to thank you all for coming today. It's actually really significant that you're coming on Crossover Day, and it really helps illustrate the failure of this body to act this year on any significant climate change legislation. And it's going to help some of us to point to you and say, look, like the people are here demanding we do this, what are we doing? Thank you, Brian. Can you give us a couple of examples of bills that folks here in my home and make phone calls about tonight haven't been moving out of committee? I'm not going to be able to tell you off the top of my head the numbers of all these bills. What might be better is for me to send an email out to the group later with a list. Sure. But some examples would be there's people asking for radical investment and webarization in electric vehicles and clean energy in Vermont. Looking at creating green jobs in Vermont. There's a lot of legislation around those things in terms of the short and midterm solutions like things we can do right now to help. And then in terms of the long term vision, I think age 126 is a bill to study creating a zero waste economy in Vermont. So that's kind of bigger than just let's chip away at the problem. That's what do we want in 30 years and how do we get from here to there? But I'll compile a list and send it out to the group if that's helpful. That'd be great. Thanks so much. I know that the weatherization bills in the electrical vehicle bills are having some trouble, I believe they're not. So let's put some pressure on the representatives. I know S60 is a Senate resolution which is brought about by 350.org which will do several things but it endorses the current Vermont energy plan which would be a 90% reduction by 2050 which the state is currently missing its benchmarks for. It endorses a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure as well as looking into things like weatherization. We worked on this in Middlebury at Town Hall that passed overwhelming support. I believe it's now 40 something, 48, 49 towns that have passed this legislation of non-binding on the town level. So we'd love to see the state do that. Great. Okay, we're discussing the motion. This is town meeting format, just to catch everybody up. That is, we asked the state representatives to endorse the federal Green New Deal resolution. Yeah, Bob. I just had a question and clarification. On page nine, line 23, there's a word that I don't think I've ever seen before and I was wondering what the meaning of it is. App forestation? App forestation. I assume to have meant reforestation. Okay, well, that sounds reasonable. But this is a word I haven't seen. It's talking about increasing soil harvest storage. So land preservation and reforestation may be the word they should have used. I haven't ever seen that word before. Reforestation is correct. Oh, it is, okay. I said correct. Other discussion on the motion on the floor, which is, again, to ask the state legislature to endorse the federal resolution, which we ran into the record just now. Yeah, Carol? I cannot go along with this. This is based on the same, it's tweaking, it's got some good ideas, it's got some ideals. However, it's based not on transformational change, but on continuing the economic system that's based on ever more money, ever more jobs, ever more of the same kinds of things that the society has had for several hundred years and that has brought us to this point. And so it's loaded with contradictions to me in terms of whether it's any real transformation or whether it's just finding other ways to allow us to continue being as greedy and exploitive as we have been for generations. I cannot agree with this. Thank you, Carol. Are there particular language changes that would eliminate the concerns that you have? I think it's kind of loaded with contradictions. Okay, thank you. Other discussion? Yeah, Brian? I don't, I just want to respond to Carol's concern because one of the, I mean, I don't want to stifle other people's interest in this, but I actually do have some concerns about like greenwashing the new deal. The new deal was actually a disaster for indigenous people. Dams were built, land was flooded, ecosystems were completely disturbed by that. And one of my concerns about some of the short term solutions that we're talking about, like things like the electric vehicles and solar cells is that when we had a decarbonization study here and I asked the consultant, did you look at the cost of the solutions? Like did you look at the potential pollution? And they said, no. And I said, so you basically are just saying to us that if we do these 27 things or whatever it was, we'll meet our climate goal, but you didn't look at the potential harm of those things. And they said, no, you don't do that. And I, so once again, it's not that I'm saying we shouldn't start doing some of those things, but we need to think about, like I agree with you, we need to think about the big picture and then the zero waste economy concept is that it's like looking at the costs of the benefits, you know, looking at, and so back to this resolution, I would still support it with the group, but I want to just validate Carol, like what you said, because this thing is filled with language that reinforces the system we have and it's grounded in the New Deal, which for a lot of people wasn't actually a good deal. Thank you, Bron. Other discussion? People feel like they have enough information. Oh, Mash, go ahead. I just feel like I totally understand what Carolyn and Ryan have said, but I also feel like this is the first major attempt to get climate change on the national agenda. It's now the conversation. So I'd like to support this on a national level. In Vermont, I'd rather see us be more specific about our agricultural society and things that we can do, that I've seen people all the time go, I don't know what to do. You know, we're a negrarian state and there are things that we can do and I'd like to get those on the top of the table and our legislature get support this on a national level just to get people's focus on. So that's gotta be done quick. Thank you. So you're saying we should think of something that's specific to Vermont in addition to supporting the national Green New Deal. I'd just like to also take off my moderator hat for a moment and then dress Carol's point because I completely support your opinion on this. But I would like to point out just a couple things that are deviations from the normal way of business in Washington and in Vermont, for that matter, that are part of the reason Vermonters for a new economy is interested in the Green New Deal because it is the first piece of legislation that I'm aware of or the first big initiative that combines the imperatives of addressing climate change with the imperatives of addressing economic inequality and the kind of oppression that we have had in this country against what they're calling frontline and vulnerable communities which if you look at who those people are, they're all of us at some point in our lives. It's not a group of people off to the side. It's all of us. And the impacts that it's had on all of us. So if we look on page 11, point A where it says, providing and leveraging in a way that ensures that the public receives appropriate ownership stakes and returns on investment. Adequate capital through community grants and public banks and other public financing. Technical expertise, supporting policies and other forms of assistance to communities and organizations. This clause is still in a resolution mode. It's very aspirational, but it's talking about fundamentally changing some of the ownership structures that we've come to accept in the last 40 years and looking really hard at public financing, public banks, public ownership of the money systems and resources that we need to do this work. And so I'm not completely sold on this as an approach, but I am encouraged by the fact that the people that are thinking about it are at least thinking about how to do the monetary system somewhat differently with public banks and public ownership and public financing. So in Vermont, we as many of you in the room know we've been pushing for a public bank in Vermont for the last eight years here and that has not been successful yet. So if the Green New Deal was to pass at the federal level, one of the things that Vermont would need to do is to set up the Vermont Public Bank to make sure that we have the ability to finance the kinds of things that we need to do and that our financing those things doesn't continue to fill the pockets of the elite among us at everybody else's expense. Because when we're financing public infrastructure, when we're financing things that the public wants, that should be from our public money, not from private money. So that's part of the reason I'm in support of this and I would encourage other people to think hard about it. Knowing perfectly well it's not perfect, but we can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Yeah, so Elizabeth, yeah. So I have been sitting here. I have Carol nice to have you here. I'm grateful that you're here. And you know, I'm looking at how Barry, page six, line eight, E, to promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future or recurring historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, industrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, poor, low income workers, women, the elderly, and the like, and so on. And I guess that my hope is that in what the resolution we draft for the legislature here and the two-pager that we lumped that up a little higher. So that that and the community funding that you're discussing when our foundation on which decisions are being made going forward as we together find creative and important and humane and you know, find a plenty of solutions. I just wanted to say that. Welcome. Come on in, come in, have a seat, come in. We're just discussing the motion that was made by the Littleberry students to get the Vermont legislature to endorse the national resolution of the New York. Is there other discussion on the motion? Yes, Rebecca? I guess I wonder, as we're considering this motion, and there's a lot of things in here, I've only had a chance to give it that I appreciate, but I also wonder if maybe we can do better and maybe instead of putting our energy toward the legislature on this one that we put our energy toward, one that really delves into the issues with this and takes into account what Carol was saying and is like a better new, better green deal. So I just wanted to put that out there. Okay, so what you're suggesting is that the second part of this motion, I think, which was that we should have a green new deal for Vermont as well. That we spend a little more time on that part and figure out what that would say and maybe not be so worried about endorsing the federal resolution. Is the do I understand anything? Other discussion? I would ask the makers of the motion if you want to add something to this one. Thanks so much for your comments on this motion. I think from one of you, the goal with this is just to have the Vermont legislature in some way express support for radical and rapid climate action and climate action in the most just way possible. So I personally also share the concerns that this is not transformational or not. And also that there are so many things happening in the Vermont legislature that have been proposed but that have not really gone anywhere. So to your point, I'm wondering if we maybe would think about if we're asking for a resolution that we could write it in a way that really stresses the type of transformational change we'd like to see both in Vermont and nationally. So sort of some sort of resolution. The Vermont legislature stated that this is a priority, that these are the parts we want to stress, really stressing the transformational change. We're also saying we support rapid just and transformational action on a national level. I have one more thing to say. So yesterday, there we are. Yesterday, Katherine and Brian and I were at the Climate Caucus luncheon, all discussing this first crossover that's happening today on policy crossover. And it was so challenging because it's important that we do this big picture thinking. But I also want us to remember that we have to figure out how to fund it and how to make it work. And right now the legislature is faced with such a crunch of financing and how are we really going to be able to come up with clear ways of appropriating money, generating what is necessary to implement this vision. So I think that it's great that we spend time, it's important that we spend time out there and miscarriably. But this is just a very first step in a longer process. So I just wanted to say that. And I feel for the Climate Caucus here in the legislature because their hands have been tied by business as usual. And so how do we make that partnership into this new vision that we're talking about and how do we ground that? Thank you. Henry. I just wanted to add, I think that as compelling as any of our politely submitted proposals to the lawmakers might be, some of the last words standing in mass building politics in this country are Margarit Luther King saying in the late 60s, we have to create a crisis so powerful that cannot be ignored. Meaning we have to create a mass movement on the ground that sort of crushes the polite dialogue and creates a power vacuum. So the only way out is to do something rational with us. A couple months ago or maybe a month ago we were all talking about trying to support the student strike today. And I saw a lot of, oh, we'd really like to but our capacity is kind of low. That's not the kind of comment made in a burning building, right? The student climate strike is the only thing happening today and we need to sort of reorient to getting that horse back in front of the cart and making sure that the mass movement generation is happening so that it creates context and a dialogue that's visible to the regular working for Monter. Nobody knows about this wonderful exchange of ideas that's happening in here today unless they're already deeply plugged into conversation. So that's really my point of view. Thank you. I don't know. Yep. I've been a climate activist for 19 years. I've done a deep, deep dive on the science and I just always come back to Bill McKibben when he said, every time we have an argument with physics, you will lose. And in addition, physics is a really unsentimental negotiating partner. And yet again, physics is really clear when the negotiations are over. And I look at two sets of laws. One relates to a game that human beings invented, including inventing the laws and the rules. The other are physics laws. And we're at a point where physics is telling us the negotiations are almost over. And yet we prioritize the rules of a game that we invented, including all of the minutiae and saying that, oh, that's crazy talk. We have to be sensible here. We have to be fiscally responsible. Physics just doesn't care. And I'm not an economist. But human beings are nothing if not innovative and imaginative and creative. And I think physics is giving us the memo that we can best come up with a new set of rules for how to do economics and fund this or it's over. Thank you. And I'd like to just add that some of those problematic rules of a game are the rules around money. And how many is created? How many funds for public infrastructure that we need and the answer that we need for climate change? And how it's going to continue to be established a lot in the legislature as long as they consider business as usual? The legislature spends upwards of $150 million a year on debt service to the private sector from borrowing the money that we need to build our infrastructure. If that money was coming back into the general fund because we had our own bank to issue those bonds, it would have a lot of money to address climate change, poverty, and racism in the state that we do right now. So that's my editorial. Did you have another comment? Yeah, I think this is, I'd love to hear more from Carol about her thoughts and concerns and my understanding of what you might be pointing to is the model of our global society as being properitarian and consumptive by nature and having enormous impact on the planet as a whole. The effort of the Green New Deal is to make it more equitable, more rational, more efficient. And nonetheless, it still has this character which is ultimately a destructive character. I still think we need to be doing something, and as much as I think we all need to be living more simply and humbly and kindly. And I'm trying to do my piece of that and know where I can't get to. We need to help other people in that same trajectory of turning their behaviors. So there's a reason why we do any number of partial things on our way to a larger, ultimate goal. I wonder in the resolution that we put forward if we could say something about how do we sustain the values that promoters care about, use it up, wear it out, they could do without living simply encouraging this as a principle. Physics, you can't argue with physics, we need this. And these other things are just trying to help comfy people feel comfy during the change. And I'm about to go drive to a wedding in Pennsylvania. And I'm gonna be driving through Connecticut. You know, the highways are posted at 55, and people will be passing me at 75. And they just have very different expectation about what they're extracting in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and New York and Connecticut and Massachusetts and most of Vermont. We have to find ways of creating bridging tools. But we need to have language and vision about living in a way that is rational, loving, sustainable at the heart of it. Thank you. Yes. I think that, you know, the motion to endorse this is a good idea. We should endorse this because we'll have something in place and we do have climate on our side. It's going to create crisis. And but if something's in place, I mean, I don't see anything by grassroots movement will move fast enough until people see danger. But it's coming, I mean, it will happen. So the crisis that Martin Luther King talked about is out there in the nature of what's happening in New York. We do know that. Is there other discussion for or against the motion that's on for early for those who have been coming a little late? We're discussing a resolution that would ask the Vermont State Legislature to endorse the federal resolution that was introduced by Alexandria or Casio Cortez and Senator Markey for a Green Union. Henry? Yeah, just in terms of the pressing need here in Vermont. Thank you so much for convening us. This is such a great format. Thanks so much. I would say the thing that, you know, kind of speaking to my earlier comment, to make it more of a common issue, dairy farms are collapsing. They're getting suicide brochures with their paychecks everywhere. Regenerative agriculture and really changing the way that especially big dairy farms will run in this state not only addresses the water quality issues that are important to a lot of people, but also may be central to any economic proposal for this state that helps to add some fuel to this fire and create a mandate for our legislature. And I think that that sort of synthetic element about regenerative agriculture being the possibly sole hope for both for the collapsing dairy industry and meaningful scale appropriate kind of solutions for the state should be more prominent on this document. I don't know if there's an amendment process, but I would propose that as a friendly amendment either before or after a submission to the legislature. Okay, well, there were two parts to the motion. One was to adopt and endorse the federal legislation. And the second was that we need a Vermont Green Union. And so what I hear you saying is that in the Vermont Green Union, you would see more of an emphasis on regenerative agriculture as a solution for the dairy industry in particular. I mean, imagine if the amount of carbon you sequestered was monetized and the dairy farmers could get a carbon sequestration check in addition to their amount of checks. That's the kind of economic transformation I think you're talking about. Ecological services. Ecological services, exactly. So that's the kind of economic transformation we're looking at in order to make the incentive system that we have built into and vaped into our economic system, which basically says the more money you make, the more money you make, the better it is. If you can change that incentive system so that the less carbon you use, the more money you make, the more organic food you grow, the more money you make. Instead of it all being based in money, that would be helpful. With respect, I'm just trying to propose the idea that that messaging is inserted because it has a base that's not common in this discussion, whether it's a federal Green New Deal or a state Green New Deal. It helps to illustrate the mandate to the legislature at the same time as advertising are interesting common cause with the only real economy in the state, which is the agricultural economy. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Other discussion? Okay, can I just add to what you said? Can you imagine in the back room? I'm just going to add to what you were saying. I think some parts are clear. We need the legislature to support sponsored dairy farmers to transfer to managed grazing, plus the regenerative aspect. It would take a major shift in the way they do business, as well as organic farmers, vegetable farmers, being able to do crop rotations and cover crops and stop tilling and all the things they need to do to practice regenerative agriculture. It takes a shift in economies for both kinds of farmers and we need the legislature to support this. Great, thank you. In the back. I'm a organic farmer and an activist and I really appreciate what you brought forward and I like the idea of supporting this legislation but pointing in on some more or more specific information and I totally support having an impact on the health forms of agriculture. I think the dairy industry is going through a crisis. I totally agree with that, but I think that we need to be talking about regenerative agriculture. We need to be talking about it, but not just within the agricultural system but within our municipalities, the way we handle our golf horses, the way we deal with our park systems, the way individuals put stuff on their lawn. We need to raise awareness to all of that and help individuals now how they can make a difference in their own backyard. And I've been part of a soil series of educational discussions that have been happening in central Vermont which has been really invigorating and exciting. People are coming. They're coming with their own skill sets and interests. So with these discussions, they're just scratching the surface and we're building networks, but so they wanna learn from us farmers that are doing things that are interesting but they also have expertise and stuff to bring to the table. So the energy is right in Vermont. This is a great place and I appreciate all the work that you do. And so yes, let's make a statement and support this on a national level but then let's show everybody what we can do on a state level. Great, thank you. I can say that is exactly what this group is going to do so. Thank you for that. How about from our federal representatives? Would you like to make a comment about the resolution or about what Senator Sanders or Senator Laney is doing on the federal level? First of all, we wanna be very respectful of the process you have here. You're talking about a resolution to the Vermont legislature and we're in the federal delegation. So we appreciate the opportunity to be here and to hear what you have to say and engage. We don't want to be in a position to tell them about the legislative what to do just out of respect for the separation. You know, Senator Laney's been very supportive of the Green New Deal. He's not a co-sponsor of legislation. Senator Laney's been a firm believer in actually writing legislation that'll get accomplishments. Just reviewing and I won't go into depth because I don't want to take up time in your meeting but the face he's put in place for example, the organic farming legislation. Pat Laney wrote that into the 1990 Farm Bill because he knew we needed safe, sustainable agriculture, a way to keep farmers and provide healthy food. He did that. On an international level, he'd been working in our state for operations budget to help protect the rainforest, to help the economies throughout the globe that are suffering from climate change. So practical application, which we've talked about the Green New Deal is, you would say aspiration. It creates a vision. He's incredibly supported with that. He will be supporting a resolution in the U.S. Senate because Senator McConnell filed a cloture yesterday on the Green New Deal, which means they'll vote on it when they get back from this break that they have coming up next week, a work period. His goal is hopefully to have it fail, put some people in a difficult position. The Democrats have a resolution. They want to put forth saying climate change is real. Human activity in the past century is the driving factor in climate change and it's up to the United States and Congress to start doing something about it. So a more concise version of the Green New Deal to put that in the play. With the Republican majority in the Senate, we don't know how that will go the best, the shifting of the playground right now, but we incredibly support him and continues to work on legislation with practical application, which he has been doing for some 40 some others. Thank you. Thank you. Would you like to say something? Sure, yeah, absolutely. Senator Sanders is a co-sponsor of the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal is really an outline as you've read today. It certainly doesn't have a whole lot of details in it and it's certainly not perfect, but it does start to sort of align people around this vision of transforming our energy systems and a host of other things to start to address climate change and I mentioned before I work on agriculture issues, so that's kind of the angle I've been looking at it a lot. There's a lot of conversations at the national level, whether it was good that even the mention of agriculture was in it. I think earlier conversations about the Green New Deal didn't have it and I know right now there are many agriculture groups across the country trying to figure out what is the role of agriculture in the, you know, with the change in climate, healthy soils, whole host of issues. So, you know, I think there's a lot of things you could do in Vermont and again, we don't really want to comment on that, but being an outline, this Green New Deal will, you know, if it moves forward and hopefully the elements of it will, it will be a whole host of different bills. It will be agriculture bills, climate bills, and we're working on climate legislation right now. It will be social justice bills. I mean, it will hopefully be a whole compendium of policies that will get into, you know, more nitty gritty details, right? So, again, Senator Sanders is just, you know, supportive of this bill and hopes that we can, you know, our country can come to address climate change like we're not addressing now. Great, thank you very much. I just wanted to say too if I could, even though both offices are weighed in, you know, we were whispering back and forth when the conversation took to agriculture because it's what we do and if you engage with the folks that are implementing agricultural practices in Vermont right now, you might be amazed at how progressive some of the work that's taking place is. And, you know, without belaring the point that the conversation around ecosystem services and carbon storage, there was an agricultural meeting yesterday with a number of, you know, USDA people, Vermont Ag and Markets, Soil Conservation Districts, the folks that are out working on the farms, supporting traditional dairy among other farms and a presentation by the Gund Institute from University of Vermont by some of the world experts on ecosystem services. And that room lit up. We went late and they want the maps, they want to know how to start paying farmers for ecosystem services and they're not talking about it doing it in two or three years or in the next farm bill, they want the maps so they can start putting those contracts up. This year and start focusing some of the federal dollars. And so there's the opportunity to really lead on some of this and a really strong interest on players doing work on the ground in Vermont right now that Ag and Markets, UBM Extension, you know, these conversations are taking place probably on this building. And there's a good circle going on. Thank you. I have a question for Representative Therese. I went to the Rio Organic Project, symposium about who could go in Dartmouth. They, the aquaponics, hydroponics issues, are you aware of that at all? They're now, you know, considered organic because legislation that changed the original organic legislation that they house it up. And that doesn't sequester any carbon involved when you have aquaponics and hydroponics. And soil health is not going to do it. The basic factories that run water growth and they grow the plants. Is that an issue in Washington right now at all? Respect in the process, I'm going to the Solitary Meeting, yeah, I have a question, but just respecting the town meeting process. Yeah, I was going to raise a point of order, but that isn't your main issue, exactly. But we can discuss it this afternoon when we're doing open space. I do want to let everybody know that the town meeting is scheduled from 10 to 12 and then we're going to take a lunch break. And then from one to three, we're going to be doing what you call open space format meeting. Where we put, for example, draft the two page resolution that Brian will need to introduce to the legislature if that is of interest. We can discuss topics that are particularly interesting to all of you, because all of you help us set the agenda for that section of the meeting. So, hydroponics and aquaponics and organics could be a topic of that discussion then. For sure. All right, back to the motion, which was, thank you, too, by the way, to our federal representatives. Back to the motion, which was two parts. One, and oh, maybe the clerk should like to read what she has written down as a motion. I'm trying to do this quite a time. The resolution, so for the above half of the meeting to endorse the federal resolution that was read out. That's one of the first part. The second part, to prepare to write this page to page resolution that would be the one that I should have read in the bill. So the motion on the floor is to direct the state legislature to endorse the federal resolution that's House Resolution 109, and I think it has another member of the Senate for a greener deal, and to encourage the Vermont State Legislature to develop a greener deal for the state of Vermont. Is there any further discussion on this motion? Yes, let us hear it. So I greatly appreciate the huge importance of carbon sequestering that our agricultural community can offer and will shoulder. The largest carbon in midder, to my understanding, in Vermont is transportation, and one of the things that we really have to focus on, and I hope we put in a two pager, is to really figure out how to transition to an integrated fixed route between populations and between cities and a dynamic route within towns. I've taken a map of Vermont and started to look at what we have for fixed route and how we can use, instead of going horizontally from gas to electric single occupancy vehicles, kind of jumping over and taking an evolutionary feat and having us start to invest in multi-occupancy electric vehicles that can service denser pockets around the state. Obviously, that we have a lot of rural areas, but we also have a lot of populated areas that this would be very suited toward. And the statistics are from UC Davis that using multi-occupancy electric vehicles can reduce the transportation carbon output by 80%, so I think we need to look at that too. Okay, that would be on the Vermont side of the resolution. Great. Other discussion, and I do want to invite anybody new in the room on this question, if you have something to say and you're more than welcome, can come sit up here. I was just wondering, for those who said worries that this was not transformational enough, if in the resolution that we would be proposing to the legislature, if we were to state we think that this is a start of their needs to be going beyond that, and really needing to stress that issues of equity and justice is the heart of that, if that were to be as part of the resolution to the state legislature, would that address some of those concerns for people? That's just something I'm wondering. Okay, I'll turn the floor over to Carol. I think that, I appreciate you hearing me, and that begins it, yes. It's a can of worms and it's gonna be a long process, but if they feel like everybody's buying into this, there's a lot in here that will be used, in spite of the idealistic kinds of paragraphs, will be used to walk right over that to keep the systems going. So, you know, saying that it's only a start that at least keeps your toe in the door. So, I appreciate that. Okay, great. Seeing over the discussion, it's time to take a vote on this issue. Now, everybody in the room is eligible to vote, because this is the meeting that we had about this. You came to a posted meeting, we're running it as a town meeting. You know, if you have a regular town meeting, everybody who's a registered voter that shows up is able to vote on the issue. So, I'll just say it one more time, yeah? But presumably not non-registered voters. Oh, okay. If you're here in the room, you can vote on this motion. This is the, in the stratosphere of non-binding, you see? Because we're just reviewing the overriding multi-stakeholder group working with the MIT Presidency Institute, and we're going to take what you vote on and we're going to present it to our federal and our state representatives to be sure. But in terms of what you represent and whether your vote will be counted against you in some strange way, don't worry. So, to repeat the motion again, the motion was to endorse, to get this Vermont State Legislature to endorse federal resolution for a Green New Deal with the caveat that it is only a starting point and is not transformational enough. And to encourage the Vermont Legislature to develop a Green New Deal for Vermont. Does that adequately reflect the motion as seconded by the Middlebury students? Can we just add some language that we really wanna center the issues of justice and equity as the main point here? Okay, to center the issues of justice and equity that are part of the Green New Deal. I think that's one thing, at least I can comment on that I didn't hear in the more mainstream Green New Deal resolution you were describing. Mr. Tracy, who's here from Senator Layton's office, talked about another Green New Deal resolution that's going to, A, recognize that climate change is real about time, and B, recognize that it's time to do something about it. But if that resolution could include the same emphasis on justice and social equity and economic transformation as this legislation does, that I think would be more amenable to the repair from what I've been hearing today. So, with that, all those in favor of the motion on the floor, please raise your hands. Oh, can't we say hi? You can say hi too, but I wanted to visualize it. I think to see it together would be wonderful. And say hi. Hi. Hi. All right, all those opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes. And we will be passing this along. Now, are there other, is there a question for the team? The meeting, I, for one, heard a lot of talk about what the Green New Deal should look like. Yes, so. Before we get into that, we were wondering if it'd be possible for, as a group, to motion, or I don't really know how the town would make sure it works, but to motion to have, to ask that the Senator Leahy to co-sponsor the federal Green New Deal. The only thing I'd offer on that is I think when he described where Senator Leahy was now, the fact that it's passed closure, closure, it means that it's- He can no longer co-sponsor it? Correct. Okay, sorry. It's okay to go back. He's evoked, but call it as evoked closure, which means the debate will start next week as to whether, the week after they get back next week, it's a work period, they're on recess, the Senate will be in Vermont, as to whether it's amendable or it can have additional co-sponsors. I don't know the answer to that question. Oh, so it might be possible. Well, I will tell you though, I mean, I'm nuts. Let's, okay, for me to- Yes. I don't want a monopolized meeting. Senator Leahy's gonna continue to work on legislation, bills that will make a difference, like he's done the appropriations bill. And just because he's not a co-sponsor of the resolution, does not mean that he's not supportive of those goals because he is and has been for a long time and will continue to work on legislation that actually has an impact. I went through the FY 2019 appropriations bill yesterday with the highlights that were passed. Deals with social and economic justice, about environmental justice, about public transportation that benefits individuals that has communities involved in processes. Chapter 1, he was an advocate of the Second Chance Act, violence against women. Legal service corporations, that provides over 1.8 million people with legal services. So the nuts and bolts of what is being strived for in the Green New Deal, Pat Lee has been working on, and will continue to work on legislation. Thank you. I have a medium to request, I think that a request in Leahy's office that publicly endorse the Green New Deal as the legislation that has the context and will require at the grassroots, I think that that would be a strong second. So I think that. Okay, so let's see if we can put it in the form of a motion in a second. It sounded to me like Emily was going to ask that a motion be made to ask Senator Lazy to endorse the Green New Deal resolution that's before this. Let's just say it one more time, okay? So Emily moved, if I'm not mistaken, that this group, which is, again, a multi-stakeholder group drawn from around Vermont, people interested in looking at what a Green New Deal might look up like for the state, ask Senator Lazy to endorse the Green New Deal resolution. And I understand Henry seconded that motion. If I can interpret their interventions in the spirit of what a town meeting would look like. So we have a motion in a second. Is there a discussion on this? Or, well, that would be an amendment. Alec has added or co-sponsored the resolution. Is that a friendly amendment? Is that acceptable to the motion in a second? Okay, is there a further discussion? Yes, Lee? We just wanted to have that, we brought a bunch of letters about this from the people who were on the street back in the Middlebury saying that they would really like to see this option from the senators so long ago. So we brought those. Olivia would you like to present those to the senators staff? Thank you. About the strike in the Middlebury. Thank you. Out of discussion. Now I know today hundreds of thousands of students from over 70 countries around the world are on strike for climate change. And the people we have here are a representative sample, like would be appropriate in a multi-stakeholder group. We're trying to make this group as representative of the face of Vermont as possible. So we're encouraging all of you to join us if you like and they'll be notified about our other meetings. But that's all we are to. Is the stakeholder group. Other discussion on the motion to ask Senator Laney to endorse a Green New Deal or co-sponsor the resolution if possible. Seeing none, could I have a show of hands? All those in favor of the motion signified by raising your hand and saying aye. Aye. All those opposed. None opposed, the motion passes and we will make sure that Senator Laney's staff knows that that's what this group decided to do. Yes, John. Just hit like with a public, Senator has made it publicly where that he endorses the concept beyond the Green New Deal and will continue to work on those areas that it reflects. So thank you for that. Okay, great. Other business to come before the meeting right. All right, well I would suggest that we set up a subcommittee of the whole to work on the Vermont resolution, which we've been told has to be a maximum of two pages after our lunch break. And if you're interested in being part of that group, let me know during the lunch break. Are there other, and what we've heard so far to summarize the spirit of the meeting this morning is that the Vermont resolution needs to emphasize the transformational nature of the Green New Deal, especially as it pertains to justice and economic equity, that it needs to address harms and agricultural practices in Vermont because that is one of our hopeful areas where we can possibly start to sequester more carbon than we have in the past using a lot of the same farms and farmers as we have now. And we heard from the Senator staff that there is work being done already to try and get farmers paid for ecosystem services like carbon sequestration and water quality improvements. Another thing I needed to include was emphasis on positive transit in a rural state using lower impact forms of transportation because the transportation impacts that we have in Vermont are among the highest of our carbon. So with that, yes? And they just, I'm gonna be on the committee so I'm sure that there will be something in there about money that we need. Well, what I think about will be what we need for action of the game. First of all, we have to reduce our emissions but we have to do it in a way that is not only for tax but elevates low income and rural remodders. And the resources for the future report that came out a couple of weeks ago mentioned that we'll probably need a combination of carbon pricing and non-pricing policies. And I just wanted to highlight the rebate programs that were in the FX plan where the general rebate balance is returning the revenue to all remodders while the low income and rural assistance makes sure that the remodders that the impact of the most are supportive and helped with energy transition. And I would just ask that when we're thinking about the premium deal for Vermont, we're thinking about how to be equitable and use any revenue from any carbon pricing programs that we might have in an equitable manner in protecting the low and rural future remodders and how we can hope that the federal premium deal will model itself after that as well. Great, thank you. So she was talking a lot about how the energy transition is particularly difficult for the frontline and vulnerable communities mentioned in the legislation and how we need to make sure that the revenue models we develop and the policies we develop put those interests first and foremost so that we help them make the transition and help fund the needed services. Is that smart? Yes, all right. Okay, thank you. Again, so if you're interested in helping us draft the two-pager for the legislature, please let me know and we will do that as the topic in the open space session that goes from one to three. Is there other business to come before the committee and before this group? Yes, Lee? I was wondering if we could discuss how we all feel about the Vermont Equity and Infrastructure Act as kind of representative of Gonzales. I was talking to Hope, who's one of the leaders of the Montpelier Youth Strike today, and she was saying that she and others have been seeking of that as sort of a green mountain new deal. And so I think she was, well, I can't speak for her obviously, but she was sort of wondering where that group, where this group stood on that and how it related to our maybe broader and hopefully even more transformational vision of a Vermont green new deal. Great, so the question is, do we have a stand on Vermont's Equity and Infrastructure Act? And if so, what can we do to help move it along? I know from my part, I don't know the language of the act, I would like for us to do something similar as we did today where we took the language of the actual legislation and look at it, but that can certainly be a topic this afternoon. I'm sure by then, we can get the language of the act up and then at our next meeting, we can go to endorse that. There's a one page that is available online from Diana Gonzales, if anyone who's due, it's got highlights and whatnot. Great, I would just put that on our agenda for the next meeting. I think she could read that too. It's very, all of these are very deep. Later when we talk about that. Yeah, exactly, because it's got highlights on what it was saying, so it's very good. Incentives. Okay. Yes. I just have a quick announcement and request. Students are meeting at U32 at 12.30 today. The request is for most of these marches that it's only for youth, so if you identify as youth, maybe 25 or under, you're welcome to come to U32 at 12.30, or of course at MHS at two, but if folks wanted to post right now on their Facebook pages or other social media, get to U32 at 12.30. That's kind of a more, it's an awesome optic and there's kids from several schools getting together there to march down here in the rain and could use some support. Yeah. Also, when we're talking about justice, I think justice implies that we're talking about supporting frontline communities and on their own terms. And the framework coming from those communities, as represented by the Climate Justice Alliance, which is the premier and largest people of color led in indigenous alliance world round, as well as the progress of the justice and the indigenous environmental network endorse the just transition framework, which is very well developed. I feel that that explicit language or at least reference would be well suited to this conversation and formally inserted into any proposals that were, and the way that we're discussing this moving forward. Okay, great. Could you get us the language by this afternoon? Absolutely. Okay, perfect. Is there other business to come before the community? Yeah, definitely. I'd just like to make an announcement that as part of the global climate strike happening today and our college is striking at noon and you can watch the last room on our Facebook page if you're keen on doing that. Yes, there's a number of different student actions all over the state today in honor of Greta Thunberg's efforts to go on strike for climate change. And yesterday she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. So that's really a great moment for all of what we're all working on doing. Is there other business to come before the committee? Seeing none. I would accept a motion to adjourn the meeting until one o'clock when we'll come back for open space. So good. So good. Okay, so Michael, this is the second one. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you very much for coming. It's a success. Don't be bad. We're gonna get started by introducing ourselves again. Some of you who were here this morning did hear that, but not anything else on the show. Let me just pass the microphone. I've got this. Here. I'm gonna let you be the first person. Well, I'm Carol Lyons, I've been at the elder from Albany, Vermont. I'm Ethan Salgore from Bristol. First Ward, Thunbridge. Yes. Stewart Blood from Fetford Center. I'm Austin Elfman-Pito. You're under? I'm here to finish it. I'll pass the mic just pass the mic. Thank you, Carol. Carol, definitely. Alibaba from Reno. Lisa from Bethel. Carl and Aaron, please come over here. Yes, hi. Alec from Middlebury. Hi, Emily from Middlebury. Olivia from Middlebury. Lee from Middlebury. All right. Cameron P. from Essex. My name's Wendell and Halsmuth. I'm from Caled and Vermont just for a new economy. I used to live in Milwaukee. I'm Wendy Weber from Baltimore representing the Societal Transformation Lab. Yes, again, just briefly, for those of you who weren't here this morning, the group that we've convened this group, the Green New Deal for Vermont, is part of MIT's Presenting Institute Societal Transformation Lab. They're running similar groups. Sorry? Can you repeat that? I know, it's a mouthful. The Green New Deal for Vermont group is part of a large international effort by the MIT Presenting Institute called the Societal Transformation Lab. So right now, 300 similar teams all over the world are trying to consider the deep cultural, social, and economic changes required to deal with the climate crisis. That's the purpose of the lab because the most recent IPCC report, the International Panel on Climate Change, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that nothing less than social and economic transformation is required very quickly for us to start to address the massive human and environmental crisis that we're facing. And so the MIT effort is part of that. The student climate strike is part of that. The sunrise movement is part of that. All of these efforts are coming together to try and put more pressure on the business as usual politicians here in the state house. Right before this meeting, I was able to talk to my senator, Anthony Polina, and he expressed the same frustration we heard this morning. There are 60 climate bills in front of this house and not a single one of them is making crossover today. Just about. Yeah, I mean, it's bad. It's bad. So we're here to raise the level of opposition to that business as usual approach. We're here to magnify the voices of the youth that came here today. And to support these important initiatives. And to support all of these important initiatives. So what we did this morning was we had a town meeting form of meeting where the students from Middlebury introduced a piece of legislation to us as a group to endorse the federal resolution for a Green New Deal. If you don't have a copy of this, there should still be more copies over on the table. We read the federal resolution and we all voted to ask the Vermont legislature to pass a resolution endorsing it. So with important caveats, the second part of that resolution was how to make it specifically for Vermont. And I asked for volunteers at the end of that meeting for people who would like to discuss that. What does the Vermont resolution look like? Because Representative Brian Sheen, who was with us this morning, said, for Vermont resolutions don't have 14 pages. Won't go anywhere. They need to be two pages long. And so we need to think about what those two pages contain. And that would be one of the topics that we can discuss this afternoon. This afternoon we had structured as an open space session. Now open space means that the participants in the meeting helped set the agenda. So I know the two topics that I've heard that people would like to discuss are the Vermont version of the resolution, a two-pager. There's also some interest in discussing a piece of legislation that is one of those stalled pieces of legislation, H-477, which is an infrastructure act. In other words, equity and infrastructure. Anyway, it's an act to create infrastructure. And we do have a few copies of that bill with more on their way. So those are the two potential discussion topics that we have. Yeah, Marge? The Just Transition to Office. All right. Henry said something about getting us the language of the Just Transition to a grade. So those are the three topics. What is the Just Transition, who put that out there? Climate Justice Alliance. But I don't know who did the original. So the Climate Justice Alliance has a framework that they are asking people to consider with these type of legislation. And that's one potential topic. The two-pager, we need to draft the Vermont and this other bill. Now, just to have a quick show of hands to get a sense of the meeting, who was interested in talking about the, and you can raise your hands to all three. You don't have to pick one, okay? Interested, who was interested in talking about the Vermont resolution? I want to propose something else. Okay. Here we are on this auspicious day, which is crossover day. 60 bills are laying there and none of them made it. I think we ought to go march around up there and just protest. I'm serious, how could that be? Yeah, it's ridiculous. That means they're just not taking this seriously. So we're going to sit here and make yet another resolution that's not going to cross over. Well, resolutions don't have to cross over. So that is one of the things. So, yeah, so they could conceivably pass a resolution without it having to go through crossover. I agree with you. That's why we opened our meeting to the students. And yet. Maybe when the students get here, we could go a little bit more to room. Exactly, right. So at two o'clock or so, the students are marching from Montpelier High School to the state house. And so I was going to propose that our, whatever discussion we have, we'll stop it too and we'll go outside and we'll see what the students are doing and support their efforts today. And maybe they'll lead us around the state house corridors to protest. The thing, you guys, your representative is the head of natural resources. And Michelle, what? We're just talking to her in the cafeteria. And she said she gets out of committee at three. And if we have more language of what we would like is Vermont Resolution in support of federal action here to look like that she would be top of the set three and she'd be very much wanting to take action on that. And then Representative Tiena also said that he would, earlier that he would be willing to represent her. We were just talking with our. And my record is just about, so we already have three co-sponsors of the Vermont Resolution. Oh, very cool. Yeah. Oh, good. Senator Bray, who's also high on the resources. We were just talking to him in the hallway and he was very excited to see us. Great. Good work. Helps to have music to sing. Yeah. I just wanted to say that when we walked out for the lunch break, that there were a lot of other schools or individuals with their children that were arriving and standing on the steps for a short period of time. And they weren't aware about this event. So I gave my name tag to one of the teachers that was marching back with the schools. They had to go back to school. That they were there for the noon hour. But you might be hearing from some. With multiple. Yeah. We invited them to come through the organizers of the different schools, but we don't really know. It's hard. Right. It's hard to get through to people in this. That might be, I mean, Part of the strategic way of how we can mobilize individual to think communities beyond these institutions. Cause I gotta say, I'm on my school board and I couldn't budge any, you know, I brought all this information to the board, the administrators and it was devastating to not even getting knowledge. Seriously? Yeah. I mean, the White River Unified District royals in the back home. So newly, you know, newly worked school, I'm gonna bring it up to the board meeting next week. But I couldn't even, you know, try to get my kids to skip school today. And they were more concerned about missing in class. And you know, it's like, the discussions aren't happening. You know, if it was, they would have been encouraged to come here or to do an activity at their school. And I'm not sure. It's possible they did something and I just don't know about it. But I'm gonna find out this week. Maybe you could tell your board that the citizens of this town leading were appalled at their lack of discipline. I will. And I'm on board and I'm gonna say I am appalled. So I'm devastated. Well, there has been talk about April town meetings. Right? Do you wanna talk a little bit about that? Cause that would address this question of how do we get more people involved? Yeah, so Sunrise overall has been working on setting up town halls all across the country for people to come sort of like this morning and talk about concepts of Green New Deal, concepts of just transition green work. What we want this to look like locally and nationally. So in April, town halls are gonna be happening all across the country. There's also gonna be sort of this road tour where people have been working on a Green New Deal. They're gonna go all around the country and talk about it in like big training meetings. There aren't any of those in Vermont. So I think the nearest one would be Boston. But we were gonna think about setting up with like our small sunrise group, town hall likely in Middlebury on April 19th. And we'd like to invite anyone who wants to come to come to that. And then also we had talked about that that would just be a start of more conversations because sometimes when things are very geographically isolated not everyone might wanna come to Middlebury. So having some more town halls across Vermont this summer if that's something that would be interesting to people. But yeah, we're thinking of trying to get as many people as possible. And if it sounds good, we can book a space at our college but if people would rather have it somewhere else we can work that out. But yeah, lots of excitement for big town halls. So it seems to me that one piece of work is connecting. We need to have a microphone, Chris. A lot of that one doesn't work. One's the travel. Oops. It seems to me that connecting, so I know several school walkouts that are happening. It's got nothing to do with coming to Montpelio. It's their walking, 200 Woodstock high school students are walking out, marching to the green and doing a teaching on the green. That kind of thing is happening now. So connecting those lead, what I would call the lead kids in the different schools. So that that kind of connection can happen local. So Middlebury can happen and stuff and you know. And also just to remember that in the ST lab the next two or three months, we've got more meetings. We begin to craft something here for Vermont's version. You know, we'll be taking your voices further or hopefully out of it too. But we don't try to just get it done today. Right? True. Oh, right. All right, so did you have a comment on that? Oh, yeah. My name's Jail, I work for 350 Vermont. And we are having a climate walk from Middlebury to Montpelio April 5th through the 9th. And we're inviting, we definitely want more youth involved. And, but anyone is welcome. We will be having a gathering ceremony in the prize park that's where the pipeline goes through. So we're going to be having a gathering ceremony in the prize park that's where the pipeline goes through. And then also here on the 9th in Montpelio. But I just wanted to comment because my daughter goes to E32, she's in eighth grade and we couldn't find any information on where to go, who to contact or was it happening, was it not happening. And as an organizer, I was very frustrated with the whole process. So I want to offer my expertise in whatever, you know, I wanted to do CLED, but, you know, give corners or tips or anything like that with people. Great. Thank you. Yeah, I know for my part, we issued a press release about it that was not covered by the Vermont press team. We released it early this week, saying that the students were welcome to join us here. I also sent emails to all the organizers that I knew who were organizing the event. But God bless them, they wanted it to be youth led. And so even when I publicized the fact that the marches were happening was like, we wanted it to be youth, we don't want adults in the march, which is fine. But I did my best, is all I'm saying, to try and let them know and let them know to come here if they wanted to. We changed our agenda and we're happy to do it. So if you have something you wanted to say, you got to say it into the comment. Are you all right? Push the button. Push the button. Push the button. Thank you. So we should like all walk together and stop not screaming or like help us or like we're just like raising up our signs because we want to help our community be a better place and we want each other. Great idea. Thank you. We should all walk together and hold up our signs. Let our voices be heard. And we need your voices heard because you guys are going to be facing the climate crisis much more than we are. Did you have something you wanted to say? Okay. So speaking of the stick, it's 130. What I would propose as the moderator is that, again, let's just have a quick show of hands. The first topic was people who want to work on the two-pager for Vermont, okay? People who want to look at the Infrastructure Act. The first one is. I know we have the H-477, I haven't read it yet, but it was one of the things that were proposed. And then there was a third topic. Oh, the justice, just transitions. Anybody interested in that? What? The just transition framework, which has been put out by the climate lines. There are principles and practices. I'm assuming I haven't seen it either. Definitely discussed. Okay, that was not inclusive. That's the first one again. The first one was working on the two-pager resolution that Vermont legislators need. Raise your hands. Raise your hands again on that one. Okay. So I would propose that the people who are interested in working on that gather on this side of this team. Now, how about the just transition principles? Do we have people that are interested in working on that? Okay. Just transition will be at this end of the table. And since we don't yet have enough copies of the Infrastructure Act, it's called the Green Modern Idea, I guess. Let's wait till they come. If we get enough copies, then we'll take that one. Right now, if you want to look at this and talk about the just transition, yeah, on this side of this table, and if you want to work on the two-pager resolution to go to the Vermont legislature, sit on this side of this table. We will do that for approximately half an hour, which will bring us to two o'clock. I think the idea was this was not separate, but we could use some of the language that's already been crafted for our two-pager resolution. Oh, okay. So it's all one, it's all one-pager. All right. So let's just all work on the resolution, if that's okay with you. But maybe take just a minute. You know, this morning, we all read 14-pager resolution so that everybody knew what was in it. It helps to read the stuff that we're looking at to make sure, you know, what we're talking about. So if you want to just take a couple minutes to work through this, there are more copies. Ethan, you can take one. I think with his strategy, we can get to it more quickly. Now we'll move on to the whole thing. It's page three, but I'm not suggesting it. This is just a guide. You can just look at the guys. We started with a, who said that, and made that suggestion? Page three, page three has diagrams. Yeah, no, before that. I think, was it, could you make a suggestion? She was talking about analysis, bring one in strategy, because it's on page three. Oh, oh, I see, sorry. So there's words in their diagram. Yes, sorry. One of the things that happened this morning was that we all became aware by reading each word of the resolution that it wasn't as transformational as a lot of us had hoped. And so the idea was that the Vermont version would emphasize the elements of justice, economic change that are in the Just Transition documents. So let's just read the regenerative economy model, okay? What page is that? That's five. Page three. The governance is deep democracy. The resources are regenerative, regenerative, regenerative, for on page three in this section right here. And the worldview is caring and sacredness. The purpose is ecological and social well-being. And at the center is optimization. What do you think about just us reading the principles of what is the principle of each person reading it? So that starts on page four, why don't you start? A principle. CGA Just Transition Principles. A Just Transition moves us towards when we give. When we give means that we can live well without living better at the expense of others. Workers, community residents, women, and indigenous peoples around the world have a fundamental human right to clean, healthy, and catapult air, water, plants, education, and shelter. We must have just relationships with each other and with the natural world of which we are part. The rights of peoples, communities, and nature must supersede the rights of the individual. Okay, what's that? Just Transition creates meaningful work. A Just Transition centers on the development of human potential, creating opportunities for people to learn, grow, and develop to their full capacities and interests. We are all board leaders, and a regenerative economy supports and nurtures that leadership. In the process, we are transforming ourselves, each other, our communities, and our society as a whole. Meaningful work is life affirming. You can pass it to your own. Page four, page four, program. Self-determination. This requires how to shape your own and cause your producers, as consumers, and in our relationships with each other. Not only does self-determination is one of our greatest, affected by the attractive economy, the front line workers, and their solutions. You're crazy. A Just Transition equitably redistributes resources and powers. Your glasses. Okay. I put you on the mic. That's interesting. Are there any guests on the mic? Okay. We must work to build new systems that are good for all people, and not just a few. Just Transition must actively work against and transform current and historic social inequities based on race, class, and gender, immigrant status, and other forms of oppression. Just Transition fights to reclaim capital and resources for the regeneration of geographies and sectors of the economy where these inequities are most pervasive. A Just Transition requires regenerative ecological economics. Just Transition must advance ecological resilience, reduce resource consumption, restore biodiversity, and traditional ways of life, and undermine extractive economies, including capitalism, that erodes the ecological basis of our collective well-being. This requires a relocalization and democritization of primary production and consumption by building up local food systems, local clean energy, small-scale production, and part-sustainable economically and ecologically. This also means producing to live well without living better at the expense of others. The Just Transition retains culture and tradition. Capitalism has forced many communities to sacrifice the culture and tradition for economic survival. It is also defaced and destroyed land of the sacred. Just Transition must create inclusionary spaces for all traditions and cultures, recognize them as integral to the health and vibrant economy. It should also make reparations for land that has been stolen and or destroyed by capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, genocide, and slavery. A Just Transition bought a local, regional, national, and international solidarity. A Just Transition must be liberatory and transformative. The impact of the extractive economy, those dope words, we recognize they are connected to our communities as well as our issues. Therefore, our solutions call for local, regional, national, and global solidarity that confronts imperialism and militarism. Better, better. A Just Transition builds what we need now. We must build the world we need now. This may begin at a local, small scale and must expand to begin to displace extracted practices. We must build and flex the muscles needed to meet our communities' needs. Okay, those are the principles for a Just Transition. Now maybe we could get some starting language for the resolution in the House related to this piece. I suggest that we start with three points, a three-plonged resolution of the transportation process. I think I was hoping that we would start with equity part of it. And I was just talking with Barbara Lehmann, who was here earlier, in her nonprofit. She's focusing on important things. At the end, she said, if there is equity and inclusion on a leading edge, then climate change will be sucked along in the backdrop of that. And so, yeah. So I think we need to start with a sentence about all of us who are all in the same boat on this issue of climate change. So I don't know how to achieve that, but those are great thoughts. Let me just summarize what I think you said. And I think it's an important point. It gets to this question of justice. The justice agenda, the Just Transition agenda being one of the main drivers and one of the foundations for the Green New Deal. So what Elizabeth was talking about is that it could take equity and justice as the driver for this. The climate change issues will likely start to solve themselves. I mean, I think that's what I heard you say, but justice has got to be at the forefront of it because that's what's going to drive the change. Is that right? And I think it's partly, if we could include it as, it may be say something like climate change affects us all. Therefore, we realize that the foundational importance or something like that of equity and social equity, and you could add another word or whatever it is. I don't know, I'm so short on that. Society will know. And period, and then in the next sentence, go into the three prime facts. Well, we actually had an intervention from one of my climate starters. I'll let you say what you said. Another million important part of this is. Relativism. No. Yes. Relativism. Relativism. Oh. Relativism. Relativism. Relativism. Relativism. Relativism. So that would be the fourth prime. Relativism. Relativism. Maybe. Given that, Vermont doesn't get it. As big a military economy as some states are, but with the F-35s, should come into Brown and turn into nuclear missiles, possibly being in the face there. We could look at it. How would that money be spent better? Things that we want and need for the state of Vermont. So. So. So let me just read back, and then I'll comment. If equity and inclusion are the leading edge of the legislation, then climate change will start to solve. Climate change will sex us all. Therefore, we realize the foundational importance of social equity and justice. I would start with that last sentence and just forget all of the other stuff. So congrats. But I am, I am, made sure of sort of cutting. Which possibly needs to be watched. You've made it in such a few minutes. Okay, climate change affects us all. Therefore, we realize the foundational importance of social equity and justice. Yes. Okay. And did you have something you wanted to add? Yes. Climate change affects us all, but not, not equally. Your last question. Oh, sorry. Hi. So maybe we could add that climate change affects us all, but not affecting everyone equally. Like there's this part on page four of the federal greener deal resolution that says whereas climate change, pollution and environmental destruction have exacerbated systemic racial, regional, social, environmental, and economic injustices. But it's proportionately affecting, and it has a list of frontline and rural communities. So talking about that, how do you guys agree that the impacts are not equal? Right. I guess my thoughts are that we can maybe don't need to know that we're wrong, but starkly the fact. I mean, I think that there's something to be said remotely for getting people to understand that we're all in the same boat together, and that that's what we'll be able to launch without getting them to lose too much. And then we can bring that back up. You know, we don't care about that. Right now, I would say climate change affects us all, but the impacts are not equal. Therefore, we realize the foundational importance of social language. That would be great. I mean, that is that. That it sort of passes both ideas without it. Why? It will allow them to learn more about it. Okay, we've got to start. Back here. I did tell you. I think I could watch. She made the microphone. So we have that microphone in all these passages. Keep all the one out of the toilet. Yeah. Am I that close to you? Well, everybody needs to speak. Okay. Well, I wish everybody could speak in the microphone, but I can't yet. But that's basically why I raise my hand. If people could speak into it without speaking. I can't. I want to get what's going on. She wants people to speak into the microphone because she can't hear. So we're trying to get people to speak into the microphones. Watches away from them. I'll just turn them off when you're done. And turn them off when you're done, okay. Yeah, Alec? Speaking into a microphone, Brad will do it. I think the second line should be that Vermont has an outsized footprint comparatively because of this is our responsibility and moral duty to act swiftly in reducing our emissions. And then probably the third line for you would be beyond reducing our emissions. We need to, given this footprint with its already massive toss we've been posed on the lowest income parameters we need to work on programs to redistribute well actively. Very good. I'm pretty sure I have that. I think so. I mean, we're just talking at this point. We can pass it around for people. So what I got from that is Vermont has a comparatively large carbon, footprint and other areas. Yeah, and I would add the number there but I don't know it off the top of my head. Okay, add a number. I would just like to say that we're so low. I'm not into the footprint language. I actually think that there is an undue emphasis on individual, either individual or individual state carbon footprint analysis which all kinds of market engineering that responds to that kind of analysis. And it's also kind of socio-culturally, a kind of like insider buzz phrase. I would really like us to talk to more about the economy. You know, first, I mean, it's fine for that to be in there somewhere or for that to be the second article. I think we would lose a lot of people right there. Yes. Yeah. Well, I understand your concern about the term carbon footprint because I agree that that is a bit of an insider jargon. Most people wouldn't know what that is. But I think it is an important point. It's not the objection. Most people know it is. It's not the objection that's the insider jargon. The idea that our contribution needs to be about laundering the Vermont carbon footprint is that strategy. The Vermont carbon footprint could be a negative carbon footprint and we would be on our way to hell in a handbasket globally. We need to be really emphasizing regional, national, global solutions and not trying to be focused on Vermont's carbon footprint. I actually think that's a golden apple thrown off the trail and really is dangerous to us being able to exercise our most potential contribution which is leadership on a national scale. Not just this is how we do it here but actually moving and organizing on a regional scale beyond our political boundaries. All right. Okay, so I would like you, if that's your proposal, to suggest a different wording. Let's see if I, at least. Okay. Stay in the mic please. I would say that our economy and the features of our kids are facing, that's a better word for untenable, something like untenable challenges and we need to take this opportunity to unify and both try to prevent and prepare for the climate emergency as our number one community would have heard or something. And it's not just the economy. It's not just the economy but it's also the environment, I would say the environment, the economy and the future of our kids. I would just put economy first because it builds more common ground. Yeah, so. Yeah. Okay. Okay, let me just. I just got it down low, like lower, where would you be against that? I would defer it. So I didn't hear what you said. Because you just made it to the first floor. Let me just repeat what I got so far out of what I said. Vermont's economy, environment and the future for our children are facing untenable challenges. Turn it off. Turn it off if you want to use it, there, thank you. That's our soundbite stuff, you know what I mean? So you keep getting that wasn't soundbite? It's not feedback that's right. It's not feedback, it's something else. It's something that we're doing right now. But anyway, Vermont's economy, environment and the future for our children are facing untenable challenges. We need to play a leadership role in addressing these challenges. How's that? It works, but that's fine, we'll do that. We need to play a leadership role, but you had something you wanted to say about it. Maybe priorities, addressing the future. Or issues as maybe instead of untenable or unprecedented. Yeah, I believe I'm fine, I'm very happy with moving the Vermont's footprint down lower, but I still think it is important because, you know, when we're talking about a just transition and we're talking about who really needs to lead the way with emissions reductions, it's people, it's places like Vermont, places who have since, since we've been in certain development industry, admitted a huge footprint comparatively and well as not each individual that needs to act. I think it's part of the premise behind why the state of Vermont needs to be putting money into this. That's about it. I actually think that the information about Vermont being a higher user of carbon per capita, maybe that's a way to put it into the footprint. It's important information and it's a very important point in this case. So maybe that's the third sentence. So we could say Vermont per capita uses a higher level of carbon emissions to generate more carbon emissions than other states. And given this, it is imperative that Vermont act, or swiftly act to reduce its, to reduce. Actual immediately, curious. I'd like to say that I think this group of wordsmithing is a deadly process. I think we need to bring in storms and basic ideas and perhaps throw it to a committee to do the wordsmithing. We could do this for hours and not get through one point. Well, we are going to do it for hours. We're only going to do it for another 10 minutes. And so breaking up at this point is also not really possible. So we're going to keep with this discussion for now and then we'll pick it up. But the student strivers are going to be here in two. So let's make the fourth sentence about the four forms. Okay. To this end, or whenever you want to start it, or the four initiatives that, you know, four main art, the main initiatives are colonics. I also want to say that current science proposes that carbon sequestration through photosynthesis and photosynthesis might be our only possible solution. And in this aquarium culture, that's something that we have with our fingertips and we need to focus on it. Thank you. I'm kidding, this is the fourth one. So let me just read it back. Agriculture, transportation. Do you want to just say? I want to have some sequestration on this. One of the fourth one was agriculture, transportation, energy, and money and drink. Who are you talking about? I hear it, I hear it extra hard every day. Okay, back here. What about sustainable consumption? And you just bring it down to a personal, individual footprint, carbon footprint, and there should be STEM or STEAM education for adults because to say, you know, Europe is issuing carbon offsets for biochar production because it sequesters carbon and that's, you know, related to the chemistry and the soil and blah, blah, blah. And how can you expect young people to explain this to adults who don't have any background? So in Hartwick, we have a rage and the average age of ragers is 80 something years old and I'm proposing that we do STEAM for adults, you know. But yeah, the biochar, we just had a big gathering in Hartwick of people who are making, we have a waste reduction problem, you know, issue and sustainable consumption. I mean, this is my issue with the new cream deal is assuming that technology and growth forever more of 3%, we have reached our limits of growth a long time ago. It's beyond mitigation, you know. I mean, it's time to stop and I'm hoping, I've got the bread of Swedish. Yeah, bread of thunder. Is she speaking today? Or is it gonna be her tenure? Yeah, that's what I heard, you know, I got, well, what are they gonna play as a TED talk for TED talk and all? I don't think so. No, we're just, the student climate strike today is being done in over 70 countries in the world, hundreds of thousands of students walking out of their schools to join GREP in her efforts to draw attention to climate change. There was a front porch forum notice. Oh, yeah, bread of interiorism. Didn't have too many details. She's skipping school today, as we get pretty sure. Yeah. So let me just make sure, I got to point that first though. Sustainable consumption, we need to educate adults about their own personal, individual carbon emissions and the ways in which they're being driven. Our, our, this would be the area. We can introduce our own tax, but yeah, okay? Yeah. I'd like to push back on talking of using the word carbon. Obviously carbon is a massive problem here, but I think if we're going to do this with an emphasis on a just transition, we need to be thinking beyond carbon. Vermont is a ton of its power, farm, hydro, and Quebec, and that's displaced tons of indigenous people, yet that's like a renewable resource. So I think that. Yeah. The problem that, you know, we can't, we can't just be talking about carbon. So I think that I don't know what kind of language that would imply we use, but I think that we need to be conscious about not just pointing a finger at coal and oil and natural gas. Okay, so personal, individual carbon emissions and other harmful patterns of consumption. Green house gas. Or against the environment. Not just greenhouse gas, but maybe greenhouse gas is for the carbon, right? Yes. Henry, and then I find my hand up. Oh, she's got her hand up. Sorry. So I guess my question is, we're talking about the types of carbon or consumption, but I also want to talk about the quantity, the volume of consumption, because if we're just trying to replace renewable energy for, I mean, we've replaced oil for renewable energy so we can continue doing it at the amount that they're doing, I think that we're already overusing and over-consuming. So I'm hoping that that kind of language is in there and it's achievable. I mean, in our household, we live up, we're using 15% of the amount of energy that a similar household is using. And it's not that hard to do, and those technologies are out there, and I think that needs to be addressed. We need to use less, we can use less. We're in a consumption society, everybody wants everything to market today, and there's ways that we can work on that. Yeah, so the quantity and quality of consumption needs to be addressed at excellent points. I don't want to lose track of what I have. We need to put our hands up, and then Henry can band back here, and then, oh, okay. I want you to borrow my germs, but I'm afraid I'll get hurt. Yep. What's your name? Liam. Hi, Liam, welcome. We're happy to hear what you're about to say. Go ahead, buddy. So I have a few ideas of like, how we can like, like the North and South Pole from like, mountain, instead of using, like, we can like walk instead of like, drive, and we can also do a few things, and I mean, it will help our environment, just not stop in the North and South Pole from melting, we can use like, metal straws and reuse them and donate them, and paper straws so they can just recycle them. Great, great suggestions. So we're gonna try and stop the North and South Pole from melting by recycling and reducing our consumption, which is exactly what we're just talking about, and driving less and walking more. Great suggestions, thanks. We do want to hear from the students. Here goes. I'm gonna, yeah, I'm gonna ask this, the risk of sounding stupid or whatever, but the reason I think that nothing has changed is because the higher up, so the one people with the money, they don't want it to change. So what am I missing here? I mean, we've got how many, what percent, one percent that's got the money, that all the one, most of the money, and they don't, they don't want to change from, you know, gas or fossil fuels or whatever. It's money, it's more and more and more money. What about the other 99% of us? Where is the rest of this room that you'd be here, you know, how are we not reaching them? I mean, 70, how much? No, 99%. Great, well thank you. I don't understand how to reach the other, all the other people. Your investors should be changed. It's been going on for countless years. Your point is very important and that's actually why the fourth prime of what we're talking about for remarks is money and banking. Because the money and banking systems are what create the one percent. And so by changing the money and banking systems, we can change some of the drivers of both the inequity and the money and the inequality that we're seeing in our country and the climate change because that same monetary system drives the growth imperative, which is what makes everything want to grow, grow, grow, consume, consume, consume. We live on an infinite planet according to the people that advocate for unlimited growth. We can't keep pretending that that's the case. Now in terms of this group, hey Grace, welcome. This group is a multi-stakeholder group, a relatively small group. We weren't trying necessarily to fill this room today, it was just the room we had reserved. So we weren't necessarily recruiting hundreds of people to come. We were welcoming the students who came because we had a warm driver on a rainy day when they were planning a protest. But in terms of building a movement, the Sunrise Movement is working on that and that's what we've been when we were talking about before where the town meeting's coming up in April and the student climate strike is working on that. They have 70 countries and hundreds of thousands of students participating today. So there's a lot of different pieces to the puzzle and what we're trying to accomplish with this particular piece is to have a reasonable dialogue amongst people that don't necessarily always see INI. We had a very good discussion this morning partially because we didn't all agree on one particular thing. And so we'd love to encourage all of you that are here to continue to come to our meetings. If you have signed a sign sheet over here, you will get notices of the meetings and you can come. The next meeting will be in Littlebury. They have to be determined, place to be determined, but we will let you know. And the meeting after that was planning at UVM in Burlington. And then I believe we'll have a final, some kind of meeting here in our region because the type of government sufferman has agreed to meet with us and learn about what we've come up with as a group for a Vermont Green New Deal. Madam Chairman. Yes. Just quickly, I have to go to Dr. Supungen. I wanted to say about the article about individual consumption, et cetera. The research does not bear that out. We're talking about the 1% halves. That's what they want to hear. Oh yeah, don't talk to other people. Just eat the right things in your kitchen and just be quiet and it'll all go away. That is antithetical to a meaningful response to the emergency, all right? Individual consumer solutions could not be farther from effective and the research does prove that out. There's a global research project called Drawdown as well as a bunch of other research projects that are very clear. Only large industrial scale or larger responses to climate change on economic and other levels are going to be a meaningful response. So I'm really, I am opposed to there being the language of individual consumerism anywhere in the product for this group. Your objection is registered. Thank you. I'll see you guys in a little bit. Grace, and then I'll come back to you. Thank you. I know that other people have mentioned agriculture but I'm going to add another emphasis on that and that there are some very cheap and effective ways for us to begin to address the problem not just carbon but other greenhouse gases such as methane and especially nitrous oxide that are the main contributors of the food system in agriculture to climate change. And also that we can't, even if we stopped all carbon emissions tomorrow, we're still going to be able to de-do unless we also cool the climate by keeping the soil covered and building the soil carbon sponge which many of us have been learning and talking about in the past few years and very excited about the potential of not just saving the climate but also improving the quality of our food including the water. So I would really put a lot of emphasis on that but it would not be a big deal for us to think about some form of compensation for farmers and other land managers who could provide those kinds of ecosystem services that would improve things dramatically, much more quickly than any technological fix and much more easily than a big political battle over Green New Deal and more public expenditures, and so on and so forth. So that's my piece. Thanks. All right, I am going to note the time. It's now five after two. And I know I heard from a lot of people that to really support the students today they wanted to join them. Do you have something last for me? No, you should be last. Oh, sorry, that's right, I did say. It's kind of like Williams that I think that we should all, all like the people that are living I'm not telling any names because I think they should stop. Our earth is more warm, all the cold places, all the term went very hot and the animals like penguins they'll die because they need the cold to survive. One by one. So if we don't stop that then we're going to hurt animals and us too because we need the cold to, it's not like we're going to put more bears or penguins or anything like that. But we're kind of like animals too but we just don't look like them. Okay, thank you. So penguins and polar bears will die if it gets too hot. We'll hurt the animals and us too, we need the cold to. Is that it? Okay, thank you. And another one will come back in. Transplantation is the second leading source of greenhouse chemistry. You asked for a single gallon of gasoline to reduce the 20 gallons of CO2 but it doesn't help you though. If you get a yellow sheet, you're good. The statistic for the transportation is the second leading source of emissions in the U.S. a one-pound of CO2 for one gallon of fossil fuels. Is that what you said? Yes. Okay. Great. You wanted to say something close. Just like Araya said, if we make the planet too hot then a lot of animals would go extinct because a lot of animals would need the cold. A lot of countries would have a lot of trouble because a lot of countries are in the cold and once those countries don't have the cold they can't grow some crops that they need to grow in the cold and once they can't do that some of those countries will just be gone. Food production in the climate change world Thank you. Okay. Can we? I think we've arrived at the moment that you're going to go listen to the students. Oh, so many people. Conversation. I walked out today to show everyone in the state house that I will not tolerate climate action without the children of the future will not have to. This planet will wait for no one including us. If we want to make a difference in a climate issue of global concern we have no time left to wait another year. We are almost halfway through this session and although there have been many bills introduced I have seen no leap of faith in a plan of passing a bold climate change solution this year. The Speaker of the House has said the House doesn't have time for a carbon tax. What do they have time for then? We the youth are ready to see the solution for this climate crisis because doing nothing is not an option. I know leaders in the House and Senate this issue is real and pressing but we are looking for an active plan that has purpose and intention to make a vast difference. Be it your way or my way the youth of Vermont are here to make sure our clean planet is well on its way. This is Max Sabo. I go to U-32 high school and I am also a member of the Vermont Youth Lobby. I wanted to just say how amazing it is to see such a great turnout. Thank you all for coming today. I will be honest I had previously planned on talking about just some exciting climate action stuff that I would just see and I wanted to talk about because this stuff is going to be coming in the near future. But then I read the Vermont House Democrats claim for the rest of the session and I was shocked to see that in their top five priorities although all very important, very important things climate change was not on the list. I would expect that to be a six bullet point and actually be at the top. In fact, I couldn't find climate change anywhere on the newly published website. This stands out to me because it shows that my representatives don't care about climate change. We already are many years late in addressing this very important issue and now it appears that we're about to throw away another year. I am so grateful to be standing alongside of Deanna Gonzalez there who happens to be a co-sponsor of H-477 Vermont Equity and Infrastructure Act. Now that is the type of climate legislation that we at the youth lobby support. It is bold. It hits many crucial attack points for addressing climate issues in Vermont. And yet it's being taken up so late in this process that it won't even be acted on this session. So it is essential that we take opportunities like today since we have taken time out of their day to protest climate inaction because these are the times where we can show our elected officials what we want to see from them in office. We need to show them that we want bold and comprehensive climate legislation and that we will elect those who will give that to us. And then from that point we need to hold our elected officials accountable for following through on passing this legislation. No more waiting. We've waited long enough and we're not going to throw away another year. Thank you. I'm also a member of the Vermont Youth Lobby. I've also seen you this year and I think that's pretty scary looking at that especially for a bunch of youth. It's quite possibly all the decisions I'm going to make are going to affect me for the rest of my life. Hopefully for the better. And I think that's what working in this building is like. You're making decisions for Vermonters that will quite possibly affect them for the rest of their life. Hopefully for the better. But that's their job. It's their job to have Vermont's best interests at heart and always in mind. It's their job to make big decisions that will make our state better in the long run and not just at this moment. It's their job and I'm here because I don't think the policy makers are doing their jobs to their full potential. Especially when talking about climate change. Vermont has the potential to be the leader in America in terms of going green and we simply aren't doing enough. The biggest thing Vermont needs to be doing right now is distancing ourselves from fossil fuels. Vermont has received 18.7 million dollars from Volkswagen. The money comes from what was supposed to be clean diesel. It wasn't. They lied to us about how clean their diesel really was. This money needs to be put towards transportation instead of going back to the same diesel eating buses that we've been using for years. It's a simple change that wouldn't affect Vermonters tax money at all. We have and we simply aren't doing anything with it. And if you don't find that ridiculous I don't know what you will. The policy makers aren't doing enough. They aren't doing what we elected them to do and if hundreds of kids skipping school and standing in your offices doesn't tell you that I don't know what will. The beautiful sights. Standing here with all of you thank you so much for being here today for saying we need solutions to the climate change. We need to be able to have smart policies that benefit all of us. Right now we have so much money going out of states for fossil fuels that are poisoning our planet. That are impacting in negative ways our health in the short and long term. I'm a lead sponsor on H477 Equity and Infrastructure Act that for a very small amount of money over the course of 10 years would put 1.6 billion dollars into the economy. Statutory and Paris Accords levels would reduce our carbon emissions and be a leader for the nation. This is the inequity of living the inequity of poverty and by putting money into the pockets of folks that don't have that much we benefit all of us. We're able to weatherize our homes our schools and municipalities. We not only reduce our carbon pollution we also reduce our negative health impacts we increase our comfort and we reduce our taxes because less money heating outside is better for all of us. Billing in dollars we are able to increase our electrification. We are able to have electric vehicles incentives electric vehicle charging stations high energy heat pumps high efficiency heat pumps and other ways that we can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels keep that money in Vermont and impact climate change. This is a bill that while one can say it's bold it's the boldness that we need it also is very small it's a very small money at the pump and it has a huge impact. And so I really want to encourage you all to look at this particular policy there are other policies as well that we can support and see what we can accomplish because getting the gas prices to what they were last November is not that significant a huge amount of money coming back into Vermont a huge amount of possibility of addressing our statutory requirements and reducing our carbon emissions. Thank you all so much for being here. Thank you so much for standing up for all of us. This room is heating in an alarming way. Hey everyone, I'm Gabe Groveman I'm a freshman at MHS and I'd like to start off thanking everyone who left school early to come out here today. Just by being here you're showing all the legislators in this building that we do care about these issues that will fight for these issues and that even though all of us will pay if we're doing far too little on climate young people like us will be the ones who will bear the burden the most. Now I'm sure all of you know our climate is changing every year we see hurricane after hurricane in the Caribbean droughts and wildfires in California but the question is how much longer will the list have to get for us to finally take action and do something because the cost of doing nothing will only get greater not only in hard economic terms but in quality of life, public health the diversity of life on this planet and the diversity of life on this planet these costs will ultimately be born mostly on our generation who didn't create this problem but will no doubt be the ones to deal with it. There was a report a few months ago about climate change that showed that if we don't start at least we don't start with this try to seriously reduce carbon emissions there will be a catastrophic damage to an environment by the year 2030 that's only 11 years and our government isn't helping another report followed by oil change international exposed that on average the government spends over 20 billion dollars on fossil fuel subsidies just imagine the amount of work we could do we give to gas and oil companies if we work together by creating by taking climate change seriously and pass some comprehensive climate legislation and maybe we can save our climate right now we have the power to change our future we have the power to fight this and if after today nothing happens if after today we continue to pollute our atmosphere and destroy our land and at least I can say I made an effort but if in 50 years the earth is still standing and everyone here can say that we did do something we made a difference we were able to come together as a united front and say enough is enough and decided to recognize climate change as a threat it is yet while us being here is a substantial step forward the power still lies in the hands of the policy makers to make it happen my hope is that this push from youth across the globe will be the push needed to wake people up and create meaningful change for our future because if we don't do something then who will