Issue Position: Climate Change and Energy

Issue Position

Climate change is a real and present danger. It is not coming, it is here, and it is already loading us with enormous environmental and public health costs--including an estimated 200,000 annual deaths in the US from fossil fuel emissions, and the billions spent rebuilding after each "record-setting" hurricane.

In the face of this reality, we must act. Vermont has a plan--the Comprehensive Energy Plan--that established our 90% renewable energy by 2050 goal. We can and must shift as rapidly as possible away from carbon-based (fossil) fuels that now produce "dirty" electricity, transportation, and heat.

This may sound like grim news to some readers -- but pause and consider: Do you actually like fossil fuels? Not likely. You probably actually want the electricity, transportation, and heat you get from fossil fuels.

Vermont produces no fossil fuels, so when we rely on them, we have to buy them from out-of-state and out-of-country--exporting $1.5 billion dollars each year. Herein lies a great opportunity: rather than import this energy, we can produce it locally.

Vermont's clean and healthy energy future is electric -- and the reason is simple: we know today how to generate electricity renewably, using wind, solar, hydro, and biomass. And using this locally-generated energy we can deliver not only the electricity we need, but also the transportation and heat we rely on.

We also need to maintain our efforts to reduce energy consumption by continuing our work in conservation, weatherization, and efficiency.

Taken together -- electricity, transportation, heat, and efficiency -- creates Vermont's CLEAN ENERGY ECONOMY, which is one of the largest economic opportunities for our state. Clean energy is already the fastest growing sector of our economy, and 18,800 Vermonters make all or some of their living in it, often earning a good wage; while the media wage in Vermont pays $21/hour, solar jobs, for example, are paying an average of $27/hour.

There is much more room for growth as we expand from replacing dirty electricity with clean, and then increasingly use that clean electricity for transportation (with electric vehicles that run on electricity that's the equivalent of gas costing 80¢--$1.50/gallon); for heat (with electric heat pumps that are three times as efficient as oil-fired boilers); and all while reducing our needs through additional conservation and efficiency work.

None of this work is exported -- it requires activity here, in Vermont, town by town, building by building, and vehicle by vehicle. And when we building this clean energy economy, we are building a stronger, healthier Vermont.

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