April 27, 2010
The Burlington Legacy Project began in the year 2000; this video is an update on where the community stands today, after the tenth year of the project.
The purpose of this video is to get the Burlington Community’s input on two questions:
1. What do you value most about Burlington?
2. What would you like too see for Burlingtons future in 2030?
Host) Vermont’s congressional delegation has entered the debate in Washington about how to respond to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Tuesday, 05/25/10 5:49pm and Wednesday, 05/26/10 6:34amRoss Sneyd – Colchester, VT
As VPR’s Ross Sneyd reports, the delegation is critical of BP’s response to the spill.
(Sneyd) Senator Bernie Sanders says BP should be held responsible for all the costs of the disaster.
He says that includes paying to stop the oil gusher, clean it up, and get the fishing industry back in business.
In Sanders’ view, the government should remove the cap on damages that BP could face.
Green Mountain Power, which transmits, distributes and sells electricity, has filed with state regulators for permission to build a second wind generating plant, up to 63MW, in Lowell, Vermont.
The $150 million investment in the Northeast Kingdom will provide jobs and economic benefits, in addition to increasing the state’s renewable energy generation. Green Mountain Power, Vermont Electric and VELCO are working together on the project to provide customers of the two distribution utilities stably priced, renewable energy, Green Mountain Power said.
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/4153912
Ingrid Peritz
Franklin, Vt. — From Saturday’s Globe and Mail Published on Friday, May. 21, 2010 9:51PM EDT Last updated on Friday, May. 21, 2010 10:03PM EDT
Few spots on the Canada-U.S. border would seem as tranquil as Morses Line. Cows vastly outnumber cars. You’re more likely to hear the sounds of songbirds than an idling 18-wheeler.
Yet it’s here, on a rustling meadow seeded with clover and alfalfa just steps from the border with Quebec, that the Department of Homeland Security envisions a modern new border station to bolster security on its northern frontier. That is, unless dairy farmer Clement Rainville gets his way.
“ They say they want to reinforce the border here. But we’re not at war. ”— Clement Rainville
In a David-and-Goliath standoff, Mr. Rainville and his family are resisting demands to hand over 4.9 acres of their farmland to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, arguing that it’s crucial to the operation of their third-generation family farm.
May 14, 2010 — This Crankie show was made by artists who attended the 3rd annual
Conservation Congress in Bristol, VT sponsored by ACORN and Vermont Family
Forests. Discussion was focused on what steps could me made to
immediately most effectively move our community toward ‘Transition Town’,
and those essential steps were then illustrated as a vision of what that
would look like. Others have seen the show and were asked to help develop
it as a community project. There were a total of about two hundred people
involved in illustrating Pete Sutherland’s song “Nothing But Wisdom”. Some
of the first drawings were made by Monkton Maples 4-H teens and some by
artists in Greensboro, Vermont at Wonder and Wisdom after-school program.
The show was completed on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, April 22,
2010.
2009, the first central Vermont Villagebuilding Convergence was held in the greater Montpelier area, a celebration of sustainable living, practical homesteading skills, and resilient local community. A small group of volunteers manifested their vision into 9 days of free events that included 37 workshops and celebrations. Those who had skills to share joined hands with those who were ready to learn new relationships with economy, ecology, and community.
By DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press Bureau – Published: May 19, 2010
MONTPELIER – An independent Vermont news site will get a boost from a $25,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
VtDigger.com, an on-line news site launched last year by a former Times Argus editor, was one of nine independent and community journalism projects to receive funding from the foundation.
The funds – $17,000 in the first year and then an additional $8,000 in the second year if matching funds are found – will allow the website to create what it calls Tipster, an on-line program that will allow readers and reporters to collaborate on news gathering.
http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100519/NEWS02/5190315/1003/NEWS02
#mce_temp_url#
by Tena Starr on April 26, 2010
MIDDLEBURY — Middlebury Police Chief Tom Hanley is a burly man who plays guitar, cracks jokes and talks loud. He’s also instituted a policing policy in his town that many at the Vermont State Conference on Migrant Farmworkers think should be emulated statewide.
Essentially, Hanley is aware of undocumented farm workers in or around Middlebury, but he’s not interested in their status. That, he says, is largely because concerning himself with their citizenship would be counterproductive to his real job, which is good policing – catching bad guys and keeping the community safe and peaceful.
full article – http://vtdigger.org/2010/04/26/local-police-advocates-work-to-protect-vermonts-mexican-migrant-workers-from-harassment/
KEENE VALLEY, NY — May 18, 2010 — The Nature Conservancy’s Adirondack and Vermont Chapters today released “Climate Change in the Champlain Basin: What natural resource managers can expect and do,” one of the first efforts in North America to assess climate change on a watershed scale and offer adaptation strategies.
Climate change is no longer just a philosophical or future threat. It’s a reality in the Champlain Basin, as the 42-page, peer-reviewed report outlines with a complete set of weather records from the United States Historical Climatology Network. Some changes that have already taken place in the Champlain Basin are:
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northamerica/states/newyork/press/press4516.html
Tuesday, May 11th – VT Digger
Contact Kevin O’Holleran
(802) 478-0858 – office
(312) 804-3825 – mobile
Matt Dunne Requests All Gubernatorial Candidates Submit Personal Financial Disclosures by May 17
Sends Letter with Personal Financial Disclosure Form to Each Gubernatorial Candidate
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION – Democratic candidate for Governor Matt Dunne called on all candidates running for Governor to fill out and complete the personal financial disclosure form required in Congress by May 17th.
“In order for us build a higher level of trust between Vermont’s government and its citizens, we should provide as much transparency in government as possible,” Dunne said.
Submitted by Rob Williams on Mon, 04/26/2010 – VT Commons
2010: a few decades into the Green Dream. Sometime in the latter half of the 20th century, upwardly mobile, socially conscious, academically educated professionals – those who could afford to – began to drive the commercialization of products and services that were healthier, less cruel, and more conserving of natural and cultural resources. The intent behind this movement was, and is, well-meaning….
Thus, despite these movements, the scope of human destruction continues to rapidly expand into the 21st century with:
• Greenhouse emissions of nations ratifying the Kyoto Protocol still on the rapid increase;
• Tropical rainforest deforestation accelerating;
• Nuclear-waste production increasing;
• Species extinction accelerating;
• Climate changes happening faster than at any other time in human history;
• Resource-related warfare on the rise, with concomitant waste in money, energy, and lives;
• Overall biospheric toxicity increasing faster than any other time in the Holocene Period, and probably for quite some time previous.
Exodus from consumer society
Sometime in the 21st century the systems that had concentrated wealth in the hands of the few – the same systems that had become the most dominant social-organizing systems on the planet – began to disintegrate. A few generations of accumulating instability from the system’s sheer scale and depth of injustice finally overwhelmed its capacity to contain its own fallout.
What if the same cultural process that stimulated the social-justice and green causes coalesced into a massive force and began to replace a consumer society with a society of producers based in decentralized, egalitarian, human-scaled, smaller units of organization?
This shift is beginning to happen, starting from the home scale and working outward, to the neighborhood, village, city, and region. It’s what the Transition Town movement represents…..
Ask yourself what actions you can take to harness this transition away from a consumer society that belittles your own humanity to an organizing force that fosters individual empowerment
full article – http://www.vtcommons.org/journal/2010/04/ben-falk-homestead-security-when-ecofads-fade-ditch-carbon-footprint-calculator-and-
Woodworkers Symposium and Trade Show
May 21-22, 2010
St. Johnsbury Academy
The Vermont Woodnet Organization hosts the most important conference and trade show for the woodworking industry in Vermont. You can’t afford to miss this show. The Woodworkers Symposium & Trade Show is a vital part of the networking, sales and marketing strategy of successful and up and coming woodworkers.
The Potential Food Scrap Generation Map illustrates the estimated food scraps generated by town. The information for this map came from a project to provide information to support statewide composting efforts and to help in determining the feasibility of building a methane digester at Vermont Technical College.
http://vtdigger.org/2010/05/10/vermont-food-scraps-compost-and-power-source/
May 9, 2010 – Elizabeth Howes
On the topic of closing small schools in rural communities:
I think that those individuals that are looking to close schools in the interest of saving a little money are taking a very short-term view. Schools in rural communities are often the center of the community, even for those who do not have children attending.
As these small-town schools close, the breakdown in community that has already begun in Vermont will become even worse. People who were helped out by neighbors previously will not even know their neighbors. Small crises instead of being dealt with by the community, will require professional services, paid for by your tax dollars.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20100509/OPINION02/5090330/1037/OPINION02
Saturday May 8, 2010
BRATTLEBORO — Greenpeace activists crashed Entergy’s annual shareholder meeting Friday in Jackson, Miss., demanding the company halt its efforts to seek the continued operations of the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant…
The company has maintained its position that Vermont Yankee is a reliable, clean source of power for the future of the state, as well as an employer of more than 60 people.
VT 4 Evolution 