The coronavirus pandemic alerts us to the depths of our complacency over destructive viruses for which we have no treatment. There are treatments, but official medicine has driven them out of sight. Now we need to put them to the test. One benefit from the pandemic is that senseless regulations are getting brushed aside, and another is that Vermont’s civil society has stepped up to aid the afflicted.

Proposal 9 declares that the people have a right to a clean environment and gives the green light to the Conservation Law Foundation to sue to get it. The state’s natural resources, it states, are “the common property of all the people”. Here comes the feudal King, and there goes  243 years of freehold and liberty.

On its 50th anniversary Vermont’s Act 250 is being updated to propel the people of the state into the new era of menacing climate change. The new bill tightens the regulatory grip over rural areas, expands the jurisdictional threshold, creates a three-person Super Board, and even requires applicants to assure “environmental justice”, whatever that may mean.