At the July 26 meeting of the Vermont Climate Council, member Richard Cowart raised what he admitted might be “a thorny question.” Thorny or not, it was a very good one. It illustrates very clearly how government interventions in the free market, using carrots and sticks to influence people’s behavior in singular, predetermined ways can lead to disastrous conclusions.

Anyone with an interest in climate science, and especially anyone interested in what happens to that science on its tortuous path to the policy makers and the general public, seriously needs to get acquainted with Stephen E. Koonin.

Annette Smith, Executive Director of Vermonters for a Clean Environment, gave some harsh testimony to the Science and Data Subcommittee of the Vermont Climate Council Meeting on July 21. The Subcommittee was discussing how to calculate “economic analysis of the costs and benefits the costs of climate action” including the health impacts of various policies. The health costs of climate action are frequently brushed under the rug, as the health benefits are talked up.

Everybody from President Biden down to Gov. Scott is busy promoting electric cars as the major means of cutting down the 43% of Carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector. California wants all cars on the road to be electric by 2035.

During the July 8^th meeting of the Vermont Climate Council’s Cross-Sector Mitigation Committee, the group started to delve into some of the details of what “the plan” to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions might actually look like. In a nutshell, how you drive, heat your home, and heat your water are going to have to change. Needless to say, subsidizing multiple tens of thousands of Vermonters into electric vehicles, weatherizing many thousands of homes, and switching out existing heating systems for many more will cost a mountain of money.

During their July 1 meeting, the Climate Council’s Just Transitions subcommittee spent some time debating what role individual responsibility should play in the plan that will ultimately put forward in December 2021. Their discussion point noted, “the majority of work needed to in Vermont to reach our GHG emission goals will require changes by individuals (how we get around; how we stay warm and keep cool)….”

The debate over Critical Race Theory in Vermont has largely focused on education, policing, and with Covid, healthcare. But, in case you missed it (and judging by the very small number of YouTube views, you have) it is the dominant lens through which the Vermont Climate Council is approaching its mission of greenhouse gas reduction.

The Vermont Council on Rural Development has released a first draft of “the Vermont Proposition”, a vision for Vermont’s future. Imagine what you would get if you assembled a dozen of the most high-minded, most sincere, most politically correct liberals in the state, who as liberals are not at all hesitant to use the power of government to make sure everyone falls in line with the grand Vision. You would expect them to produce something very much like the Vermont Proposition.

When the Georgetown Climate Center released its final proposal for the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) last December, it was a bit of a fizzle for advocates of the de facto regional Carbon Tax scheme as only three of the thirteen (plus D.C.) negotiating states agreed to sign on: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Now there are two.

Here’s the latest on the climate change battlefront. Guy Page of the Vermont Daily reported last week that “The Vermont chapter of the Sierra Club is standing with the national Sierra Club petition to the Biden administration to regulate dairy farms of 500 or more cows under the Clean Air Act, due to air pollution and climate concerns. If approved, the regulations would affect about 30 Vermont farms, at least to start with.”