Youth activists in Vermont take on
climate change
September 2, 2007
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Earlier this year, Ivan Jacobs was washing dishes at
Burlington's Blue Star Café and enjoying the regular buzz of free coffee. And
then one day he noticed the yellow signs posted on telephone poles around the
neighborhood.
"They said, 'Jobs for the environment,'" Jacobs recalled. "And I
said to myself, 'Well, I like the environment.'"
And so the 20-year-old took one of those jobs. He began work as a youth
canvasser in May for the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, a
Montpelier-based advocacy organization, and spent his spring and summer going
door-to-door in towns around the state to talk with residents about the hot
political issue of 2007: Global warming.
The VPIRG position took the self-described punk skateboarder from his
Burlington neighborhood to the side streets of Barre and the legislative halls
of Montpelier's Statehouse in July as he watched lawmakers unsuccessfully try
to muster the votes to overcome Gov. James Douglas' veto of a major global
warming bill spearheaded by Senate Democrats.
"I remember being much younger and being able to walk out on two-foot
thick frozen ice in the Burlington Harbor," Jacobs said. "I haven't
seen it frozen like that in years and it really shows how global warming is not
just a global issue, but also a Vermont issue."
Jacobs' political awareness predates the VPIRG job. When he was 13, he borrowed
a video camera from Channel 17 and began making short skateboarding films of
himself and friends in Burlington. That first foray into film landed the
Burlington native a job three years later with the community television station
filming municipal meetings. Jacobs videotaped – and daydreamed and occasionally
slept through – meetings of the local school board, city council and
development review board.
Jacobs was typically the only member in the audience at those meetings. And he
generally thought they were boring, until one day it hit him that the officials
were talking about issues that mattered to him, his friends, neighbors and
family.
"I realized that real work went on during these meetings," he said.
"They were making important decisions and sometimes it seemed like no one
noticed and no one was giving them input. The system just doesn't work well
under those conditions."
'It's our planet'
The threat of environmental destruction on a global scale has became a rallying
cause for many Americans and environmentalists in the last decade, although it
has only been in the last several years that it took center stage as a
mainstream political issue.
Young people, in particular, have been drawn to the issue of global warming,
even though typically it's a demographic that tends not to vote, read
newspapers or become involved in local politics.
Vermont activists say global warming may be drawing young people into politics
and social activism; the next generation of political leaders appears to be
cutting its teeth on saving the environment.
"It's definitely an issue that young people care about right now,"
said Chris Parmer, a Burlington high school student who founded the Vermont
Youth Activism Network, a coalition for activist groups in the state's public
school system. "It's our planet and many of us think it is vital to work
to save it."
Across the state, global warming groups have popped up in high schools and on
college campuses, Parmer said. People his age are learning about state and
national politics through the prism of global warming, he said.
He believes teenagers began to pay more attention to politics after President
Bush opposed major global warming initiatives, including the Kyoto Treaty. Here
in Vermont, Douglas' veto of H.520 – the Democrats' major global warming bill –
had the same effect, he said.
"The threat of global warming resonates because we can see and feel its
effects," Parmer explained. "This isn't an abstract political issue.
It's very real."
Looking for leadership
Moriah Helms has learned to love canvassing.
The 21-year-old Ryegate native, now a senior at Middlebury College, began
working for VPIRG in 2005, going door-to-door in Vermont towns she had never
visited and talking to complete strangers about global warming.
Her work with VPIRG continued for the next two years, culminating in her job
this year as a director at the organization's Burlington office.
"I love getting out to meet people, Helms said, "some of whom I would
probably never end up talking to. This has really given me a new respect for
the state of Vermont."
Canvassing typically works like this: A van drops several young activists off
in a town. They have bikes and maps detailing their routes. And door-by-door,
they try to cover as many neighborhoods as possible.
On average, they chat with dozens and dozens of people over several hours.
They'll work an area five days a week.
Helms says global warming has become a focal point for Vermont's youth. At
Middlebury, which has a long history of social activism, an unofficial student
group formed to combat climate change, she said, and is moving faster on
projects (even though it has no budget) than the college's official environmental
council.
She thinks climate change has become a cause for young people because they can
see the effects on the climate and the state's natural beauty. But it has also
taken hold because small acts – switching to energy efficient light bulbs,
driving less and reducing energy consumption – are easy to achieve and
empowering.
"At the same time, we are looking to our leaders for help and
guidance," she said. "And in some ways that is what we were doing out
there … showing the leadership in Vermont that this is what the people want
done."
'People agreed with us'
Anika James, 19, saw firsthand the vastly different attitude that Europeans
have toward global warming.
James of Shelburne spent two years as a student at the United World College in
Italy, where she studied how education can lead to peace and mutual
understanding. It isn't unusual to find Europeans who are well-versed in
climate change and to see cars that get 40 miles to the gallon, she said.
James, who will be going to Middlebury College this month as a freshman, said,
"They invest in their public transportation system and when they do drive,
they use smaller cars rather than SUVs."
When James came back to Vermont earlier this year, she applied what she learned
in Italy as one of VPIRG's canvassers. It was a frightening prospect for her at
first.
"I like talking to people, but I wasn't really sure if I could walk up to
someone's house, knock on their door and talk to a complete stranger."
But it was easier than she thought. Some people didn't walk to talk. Some were
too busy. Others agreed with her and VPIRG's position on climate change and
were eager to chat statistics and solutions. And then there were the ones who
disagreed.
"The people who didn't believe that we contribute to global warming, they
wanted to talk about the issue," she said. "But more often than not,
people agreed with us."
James agreed that the looming consequences of climate change are bringing more
young people into the political process.
She also thinks that former Vice President Al Gore's 2006 documentary about
climate change, "An Inconvenient Truth," helped bring the issue into
the mainstream. Many young people her age saw the film, she said, and were
struck by the immediacy of the problem.
"When that film came out, people really paid attention," she said.
"It explained climate change in a way that people understood it."
50 percent by 2028
VPIRG's youth workers took their message straight to Douglas on the morning of
Thursday, Aug. 23.
The meeting came more than a month after canvassers walked away from the
Statehouse disappointed that their efforts to rally public support around the
Democrats' global warming bill did not result in an override of the governor's
veto.
For some of the canvassers, the July 11 veto session was their first visit to
the Statehouse and their first time seeing Vermont's citizen Legislature at
work. During this first meeting between the state's youth activists and
Montpelier's political power base, hundreds flocked to the Statehouse and a person
in a polar bear costume stalked its historic halls.
"Several people told me that hadn't seen that many people there since the
civil union debate," said Jacobs. "I think we were disappointed in
the outcome, but warmed by the turnout."
Supporters knew that the Vermont Senate would easily override the veto, but
that the efforts in the Vermont House would fall short, James said.
"I think we made a difference by our presence," she said. "That
was the message."
That day, Helms said she realized that global warming was an issue that could
no longer be ignored by politicians.
"Vermonters care about this," she said. "That couldn't be
denied."
Several of the young activists arrived unannounced at Douglas' ceremonial
office in the Statehouse late that morning to present a petition signed by
5,000 Vermonters urging him to keep his commitment to the issue.
They cited Douglas' 2005 declaration that he would cut the state's greenhouse
gas emissions by 50 percent by 2028. Meanwhile, his Commission on Climate Change
is expected to report back in October on ways to achieve this goal.
"We didn't want him to flip-flop on that promise," Helms said.
Douglas was in a meeting when they arrived. They gave the petition to a member
of his staff, and moments later, the governor walked out of his office.
The young activists said hello. And then they asked him to stick to his
promise.
"He told us he would listen to the report from the committee," James
said.
From Burlington to the Everglades
When Jacobs was reached on his cell phone for an interview for this story
earlier this month, he was in Boston at a training session for the U.S. Public
Interest Research Group, the national arm of VPIRG.
Days later, he was in Florida, meeting with other PIRG workers and learning about
an effort to conserve part of the Florida Everglades from development.
"The major reason I'm doing this is because I love canvassing," said
Jacobs. "I like getting out there and talking to people."
Jacobs hopes to return to Vermont next summer after working on national
environmental issues. The traveling has taught him to appreciate Vermont more.
He said he now recognizes how vital the state's town meeting system is, after
visiting communities that don't have that traditional outlet for democratic decision-making.
"Real decisions are made at these meetings," he said. "Neighbors
sit next to neighbors and debate the issues that are important to the town.
That's an amazing thing."
Jacobs is not sure what he'll do in the future. He likes the work with the
national PIRG organization. But he also wants to return to Vermont and perhaps
study farming and the concerns around the distance between a person's plate and
the origins of their food.
If that doesn't satisfy him, he might return to skateboarding videos.
"I still skateboard," he said, with a laugh. "It's still a
really cool thing I like to do."
Contact Daniel Barlow at [email protected].