VSP Update

[plumb....@gmail.com]

Agency of Natural Resources Secretary Deborah Markowitz will be interviewed on VPR’s Vermont Edition today at noon regarding the ANR release of their Earth Day environmental indicators report. I have posted some questions on the VPR web site and hope that you will also. The questions are copied below. It will be interesting to listen to find out if she responds to any of the questions.

The link to the web site is: http://www.vpr.net/episode/53461/report-assesses-vermonts-environmental-health/

 

This Friday I will be giving a talk on “How Large Should Vermont’s Population Be? For Sustainability? For Quality of Life.” No one has ever given a talk on this subject before and it will be fun. It will be at Middlebury College from 12:30 to 1:30. The talk will be in the Orchard Room (classroom on the first floor) of The Franklin Environmental Center in Hillcrest. If you live in the area I hope you will come.

 

Cheers and please take a couple of minutes to post a question!

George
True sustainability will only be achieved with population stabilization.
www.vspop.org
http://groups.google.com/group/vermonters-for-sustainable-population

 

I have several questions.  I realize it would not be fair to ask so many questions from one person but I hope that Secretary Markowitz will at least answer these questions on this web page so everyone can see her responses.

 

One of the main findings as stated in your Earth Day commentary is that, “What we learned from this report is: In nature, as in life, everything is connected.”  Environmental and spiritual leaders and writers have been saying this for decades if not centuries. Why is this a major finding? What do you propose to do with this finding?

 

Certainly the most important connection is the connection of the human species to the environment. Everyone one of our environmental problems, from the inability to clean up Lake Champlain, despite spending tens of millions of dollars, to global warming and the sixth great extinction is caused by population growth. However, most environmental leaders refuse to acknowledge the true cause and instead just try to treat the symptoms by proposing better regulations and/or planning. Yet, these “solutions” only result in a compromise to actually pollute and the environment just continues deteriorating albeit more slowly. What does this report say about population growth?

 

Jet plane travel causes approximately 8% of our carbon emissions and is due to grow significantly in coming years. However, environmental leaders rarely if ever mention this as a way that we could easily reduce our carbon emissions. Do you think that 8% is insignificant or are there other reasons that this is not focused on?

 

It is very important that environmental leaders publicly demonstrate their commitment to living more sustainably. There are different definitions of “sustainable” but the one that is probably most accurate is “living in a manner that future generations can meet their needs.”  With an ecological footprint of at least twelve acres and requiring at least one and a half Earths we are certainly not living sustainably now. Several prominent Vermont leaders including Bill McKibben, have taken the strongest pledge to live more sustainably that is found on Google. (www.vspop.org). Why have you not taken the pledge? Please give some examples of what you are doing to live more sustainably. How about electric vehicles? Are these really a viable option?

 

ANR is to be congratulated on renewing the publication of this report. Tracking environmental trends, addressing their causes, and proposing viable solutions is extremely important. However, the interview is being conducted before the public has had an opportunity to read the report. I hope that VPR will do another interview in a few weeks and balance it with a non-governmental environmental expert who would have other ideas about the findings of this report.

 

The 2011 Vermont Environmental Trends: The Population Connection report (www.vspop.org) was the first comprehensive environmental report published since 2003. It is also probably a more meaningful report because it makes statements that a politically sensitive government agency cannot make. Why did VPR do an interview on the ANR report but not the Vermonters for Sustainable Population report?

 

 

 

 

 

[Sonia Plumb]

Good luck, Dad! Sounds interesting.

Sonia

---

From: "plumb....@gmail.com" <plumb....@gmail.com>
To: VSP Email List <vermonters-for-sus...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Mon, April 23, 2012 9:01:55 AM
Subject: VSP Update

[plumb....@gmail.com]

According to the organizer of my talk at Middlebury College, “The lecture was wonderful and I’ve heard lots of positive feedback.”

About twenty students attended which I thought was good seeing as it was not a regular class.

 

We now have two good programs for community presentation which we have never had before, my talk and the movie Hooked on Growth which will be reduced to forty-five minutes by the end of May

 

My forty slide power point talk takes about an hour with a few minutes for two Q&A sessions. The title of the talk is How Large Should Vermont’s Population Be? For Sustainability? For Quality of Life? Although this question was essentially asked in 1973 by David VanVleck who was actually a biology professor at Middlebury in the Population Policy Report published by the VNRC to the best of my knowledge it has never been answered.

 

Well, my answer is that for long term sustainability about two-thirds of what it is now. That is based on the fact that the population was about half of what it is now when we didn’t have cheap fossil fuels to important almost 100% of our food and material goods as we do today. While, renewable energy can make up for some of that it is not the silver bullet, and of course our consumption levels are much higher than they were then. And for quality of life probably most Vermonters would say not much larger than it is now although admittedly that is debatable. What do you think the answers should be?

 

If you would like to view my power point talk I will be happy to send it to you and the slides do have my talking points so you will be able to understand what each slide is about.If you would like me to present either of the programs in your community let me know.

 

And the current issue of the Sierra magazine has a brief piece connecting over-population with climate warming, a connection not too often made in the conservation literature. That is encouraging.

 

Hope to see you at today’s May 1st People’s Rally rally at the State House and/or Saturday’s Connect the Dots gathering in Waitsfield.

[Phil Dodd]

Thanks for the update.

By the way, does in make any sense to have an VSP gathering in the next month or two? A legislative study committee will be looking at driver’s licenses for illegals starting this summer. Not sure if anyone will want to get involved, but maybe we should talk about it, or maybe you have other topics to bring up. I could probably meet some evening, or maybe early on a Saturday morning (but not this week).

Phil

[Robert Fireovid]

Thank you for this heads up Phil.

I am very concerned that Vermont might give driver's licenses to illegals.

I currently reside in Maryland, and planned to move to Vermont in the next several years. One of the major problems in Maryland is it's open-door policy towards illegal immigrants which is literally bankrupting the state. I'm not a xenophobe or bigot; I adopted my son from Guatemala.

If Vermont is going to encourage illegals, then I'll start looking elsewhere to move. Please keep me informed about this matter. 

Thanks again
- Bob Fireovid

[Renée Patnaude]

I'm finding this label -"illegals"- offensive.
I hope you are not including migrant farm workers in that category. If a migrant laborer is here under a farm program, why should they be prevented from having a driver's license?

[bob.fi...@verizon.net]

You're right, there are programs for hiring temporary migrant farm labor from foreign countries. We're not talking about those folks.

 

We're talking about someone who enters the U.S. illegally, without a legal visa; the legal term for such a person is "illegal alien"

[Colin Gunn]

Migrant dairy workers in VT would fall under this category, but only because there are no year-round work visas. Dairy farmers depend on this help as much as apple growers (for instance), but the only visas available are seasonal, whereas milking doesn't stop. When the law changes, as I believe it will, will it cease to be a problem to you?

I find this xenophobic trend in folks who are concerned about population issues to be very disturbing. If that's the general sentiment of VSP or this list, I'd better remove myself from it. 

Colin

Montpelier

[TOM MCKENNA]

Re: "I find this xenophobic trend in folks who are concerned about population issues to be very disturbing. If that's the general sentiment of VSP or this list, I'd better remove myself from it."

 

If you believe the size and skyrocketing growth of the U.S. population has an adverse effect on our environment, then you need to determine where all that growth is coming from and to then slow and eventually reverse it. Most of our annual population growth, currently over 80%, comes from immigrants since 1970 and their descendants. So that is where we need to start. We also need to end the taxpayer subsidies for big families.

 

In the middle of the Great Recession, which could still morph into the Great Depression 2.0, with c. 25% of our work force either jobless, working only parttime or having given up looking for a job, the Obama administration is still giving out 125,000 green cards to foreign workers every month. Adding legal immigration from other sources, Obama and Congress are adding 1,500,000 cheap, exploitable foreigners to our workforce every year. They not only take some of the jobs we are spending billions to create, their presence helps to drive down wages across the board. Some of the forces behind this are the cheap labor lobby and the Catholic Church, which is desperate to refill its emptying pews with ready-made, high-fertility Catholics from Mexico and points south.

 

How would you be able to convince young American couples to help save our environment by having only two or less children while concurrently taking in a million and a half legal  immigrants a year and tolerating tens of million more illegal aliens.

 

We should reduce total annual immigration from all sources to no more than 100,000 a year. Yes, that includes refugees and asylees and their families. The president could decide how to spend that quota, which should be a firm, non-pierceable cap.

 

Trying to improve the educational level,  income,  and overall quality of life of our own people, while accepting a tsunami of needy immigrants every year is like trying to bail out a boat with a big hole in the bottom.

 

Tom

[Joseph Gainza]

I think you should find elsewhere to move. We in Vermont value the migrant workers in our state who are keeping our dairy farms afloat and contribute to our communities. I hope you do not represent the people in Vermont concerned about population growth. George does this attitude represent your group? Joseph Gainza

[Joseph Gainza]

Population growth is a worldwide problem and not one limited to the US. The total number of people on the planet is the problem, not immigrants. Where people live is secondary to how many in total numbers which the planet can support. Consumption is a major factor, perhaps the largest factor. US Americans consume several times the amount of energy and material goods than do people in Latin America, Africa and Asia. We consume more than the people in Europe. If you are concerned about the environment then you should be emphasizing consumption patterns. That you focus only on people entering this country says to me your concern is other than the environment. Do you honestly think the US can continue to consume at its present rate and just limiting the number of people who come here will solve the environmental crisis? Think again. Start promoting economic justice and you begin to address the environmental problem. Joseph Gainza

 

From: vermonters-for-sus...@googlegroups.com [mailto:vermonters-for-sus...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of TOM MCKENNA
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 2:21 PM
To: vermonters-for-sus...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: VSP Update

 

Re: "I find this xenophobic trend in folks who are concerned about population issues to be very disturbing. If that's the general sentiment of VSP or this list, I'd better remove myself from it."

[plumb....@gmail.com]

With my very successful power point talk at Middlebury College and the new movie Hooked On Growth now available we are adding the info below my signature to our website making available these speaking programs. It is kind of late in the season to be arranging talks now but it might still be a possibility and it is not to early to begin planning for the fall. And it would be great if any of you would be also willing to be a speaker.

 

Thanks to those of you who helped with creation and editing of the power point talk.

And thanks also to those of you have responded to our annual financial appeal.  If you haven’t yet made a donation please send a check to VSP, POB 1163, Montpelier, VT 05601. We have quite a ways to go to reach our $900 budget.

 

It has always been the intention of this list to be for general population growth purposes realizing that some people don’t want to be involved in the immigration issue. We also want to be as open and democratic as possible. However, it is too easy to just do a reply without thinking and I have made that mistake myself, and then it goes to everyone whether intended or not. Therefore I have regretfully decided to make this a moderated list. If you want to send something to the entire group just send it to me first and I will likely send it on.

 

There is another list for discussing immigration issues and that list will remain un-moderated. To subscribe to that list just email:

VermonterforSusPop_...@yahoogroups.com

and to post to that list

VermonterforSu...@yahoogroups.com

 

Thanks and I apologize for any unwanted emails you received this week.

George
True sustainability will only be achieved with population stabilization.
www.vspop.org
http://groups.google.com/group/vermonters-for-sustainable-population

 

Speakers

 

VSP has two programs it can present to community groups to help people better understand why population growth is the underlying cause of all of our environmental problems and many of our social problems and what needs to be done to create a sustainable population.

 

One is a power point talk titled, How Large Should Vermont’s Population Be? For Sustainability? For Quality of Life? This question has been asked at least since 1973 when the Vermont Population Policy report was published by the Vt. Natural Resources Council, but has never been answered until now. The forty slide program takes between sixty and ninety minutes with two Q&A periods included. The organizer of the first showing at Middlebury College said the talk was “wonderful.” If anyone would like to preview the slides with the talking points included contact the creator George Plumb.

 

The other is a showing of the new movie Hooked on Growth produced by growthbusters.org.

The movie was developed by David Gardner who watched the huge population growth of Boulder, CO. and decided that this wasn’t good for the city and he must do something about it.

A preview can be seen at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTT5aaDoZJ0 or http://vimeo.com/30647439

 

Paul Ehrlich says that, “This could be the most important movie ever made.”  Bill McKibben says, “The cult of endless growth has kept us from seeing clearly the choices in front of us.”

There are two versions of the movie, a forty-five minute one and a ninety minute one. We recommend the shorter one so that a longer discussion can follow.

 

George Plumb will travel anyplace in Vermont to do either of the programs. They could also both be done at different times with the movie first to give a broad perspective and the power point later to give a Vermont perspective. He only asks that if possible a donation be made to help cover his travel costs. He does have a power point projector but would need the equipment to show the DVD. Possible local sponsors could include your local library, town conservation commission or planning commission, church group, high school or college environmental program, environmental or sustainable living organization, or peace and justice group.

 

To contact him email plumb....@gmail.com or 802-883-2313.