Governor Shumlin Slams Fossil Fuel Industry
By Ian Lund
July 30th, 2016
Governor Peter Shumlin stood in front of UVM students, faculty, and community members last Monday to ask for their help. “We’ve given you one hell of a mess,” he said of his generation, “and it’s up to you to clean it up.” He is stumping to broadcast his antipathy for fossil fuels as part of an effort to get Vermont to divest.
“Four and a half million people drove to this state of 650,000 and skied here because we’ve had snow and we’ve had snow for as long as I can remember,” Shumlin said. In his fifteen-minute speech, the lack of snow last winter was one of several issues he touched on regarding the effects of climate change on Vermont. Also noted was the rise of invasive species threatening the maple industry.
He went on to lambast the fossil fuel industry and the coal burning plants in the west, whose pollution blows into our state, “high levels of mercury [in the water]...acid rain and other things hurting our forests.” He called ExxonMobil out specifically, for “[lying] to the American people about their knowledge of climate change.”
“Vermont is supported by a non-climate-change economy,”Shumlin said. Indeed, the state has been pursuing a clean energy agenda since Shumlin took office. One of the first election promises he came through on was closing a nuclear plant, and Green Mountain Power has worked with the state to become more sustainable as well.
“Would you put money into coal companies?” He asked the audience. No one said they would, but this is UVM, where divestment rallies happen at least annually.
He concluded by asking the audience to contact their representatives about divestment, before opening the floor to questions. The first immediately addressed the disconnect between his aggressive stance against climate change in his speech and his professed support for the Keystone pipeline. He responded that its value lay in natural gas’s potential as a transition fuel, as we move away from fossil fuels towards renewables.
His speech made no mention of the proposed carbon tax.
