BRATTLEBORO — Glaringly absent from The Commons' thorough coverage of the Democratic race for state Senator is any mention from the candidates of the current global warming crisis.
Appalled but not surprised, I find Democrats - and Republicans - living in denial of the unprecedented threat we humans now face. What's wrong with this picture?
Our very survival is at stake, and people go along with the status quo, life as usual.
Life is not usual! We need to seriously address our over-use of fossil fuels immediately to give ourselves and our children the opportunity to even have a future, much less live comfortably.
Scientists tell us that we humans need to reduce our carbon-izing of the atmosphere by 80 percent by 2050, almost 35 short years away. Yet Governor Shumlin is making deals with the petroleum industry to build a pipeline across northern Vermont to carry fracked gas. Fracking increases carbon content of the atmosphere, and it permanently poisons the earth, water, air, people, and other life forms.
Shumlin was against fracking just two years ago, and now has made a deal with the industry to jeopardize the well-being of the whole state and the future of the planet in spite of the people's objections.
Capitalism seems to be the seed of greed, the source of this runaway insanity. Capitalism has created money addicts among us. Addiction, by nature, is a disease of physical, emotional, moral, and spiritual dimensions. Wealth addiction has made money the “god” to fill the inner void, but it doesn't work.
No amount of money will satisfy that lust because the inner void is a spiritual issue: it must be addressed by a relationship with one's Creator. Solutions to problems we face will come from that spiritual foundation of life.
We voters need to take control and remove from office those who are sick with addiction and who drive the world to its peril. We have an opportunity to derail this ride to destruction by voting for non-capitalists.
Voters, please vote for any candidates other than Democrats or Republicans. These two parties have had plenty of time and opportunity to create a healthy equitable lifestyle for Vermonters. They have failed.
No one new in office can do worse, and anyone new in office has a chance to do better, to bring life-affirming changes to Vermont. Let's try some new ideas.
Rather than funding pipelines for poison, let's super-insulate buildings in the passive house model used by Europeans to reduce energy needs by 80 to 90 percent. Let's make passive house - a relatively small investment for huge outcome - the building standard in Vermont. It's far superior to the insufficient LEED/Energy Star reductions of 10 to 15 percent.
Let's plant industrial hemp in Vermont, which will sequester carbon and reduce atmospheric carbon faster than trees, clean the air and water, and replenish and rebuild soil while giving us a fast-growing food source, clean fuel, clothing, and building materials, including insulation, and nearly indestructible auto body parts.
Hemp can replace oil as a staple for an industrialized world while enhancing life rather than destroying it as the oil industry now is doing and has done.
All farmers have an opportunity to participate in the redemption of Earth and enhancing their economic conditions. Hemp provides an opportunity for equitable sharing of resources, a holistic way of life, while creating many new jobs and consumer products. Vermont can be a model lifeboat for the United States.
While capitalists do not want to consider these ideas, voters can. Voters can renew and/or deepen their own spiritual relationship with the Creator of All Life, and choose the Way of Life, rather than the way of insanity, death and destruction.