Energy sources key to future
Toolbox
By THATCHER MOATS Staff Writer - Published: November 8, 2009
RANDOLPH CENTER – Clean, accessible sources of energy could help solve two huge problems around the world: poverty and pollution.
That's the assessment of John Isham, a Middlebury College professor who gave the keynote address on Saturday at the Environmental Action 2009 conference that was held at Vermont Technical College in Randolph.
Scores of people who hope to solve environmental problems locally and globally listened to Isham's speech before breaking into workshops with titles like, "Repower Vermont and Replace Vermont Yankee: The Roadmap and The Economics" and "Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Products – The Need for Chemical Reform in the U.S. and Vermont."
The event was hosted by the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund, Toxics Action Center, Vermont League of Conservation Voters, Vermont Natural Resources Council, VPIRG, and Vermont Technical College.
The annual Environmental Action conference began four years ago to bring together disparate grassroots environmental activists from around the state, according to Jessica Edgerly, a community organizer for Toxics Action Network.
"Each community group was feeling isolated, and we wanted to bring all these community groups together to learn from each other and experts and organizers," said Edgerly.
In his speech, Isham, who is well known in environmental circles, said our modern lives are filled with "miracles" and their downsides. People can zip from New York to Los Angeles in hours when the trip once took years; there's an abundance of food; and we have a long life expectancies.
But there are two interrelated problems, he said: the "miracles" are not available to many poor people around the world, and the side effects are often environmental problems like global warming and air and water pollution.
Finding the "right form of clean, accessible energy" that doesn't harm the planet, is also "how to fight poverty," he said.
"That's how I see these interrelated problems."
If clean and accessible is the solution, Isham didn't hesitate to identify the enemy – coal.
"One thing we should be fighting is coal," he said. "Coal, in many ways, is the enemy."
Isham said three-fourths of the remaining potential greenhouse gas on the planet is in coal.
If people can figure out how to reduce the use of coal, in the United States, and developing countries like China and India, "We will win," Isham said.
A key solution lies in technology, Isham argued.
Though environmentalists often praise a simpler lifestyle, they also need to embrace and be advocates for technology in order to reach their goals, he said.
"The world will be a good one if people look back and see environmentalists" as being at the forefront of technology, said Isham.
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