Climate Emergency Declaration

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BRATTLEBORO DECLARATION OF CLIMATE EMERGENCY

”We must look at climate change as if it were a devastating military attack against the United States and the entire planet. And we must respond accordingly.” — Bernie Sanders, Jan 1, 2019

“We all believe it’s an emergency. Are we acting like it’s an emergency, or do our actions deny our beliefs?” — Kurt Daims

Update 09/30/19 — The Brattleboro Selectboard rejected the Climate Emergency Declaration at their September 17 meeting, by a vote of 3-2. BCS is reorganizing the project based on input from the Selectboard and public, and outreach to Brattleboro residents on the front lines of the climate crisis.

On New Years Day Bernie Sanders said, ” We must look at climate change as if it were a devastating military attack against the United States and the entire planet. And we must respond accordingly.” — in a word, like in a war. We will take this call, made on New Years Day, for our own resolution and begin legislation according to the crisis that Sanders suggests.

I am a climate denialist. Everyone — scientists, statespeople, your townspeople and youth most of all, say that the climate crisis is an emergency. We may point at the deniers, but in reality we and the deniers are the same: we refuse to take serious action. We are all in denial, and when we deny our fear, it weakens us. The house is on fire, people are dying, everything we cherish is in danger, and our minds blank at the glare. We don’t know what to do. But in an emergency not knowing what to do is not an option.

I have heard young girls — 14,15 — talk about not having children because adults have so damaged the world. Think of these children, and your own. And think of everything we do for them and with them: the dreaming, playing, and the work to pay for the dreaming and all. We must protect all these things. These will mean nothing SOON if we don’t act seriously NOW. If the Washington and Montpelier won’t act, then we must try, and maybe we can start something.

Brattleboro must come together to present authentic stories and concerns about climate crisis and form plans to begin climate rescue through local action. We will strategize about advocating enforceable new measures for real climate rescue movement. What matters is that we admit our fear and harness its power, and that we try together to raise the issue to the next level.

— Kurt Daims, BCS Executive Director

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Text of Proposed Declaration (Aug 2019)

Please offer your input and comments.
See declaration discussion events/schedule…

1) Whereas this article, to be known as the Declaration of Climate Emergency, is in accordance with a resolution promoted by the selectboard in 2003, and with resolutions on energy and climate change promoted by Brattleboro Common Sense through votes of the people in 2010, 2014, and of town representatives in 2018; and whereas the youth of Brattleboro are calling on today’s town leaders to formally acknowledge the truth of the emergency; and whereas the governments of two hundred million people have declared an emergency;

2) Whereas U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders has said, “We must look at climate change as if it were a devastating military attack against the United States and the entire planet. And we must respond accordingly” in other words, we must respond as if in war;

3) Whereas war demands the strengths and discipline of soldiers, the conservation of resources and the virtues of thrift, truthfulness, and forethought, for lack of which our society has brought the world into this crisis;

4) Whereas the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reported that global greenhouse gas emissions must be drastically reduced by 2030 in order to avoid worldwide catastrophe, and whereas climate change is causing immense human suffering and damage to the natural world and threatens to destroy civilization and kill billions of people;

5) Whereas the United States government and large corporations have disregarded or concealed the truth about climate change;

6) Whereas we must feel immeasurable obligation and compassion for youth and for people in frontline communities in the U.S. and around the world, whose cultures are decimated by the fossil fuel industry;

7) Whereas reliance on technology instead of our virtues has also caused the crisis and cannot alone save the world;

8) And whereas Brattleboro can act as an example by a transition to an ecologically and socially regenerative economy at emergency speed;

9) We, the people of Brattleboro, therefore declare:

10) That frontline communities have every right to benefit first from the transition to a regenerative economy and to direct the remediation of the crisis as it affects them at all levels of government;

11) That we shall strive for zero emissions across all sectors of the economy by 2030, and that this effort be observed and reported by a sustainability coordinator or other appropriate office of the town;

12) And that the selectboard shall warn monthly hearings of the people for proposing remedies for the climate crisis, and shall enact emergency ordinances per charter article 4 section 6 AA to test the proposals arising from those hearings.

13) For unity’s sake let no one scorn those of us who deny the crisis, since their inaction has been no worse than ours who believe it, and since their lives will be turned upside-down for a rescue against their will, and let us who will lose our livelihoods in fossil fuel and other industries know our neighbors will help us. We have all been living our lives and denying the climate crisis together. Let us bravely acknowledge and address the emergency we face together.

14) And therefore we the people of Brattleboro declare a state of emergency, and we vow to use any and all means necessary to meet the extremes of it. We will endure hardship and self-sacrifice like military men and women, exert our utmost energy, and summon the deepest truthfulness and courage, even without certainty, to secure the survival of our children, ourselves, all humanity and this divinely beautiful natural world, which has sustained us through the ages with unspoken love.

Brattleboro Common Sense

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COMMENTARY ON THE DECLARATION

This declaration places a heavy emphasis on compassion and extols the unity of the American people for the sake of climate rescue.  But this is not a declaration only for leftists and liberals: it adopts the aggressive rhetoric that many prominent people are promoting recently. Several unique clauses concern precedent in earlier Brattleboro resolutions, loss of foresight and thrift contributing to the crisis, moderation in reliance on technology, compassion for youth and the peoples of the world who are suffering most, and a practical legal method of testing emergency proposals of the people.  More than a list of disjointed “whereas” clauses, the declaration succeeds in being a readable, profound and inspiring document.

This point cannot be made too strongly.  Things HAVE already risen to the level of a devastating military attack.  Forced migrations are causing starvation and armed conflict.  People on the front lines of this war in south Asia and south Africa are dying — thousands daily / hourly ?  The war is not rhetorical exaggeration.  It is real. It is only by white privilege that we have the luxury of debating whether to call this a war or not.

The declaration that will unite the American people is not written only for liberals and climate activists. Climate change is an issue of public health, but by Donald Trump’s divisive politics and other accidents of our political system it has become a false political divide.  One side seems to own the issue and frame the discussion, and scornful toward people who might be aligned with Trump: Republicans, soldiers, church-goers, climate skeptics.  That’s a fourth or a third of the entire country.  These people don’t want to be on the defensive toward other people or toward climate change, and they hesitate to join. The references to military training are respectful to them.  Any people with military training or loved ones in the military especially want a team that takes a fighting stance.  So, the strongest possible language is right.  It’s right for our efforts requiring any and all necessary means.

Proponents of this declaration realize that rescue will not come from technology or government, but first from the unity of the people, their unity within themselves, and with others, and that efforts connecting people through their hearts are essential to bring people into that unity. Consider the clause “For unity’s sake let no one scorn those who deny the crisis, since their inaction has been no worse than ours who believe it”.  Some people say they don’t “believe” in climate change: they know it as a fact.  But no one knows the Big Bang as a fact, or continental drift or the orbits of electrons.  No one has direct experience of such things. What we have is faith: faith that scientists have proved certain facts, and we have faith that scientists have proved climate change. So, our belief in climate change is also founded in faith, and so, we are not rationally superior to climate skeptics (deniers), whose faith stands elsewhere.  The idea here is to put us all on equal footing, to allow for climate skeptics, and military men and women to be respected and included.  Climate rescue will not be achieved like many political targets by a majority vote.  It will be an enormous challenge requiring complete unity, like a team of acrobats crossing the high wire on a bicycle.  If one member doesn’t like it, it won’t happen.  Unity is our only chance.

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