Those who advocate for sweeping government power to reverse global warming assert that it will lead to a "more prosperous" Vermont future. 

Consider the $300,000,000 the Agency of Natural Resources estimates it will cost to resurface Rutland businesses under the "3-Acre Rule," a preposterous proposal to "help Rutland prosper" by imposing these costs on longstanding businesses.  This plan mandates that businesses retroactively install storm water drains to protect Lake Champlain.  Disrupting businesses and imposing a huge economic burden on owners will hurt sales and threaten productive jobs.  But the state of Vermont extols the huge economic boon this will be for engineers and construction companies.

This is short-term, nonproductive waste.  No goods sold; just costs of goods sold.  There is no economic growth, only a government-mandated payday for one group of businesses by way of economic hardship on others.  But more — and this is key — what is the environmental cost of excavating all that acreage?  How much diesel will be burned, asphalt heated and relaid, plastic pipes manufactured and installed, CO2 generated, in the transition to improved surface water management?  Can we afford those costs?  Have state agencies calculated those costs?  Nope.  That's preposterous.

Consider elecrtic vehicles.  Aside from the question of their reliability or long-term efficiency, are they not manufactured using fossil fuels?  Is that manufacture carbon-neutral, as will be imposed on new business development under Act 250 in Vermont?  These E.V.s will not be manufactured in Vermont.  So these vehicles (like the diesel and equipment consumed resurfacing Rutland) will be produced outside Vermont — a boon for those businesses, a massive loss of wealth, and indirect consumption of fossil fuels in Vermont. 

Solar panels — ditto.  Manufactured using fossil fuels; of dubious long-term efficiency; costs imposed on ratepayers in Vermont to support foreign industry; affordable for the wealthy and not the poor.  Regressive, polluting, and zero economic benefits.

Mandating reinsulation of buildings (as some have advocated) — how much petroleum would be involved in manufacturing, trucking, and installing these products in Vermont homes and businesses?  Assuming that this helped Vermont to achieve its fantastical and arbitrary "goals" of reducing 25% of our greenhouse gases by such-and-such an imagined date — what are the externalized environmental costs of that production outside Vermont?  Have the "climate warriors" calculated those costs?  Nope.  The effect is a drag on the Vermont economy and an increase in net pollution. 

What if Vermont imposed pollution-control requirements on lawnmowers?  That would reduce emissions and impose the costs directly on those who mow lawns.  Yes, this is a federal issue, but why don't the climate warriors tackle things that would actually help the ecosystem?  Why are they interested in the preposterous but not the sensible?

How about banning fireworks displays? Fireworks hurt the environment, depend 99% on Chinese manufacture, and are shipped long distances.  They offer no economic benefits to Vermont or its ecosystem.  Why not ban them?  Because progressive legislators want to give judges and special-interest out-of-state nonprofits the unilateral power to do that later, along with banning snowmobiles, ATVs, and pickup trucks.  They seek to do through the back door what they could never accomplish through the front.

What of mandating composting while advertising (with our tax dollars) that such laws won't be enforced?  Car idling laws requiring police to time your idle and then ticket you $10 (instead of fight opioid-dealers)?  How will the government ensure that citizens don't mow their lawn three times a week, burn a plastic bag in a fire, or pour used motor oil in the woods?  Are more laws needed so Big Brother can hire car-driving enforcers to breathe down every neck? 

Our forebears rightly opposed "taxation without representation."  Sweeping one-sided powers granted to government, and "renewable energy" initiatives that use more energy than they renew, favor certain industries and are net pollution-creators, which help neither the economy nor environment.  These are totalitarian regulations masked in lies of prosperity and environmental benefit where neither exists.

"Regulation without representation" is "taxation without representation."  It's time to revolt against this revolting subjugation of Vermonters.  The answer to our problems is personal responsibility, not government rescue by corporations and special interests.