An online Southern Vermont Jobs and Climate Forum highlighted both the economic challenges posed by climate change and the opportunities for innovative business owners who anticipate what a changing climate will foster.
Sponsored by the Vermont Council on Rural Development and the Vermont Climate Economy Action Team, the June 24 event included panelists Robert Stevens of Stevens & Associates; Stephanie Lane, executive director of Shires Housing; and Jesse McDougall of Studio Hill Farm in Shaftsbury.
The forum was moderated by Jon Copans, director of VCRD’s Climate Economy Model Communities Program.
VCRD Executive Director Paul Costello said climate change is showing up in the economy in vivid and dramatic ways, “and it is imperative that we have to build creative solutions” to deal with it.
There is a well-defined “global response to climate change,” he said, “in that people are inventing solutions and they are bringing that into the marketplace. … And the global solutions marketplace is going to be the place that wins in the economy of the 21st century.”
Working to reduce fossil fuel use in transportation, heating and agriculture, and innovation in alternative energy sources and other sectors of the climate-related economy also is attracting youth to Vermont “who want to be on the cutting edge of these solutions of the future,” Costello said.
