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is ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý’s listener-powered journalism show. Today, instead of focusing on one listener question, we’ve dedicated this episode to climate change, among the top issues on votersâ€� minds as they head to the polls this election season.

Climate and environment reporter Abagael Giles talks to voters about their anxieties around the energy transition and digs into the “rural efficiency gap.� And she asks how policymakers can make sure Vermonters don’t get left behind.

Note: Our show is made for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript. Transcripts are generated using a combination of robots and human transcribers, and they may contain errors.

Top of mind

Josh Crane: From ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý, this is Brave Little State. I’m Josh Crane.

It’s election season. In just a few weeks, our country will elect a new president. Vermont will choose U.S. and state senators and representatives, a governor and many others who will shape Vermont’s next chapter.

This year, the Brave Little State mothership, ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý, has been trying something different. We’ve been starting our election coverage not with politicians and pollsters but with you â€� the people. It’s an approach known as “the Citizens Agenda.â€�

And it sounds kinda familiar, right? Brave Little State is ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý’s listener-powered journalism show. We choose stories based on your curiosity. But today, instead of focusing on one listener question, we’re going big. We’ve dedicated this whole episode to one of the topics you have mentioned again and again in conversations with ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý reporters about the issues you care most about this election season.

Our reporters have spoken to you at general stores, bookstores, libraries, creemee stands, at the dump � and we've also heard from you online.

And there was one topic that rose to the top over and over again.

Abagael?

Abagael Giles: The thing you told us you want to hear more about this election season is: climate change.

Josh Crane: Abagael Giles, you report on climate and the environment for ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý. Which means you’re the perfect person to help us navigate this topic.

Abagael Giles: I don’t know about that, Josh. I mean, “climate change� is such a huge topic. But it might help if we zoom in a little. And in Vermont, a big reason people are focused on climate change has to do with what is happening right here in this state.

Vermont is than the rest of the world. We now see more than 50% more extreme precipitation than we did before 1995.

In the last few years, Vermont has experienced 100-year flooding emergencies multiple years in a row � some of the most damaging effects of climate change we’ve felt first-hand, at least, so far.

And as is the case all over the world, these effects are felt most by people who work outside, people who live outside, people who are lower income, renters and people of color.

Josh Crane: OK, so what you’re saying is that climate change is basically on Vermont’s doorstep � or maybe even through the front door.

Abagael Giles: Yes, exactly. And this is all leading to more conversation about what we can do, not only to help people adapt to this new reality, but also to address the root cause of climate change, which is humans burning fossil fuels � including here in Vermont.

I hear from a lot of people who wonder what the point is of Vermont curbing its emissions when they make up such a small part of the global emissions pie. And while Vermont’s total emissions are tiny compared with the world’s as a whole � like, really tiny � Vermonters actually burn a lot of fossil fuels per capita. The average person here contributes twice as many emissions as the average person does, globally.

Start here if you care about climate and environmental issues in Vermont’s 2024 election

Find all of ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý’s 2024 election coverage here

Josh Crane: So there are a lot of different ways to think about our role when it comes to climate change. And how are Vermont lawmakers responding?

Abagael Giles: Well, in the 2025 session, lawmakers will decide about whether to adopt a first-in-the-nation policy to cut fossil fuel consumption from heating buildings. It’s called the Affordable Heat Act. Its supporters say the goal is to speed up the pace of Vermont’s transition away from fossil fuels, since right now, some .

And there is a lot of money, some of it from outside Vermont, that’s being spent right now to convince people that this policy is a good or a bad idea � and to get lawmakers elected who will support or condemn it.

Josh Crane: So, it sounds like how all of this goes will depend largely on the results of the upcoming election.

Abagael Giles: Yeah, I think that’s fair. There’s a lot at stake here. And this is just one of several climate policies Vermont has advanced in recent years � including the Climate Superfund Act, an update to the Renewable Energy Standard and a major flood resilience bill.

Josh Crane: And when it comes to these policies that lawmakers are creating, how are people you talked to feeling about them?

Abagael Giles: Well, a lot of people are craving more specifics. And they’re wondering, where do they fit in? What can I as one person do? What can I afford? Will this transition be something I can participate in? Will it make life better or harder for me?

Johanna Nichols: We can't afford another disaster, and yet they're not going to stop.

Jennifer Francoeur: How we manage our resources and look after the health of our planet is critical.

Jennifer Durgan: We need to find common ground because we don't have time to mess around anymore.

Jenel Ronn: But in terms of the issues, the top thing for me is climate.

Tony Eprile: While I'm really in favor of green energy, I'm also very aware that it's only green as long as you’re not destroying the environment to install it.

Donna Smyers: If the towns are all destroyed by floods, you have ruined your tax base and economy.

Johanna Nichols: What we don't have is some money to make all this happen.

Jennifer Durgan: I am so frustrated that climate issues have become hyper-partisan.

Jenel Ronn: If the house is on fire it doesn’t matter what else is going on inside.

Abagael Giles: Vermont’s energy transition is already here. Fuel sales are going down year over year and more and more households in the state have heat pumps. In 2035, you won’t be able to purchase a new internal combustion car at a Vermont dealership.

So these questions about how much it all costs and who pays? And also, who benefits from all this new technology? They’re some of the most important questions of our time.

Josh Crane: Brave Little State is a production of ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý and a proud member of the NPR Network. Welcome.

Citizens' agenda

Abagael Giles: I had a lot of conversations with people who wrote in for our Citizens Agenda project â€� the project that’s shaped ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý’s election coverage this year.

But two people in particular stayed with me. The first is Laura.

Laura Zettler

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Laura Zettler: It just feels like this big, huge, heavy thing that is bearing down on the world.

Abagael Giles: Laura Zettler lives in Fairfax. And she tells me about an experience that really sums up her feelings about climate change. Actually, it’s something that happens right before I speak to her over the phone.

She was at a gas pump filling up her car. And she was talking to her 10-year-old son about the interview she’s about to do with me.

Laura Zettler: And when I told him, like, “Oh yeah, I'm gonna, you know, talk to, you know, about climate change.� And I was filling up my car, and he's like, “Isn't that going to be a little awkward for you, Mom, since you're talking about climate change and you're filling up your, you know, your gas car?� And then my husband and I were like, well, it's actually a good point�

Abagael Giles: A good point, because climate change is already costing Vermont. Nearby Washington County, home to the state capital, is the second most disaster-prone county in the United States. That’s if you count the number of federal disaster declarations over the last decade or so.

So Laura is seeing all of this, and she’s incredibly motivated to do everything she can to help.

But when she went to buy a car a few years back, she says an electric vehicle was out of reach financially, even with incentives.

Laura Zettler: With me having it be, like, one of my main worries, you know, something that definitely keeps me up at night sometimes, I'm still not even doing as much as, as as I would like. So I feel like I directly do feel the, the financial barrier. 

Abagael Giles: Laura’s sense of guilt magnifies when she thinks about her students. She teaches 7th and 8th grade in Saint Albans. She says she talks to her students about climate change a lot.

Laura Zettler: There's a lot of them that feel like it's hopeless at this point, that there is nothing that can be done at this point. And there's � not all of them, obviously, but you know, a lot of them just kind of feel like, “OK, yeah, the world's warming up. Like, but whatever, like, this is what's going to happen.� And I always tell them, like, that's the scariest thing you can think because if you think that, then nobody’s gonna do anything, and then it is going to happen.

Pam Ladds: We can't keep doing what we're doing, and we certainly shouldn't be making more people struggle along the way, or we just polarize even further. I mean, just look at what's happening going into this election. Makes my hair stand on end, and it should make yours.

Abagael Giles: This is Pam Ladds.

Like Laura, Pam is worried about climate change. But she’s also worried about affordability, and about policymakers in Montpelier not really understanding the needs of people in rural places like Newport and the rest of the Northeast Kingdom.

I met Pam at a ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý ice cream social in downtown Newport earlier this fall.

Pam Ladds: There's not much up here that earns a decent living for people. There’s not much. So it's really easy to blow us off up here.

Abagael Giles: I followed up with her a few weeks later at her home. Pam lives in an old farmhouse � the oldest in town, she tells me.

Pam Ladds: It’s the old stagecoach inn. And it’s still standing! It’s a great, solid house.

Abagael Giles

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Abagael Giles: She gives me a tour.

Pam Ladds: A trip into the basement! Don't fall down the stairs. 

Abagael Giles: Pam is on a mission here. There’s something she wants to show me.

Pam Ladds: Mind the cobwebs and duck. You know, the ceilings are really low. 

Abagael Giles: She leads me towards a dusty gray metal panel.

Pam Ladds: This is an electric panel! 

Abagael Giles: An old, outdated electric panel, to be precise. She says it just doesn’t make financial sense to upgrade it � which is what she was told she’d need to do if she wanted to get a heat pump � which would be an efficient way to electrify at least some of her heat.

Pam Ladds: So I will be surprised if it happens in my lifetime � here, anyway.

Abagael Giles: This is why Pam has some concerns about the Affordable Heat Act � the energy policy state lawmakers will decide on this session.

Chief among them: Will it actually be affordable for everybody?

Pam Ladds: If I were sitting where you are at the age that you are, and obviously I'm hallucinating your age here but it's significantly younger than mine, I would be saying to everybody else who has screwed up the climate � and that's my generation, whether we'd like to admit that or not � “Come on you lot, fix it, and we actually don't give a flying whoopty doo what it costs you, because you did this to us. It's our planet moving forward.� So it's not that I don't understand the push to really clean up what's happening � and it needs cleaning up! I think the challenge is how to do it and how to do it in a way that allows the rest of us who are inhabiting the planet to still live and not be homeless on the street, which won't solve anybody's problem.

A just transition

Abagael Giles: OK, so for the most part, what we heard from Vermonters is that climate change � which is largely caused by humans burning carbon � is a big concern for them. But for a lot of people, taking the big steps that will set them up to use less carbon, and likely save money long-term � like upgrading an electric panel or buying an electric vehicle � they can feel out of reach.

And that makes people anxious: Anxious that climate policies will make their lives unaffordable. Anxious that they’ll get left behind. Anxious that they aren’t doing all they want to to leave this place better for their kids.

Remember how Laura was feeling guilty that she couldn’t afford an electric car? It’s the type of thing Sarah Kelly at Dartmouth has heard before.

Sarah Kelly: That’s not her fault, and I hope that she doesn’t feel too badly about it. 

Abagael Giles: Sarah is a geographer and the cofounder of the Energy Justice Clinic at Dartmouth. She works with communities to study water and energy equity issues.

Sarah says she hopes Laura and anyone else who can’t afford the up-front cost of a lower-carbon alternative like an electric car or hot water heater � that they don’t feel shame or guilt.

Sarah Kelly: I think people can only transition certain aspects of their livelihood within a longer timeframe. And not everybody has the financial ability to do it all at once. 

Abagael Giles: Sarah says this transition can be especially challenging in a place like Vermont. And there’s actually a name for this.

Sarah Kelly: So there's been around recognizing that there's a rural efficiency gap. 

Abagael Giles: This “rural efficiency gap� � it’s something I’ve heard about in so many words reporting in rural places for a long time.

It’s basically describing a failure of the market: that people in rural places, they’re significantly less likely than people in more urban places to be able to use things like electric vehicle incentives or rebates for efficient appliances because of factors like high up-front costs or lack of access. Wages in rural economies also tend to be lower than those in more urban areas. And this means rural residents also spend more on energy compared with their income.

And all of this � combined with the fact that the fossil fuel industry willfully concealed the connection between its products and climate change from the public for decades � all of it can lead to distrust and skepticism.

Sarah Kelly: You know, folks are surviving, folks are taking care of their basic needs, and there's a lot of stress involved with needing to choose between paying for your energy bill, paying for your rising housing costs or other needs.

Abagael Giles: And speaking of costs, even if weatherizing or switching to a lower carbon heat source costs money up front, it has the potential to bring huge savings for households that spend the biggest share of their income now on fossil fuel heat. But those up-front costs can be tricky.

And here’s where electoral politics come in again. People who support the Affordable Heat Act hope that policy will help bridge this gap.

That’s because the law would require companies involved in importing and distributing fossil heating fuels to earn so-called “clean heat credits� � and a share of these credits would have to come from working with low- and moderate-income households in Vermont to install things like heat pumps or weatherize their homes, or sell them biofuels, among other things.

But people who oppose this approach, they worry it will make this rural efficiency gap worse. People � including members of the Public Utility Commission � have argued that Vermont is just too small to pioneer a first of its kind climate solution like this.

Others have raised questions about whether Vermont will be able to enforce the rules, and whether it will hurt small businesses.

To be honest, it’s really hard to explain this policy. It’s complex, and so many of the details are still uncertain. They’re the types of things elected officials will have to wade through this session.

This is just one possible approach to addressing gaps in who benefits from Vermont’s energy transition. An important first step for any long-term solution, Sarah Kelly says, is for communities who are most burdened now to get a voice.

Sarah Kelly: Oftentimes, falling behind on your energy bills is a first step to homelessness. And so those are intricately connected, and people working in social work in those fields recognize those connections. So we need more research to understand, in our rural communities, who's most affected by energy insecurity and how that's intersecting with housing insecurity.

Costa Samaras: Everybody deserves to benefit from the clean energy transition

Abagael Giles: This is Costa Samaras.

Costa Samaras: And the clean energy transition that doesn't bring everybody along and doesn't have the opportunity for everyone to see themselves in, won't be successful in the long term.

Abagael Giles: Costa is an engineer who was a senior advisor in the Biden White House.

He was there when Congress hashed out what is arguably the United States� biggest investment in addressing climate change � ever: the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA. Passed by Congress in 2022, it directed nearly $400 billion dollars towards just about every sector of the economy � much of which comes in the form of tax credits � to help grease the wheels for the country’s energy transition.

Costa Samaras: I'm very confident that the current policies that are in place, as well as potential future policies, will center that affordability, decarbonized, resilient and equitable starting point for how we approach energy and climate policy going forward.

Abagael Giles: Preliminary data shows Americans have used those credits at that government officials had expected.

And on top of that, Vermont got tens of millions of dollars from the IRA to create its own rebates for things like heat pumps, weatherization and electric panel upgrades. If the feds approve Vermont’s plan, the state energy office will funnel that money towards helping low and moderate income households.

These will go well beyond what you can access now, and could radically expand who has access to new technology.

Now, the IRA is not going to get us to our climate commitments alone � it's limited, one-time funding. Once this money is used up, Vermont could face a steep revenue cliff. This is a huge reason lawmakers and other policymakers in the state are looking for other ways to fund this kind of work long term. Hence, the Affordable Heat Act.

Costa Samaras: We're going to be muddling through climate resilience for the rest of our lives. We’re doing it right now. 

Abagael Giles: Something that’s struck me through my reporting � taking climate action is a little like building a plane while you try to fly it. There’s always risk involved in doing something new. Like, what if you don’t build a plane that works very well? Or, what if it doesn’t serve everybody? But at the same time, there’s terrible risk in not doing anything at all.

Amanda Gustin: Of course, things are going to fail. Of course, we're going to do the wrong thing. � We have to keep, we have to keep doing better.

Abagael Giles: Continuing to do better � when we come back.

How do we adapt? 

Abagael Giles: When it comes to climate change, some Vermont policymakers are focusing on “mitigation� � that is, cutting greenhouse gas emissions to try and minimize the impact of climate change in the future. That’s the main focus of the Affordable Heat Act, for instance.

At the same time, Vermont is also trying to adapt to the consequences of climate change as we’re experiencing those consequences. Like, rebuilding after destructive flooding events. Only, at times, it feels like we’re constantly playing catch-up.

Andrew Kruczkiewicz: Something that is happening across the country, and also in New England and in Vermont, is that we're hearing, after a flood, “Well, you know, I moved away from the river or moved away from the shoreline, and now I'm getting flooded. Why is that?â€� 

Abagael Giles: Andrew Kruczkiewicz is a meteorologist at Columbia University’s climate school who studies extreme weather. And he says Vermont is not alone in seeing more flooding and extreme rain because of climate change.

Andrew Kruczkiewicz: And there's reasons for that. One of the closest connections in terms of extreme weather now and climate change is as the atmosphere warms, the capacity for the atmosphere to hold more water vapor increases. And that translates into increased risk for intense rainfall episodes. 

Abagael Giles: And the science says that pace will only accelerate if we keep doing what we’ve been doing, which is why Andrew says mitigation � again, that’s cutting emissions � is so important too. It’s why figuring out the right balance between adaptation and mitigation is so important. Climate change and climate fueled disasters are already exacerbating the disparities that have long existed in Vermont � around class and race and economic opportunity; around who gets to live here and feel safe.

Andrew Kruczkiewicz: The question that we must ask even more than we do now is: To what extent are we sure that the climate adaptation strategies being implemented are not increasing the disproportionality of impact from extreme events when we’re referring to the most vulnerable populations?

Abagael Giles: This question of how to protect people, but also how to move quickly, it feels especially relevant in a place like Barre City.

Amanda Gustin: We are standing along Brook Street, looking out over Gunners Brook and some of what was left after this July is flooding, some of the debris and things like that in what had been planned to be a floodplain a number of years ago, and did some of its job. But I think we've learned we need to do more. 

Abagael Giles: Amanda Gustin is one of the founders of the grassroots flood recovery group Barre Up. And she’s a city councilor.

We’re standing by the community garden on Barre’s Brook Street. Just past the brook is a gravelly expanse at the heart of the neighborhood. We’re looking at a floodplain that’s on its way to being restored.

Abagael Giles

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Amanda Gustin: And you can see those big concrete berms that are intended to be sort of debris and trash catchers to keep debris from barreling down the river even faster. 

Abagael Giles: Less than 10 years ago, this place looked very different. The gravelly expanse was filled with houses, and a bridge across the brook. Then, in 2015, those houses were bought by the city and demolished to make room for the floodplain Amanda and I are looking at right now. 

Floodplains like this one let water spread out during a heavy rain event, dissipating the energy that rips through homes and causes destruction. It’s the sort of project scientists say could really help some Vermont communities lower flood waters when they come. But then, in July of 2023, the floodwaters did come.

Amanda Gustin: This area flooded again, very, very badly, and then flooded actually possibly a touch worse in July of 2024.

Abagael Giles: In spite of all the work the town had done to reestablish this natural floodplain, it didn’t do enough.

Amanda Gustin: There are houses up and down around this, this area that got hit very, very badly in both of those floods. 

Abagael Giles: In fact several other homeowners in this neighborhood have applied for buyouts, which would expand the floodplain even more.

But, buyouts also present challenges � there are questions about where people go next, about how to pay for them and about how they can affect a city’s budget.

Amanda says this case � it’s an example of the messy process of adapting to climate change. And there’s where that building-the-plane-while-flying it metaphor comes in again.

Adapting to what the future holds and addressing the root cause of the problem at the same time � it’s a tall task.

Abagael Giles

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Amanda Gustin: We’re in one of those moments when we have to do “both and.� And that feels huge. That feels really hard. And that is a that is a huge sink of resources, not just, you know, people say resources, they � time, money, stuff. It's also a huge sink of, of willpower, of people being willing to knuckle down and do slow, difficult work for a long time. It took us a long time to get here. It's going to take a long time to get out.

Of course, things are going to fail. Of course we're going to do the wrong thing. That's, that's what learning is about. Yeah, it it stinks. It really, it really hurts when a thing that you thought was going to be the answer is only part of the answer. The enormous pressure, and I think what a lot of people feel, that enormous pressure to like, "We have to get it right, we're at a crisis point." Yes, and also, some of it we're not going to get right. We have to keep, we have to keep doing better. And if you just say, “If this fails, that's it,� then you're, you're giving up on the whole potential of other things that might work. You have to, you have to move forward.

Abagael Giles: The floodplain Amanda showed me in Barre is in transition between past and present � not quite what it was, but not yet quite what it needs to be. Which I think is a good way to describe this moment for Vermont as a whole.

If I can offer one prediction? Vermonters will be focused on this for a long time � long after the Affordable Heat Act gets fully hashed out (or not) � long after the next flood and the ones after that. Long after this election cycle and many more to come.

Credits

Thanks to Laura Zettler of Fairfax and Pam Ladds of Newport for sharing their curiosity with us.

If you want to learn more about the Affordable Heat Act or any other Vermont climate policies � and to find out more about where specific candidates stand on climate issues � click here.

And for more about how climate change is impacting Vermont, check out more of Abagael’s recent reporting.

This episode was reported by Abagael Giles. It was produced and edited by Josh Crane, with help from Sabine Poux, Burgess Brown, Brittany Patterson and Sophie Stephens. Angela Evancie is Brave Little State’s Executive Producer. Our theme music is by Ty Gibbons; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Mark Davis, Rachel Cleetus, Terry Callahan, Jennifer Durgan, Tony Eprile, Donna Smyers, Johanna Nichols, Jennifer Francoeur and Jenel Ronn.

As always, our journalism is better when you’re a part of it:

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Brave Little State is a production of ¿ªÔÆÌåÓý and a proud member of the NPR Network.