Plank: War and Vermont

 On Tuesday, Saudi Aramco became the most valuable corporation in the universe. We Vermonters should pat ourselves on the back because it is our demand, and the demand of others like us, that makes Aramco's petroleum reserves so valuable. 

And the further weirdness is that this is petroleum that they can't actually touch and had no hand in making. It's estimated and inside the Earth, not hanging out in some Amazon warehouse. But phantom accounting tricks make it seem like an economic asset and a product. 

Enough about accounting. Let's get back to Vermont's role in boosting Aramco over Tesla and Microsoft and Amazon and Google and Apple. How did we do that? We drive cars. We heat houses. We go to war. And we do a lot of that.

It gets worse. When wars start, like the war in Ukraine, we don't rethink our addiction to crude, we double down on it. And then, of course, the global price goes up, and the profits rise for the kings and dictators and their oil industry buddies.

Much of our petroleum consumption is unnecessary. It's long commutes, driving fast and solo in big cars. It's heating not just the space around us, but the whole, massive house. And in order to accomplish this, we send out the army, the navy, and the air force to maintain a constant flow of oil and gas for the global market.

A better, Vermont response is straightforward: conservation, right now. And we can be a lot more sophisticated about things, now that almost every adult has an internet-connected supercomputer in their pocket. There is zero need to travel for a meeting, just talk on the phone. Really need to go somewhere? That phone can find you a ride -- in real-time. Cutting fuel consumption means that you are also saving money, money that can be used to permanently disconnect from fossil fuels.

The war in Ukraine is not just connected to the global petroleum market, it is also causing a grain crisis. There is yet another straightforward thing to do: grow food and do it locally. Anyone can grow something, even if it is just chives and basil on the window sill. The skill of growing food is something that everyone should cultivate.

To help Ukraine, the two things we can do right now, right here in Vermont are (1) to stop burning fossil fuels and (2) to grow more food. And I mean right now. If I were governor, I would be working overtime to implement ways to stimulate gardening and food production. I would be cutting the work week and expanding work from home. I would be implementing emergency conversions of traffic signals to roundabouts -- simultaneously reducing fuel consumption, lost time, and traffic casualties.  I would be looking under every couch cushion and behind every bureaucratic desk for ways that Vermont could organize to conserve fuel & resources and grow more food.